ABSTRACT
Anyone who has participated in large-scale organizations is aware that conflict and the resolution of conflict are major facts of everyday experience. This chapter focuses on the causes of disharmony in intergroup relations than to the conditions of harmony. Certainly there is much harmony between some administrative groups and some harmony among all. Two groups that come in contact may conflict simply because of the different backgrounds of the members of the groups. Even without differences in background, intergroup conflict would develop simply because of differing group identifications. Although there are conflicts between all kinds of organizational units, there are special aspects in overhead-line relationships that make these relationships frequently productive of conflict. Personnel in the counterpart units often manifest a divided loyalty that makes them suspect to other members of the unitary organization. Empire building is by no means peculiar to the relations between line and overhead units.
