ABSTRACT
"Conflict is a stubborn fact of organizational life". It is also one of the keys to effective organizational functioning. Conflict is a major organizational dynamic, either as a symptom, cause, or effect related to an organizational problem. In this conflict cycle, causes of conflict include individual characteristics; interpersonal factors; and issues. Inside organizations, conflict may occur at different levels: intrapersonal, interpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup. Organization theorists concur that a moderate amount of conflict is needed to attain an optimum organizational effectiveness. In the 1950s, Lewis Coser and Ralf Dahrendorf saw conflict's social benefits. Their contributions to conflict theory have become part of the shared fund of sociological knowledge. Coser proposed two types of functional conflict—internal and external. Internal conflict occurs between or among groups that operate in the same social system, and external conflict occurs outside the group. These three conditions of organization—technical, political, and social—are related to conflict violence and conflict intensity.
