Jaffee, Conflict At Work Throughout the History of Organizations
CONFLICT AT WORK THROUGHOUT THE HISTORY OF ORGANIZATIONS
David Jaffee
University of NorthFlorida
4567 St Johns Bluff Road South
Jacksonville, FL32224
904-620-2700
In Carsten K.W. De Dreu and Michele J. Gelfand, eds., The Psychology of Conflict and Conflict Management in Organizations.New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 2008.
This chapter will provide a meta-theoretical analysis of the sources of conflict in organizations, and the role of conflict in organization theory, throughout the past century and a half. The history of organizational conflict will be conceptualized as a history of tension and change in both organizations and the theoretical literature. Tension is created by the human capacity to resist structural constraints and to strive for a more congenial organizational environment. Change is generated by the dialectical interplay between these organizational structures and human reactions. This interchange has produced continuous changes within organizations and has driven the evolution of organizational theories and managerial strategies. There is no final resolution to the organizational tensions and conflicts. They are permanent feature of all organizational systems populated by the human factor. The evolution of management strategy and organization theory can be chronicled as a history of trial and error in developing methods and techniques for managing and conceptualizing these tensions.
The first section of the paper will develop the outlines of a theoretical approach explaining organizational conflict and a meta-theoretical framework for understanding the evolution of organization and management theory. This will set the stage for the subsequent sections of the chapter that apply the framework to the historical sweep of theoretical developments in the study of organizations. The starting point for this analysis of organizational conflict begins with the rise of the factory system and the early effort of industrial owners to recruit, control and extract human labor power. The second critical phase involves the development of scientific management as a formal systematic method for managing organizational conflict and controlling factory workers. This is followed by the shift toward a more humanistic approach to human conflict management in organizations in the form of human relations theory and practice. Rational-bureaucracy represents the fourth theoretical approach and organizational strategy for ensuring predictable control of the human factor. This has prompted a fifth phase of organizational theorizing described as “post-bureaucratic”. All of these approaches to organizational study are designed to understand and manage the human resource. The final section of the chapter considers the most recent literature aimed at further conceptualizing various modes of organizational conflict.
THE FUNDAMENTAL TENSIONS GENERATING ORGANIZATIONAL CONFLICT
All organizations embody two interrelated conflict-generating tensions with which almost every organization theory has had to grapple. The first – originating at the individual level – is based on the unique capacities of humans, as opposed to other organizational inputs or factors of production, to assess, subjectively evaluate, and act to change or resist, their environment. The second – operating at the organizational level – is the structural differentiation of tasks, both vertically and horizontally, that produces identification and loyalty to parts rather than the whole. These two fundamental organizational tensions, often working in tandem, are not only responsible for the historical legacy of organizational conflict but have also stimulated organizational theorizing and managerial strategizing.
Individual-Level Tension. At the most fundamental and general level, organizational conflict stems from the unique capacities of humans. Humans, unlike other “factors of production” or organizational inputs, have the capacity to assess subjectively their environment and act to resist, alter, or counter perceived constraints. When humans are embedded in organizational structures, there is an inherent tension between the goals and objectives of organizational owners and the valued discretion and autonomy of human agents. This human factor tension has manifested itself in forms of conflict that have shaped the history and evolution of organization theories and management practices. Put another way, this tension both produces, and is the product of, the structures and processes that we call “organization” or “administration”.
Two further examples of the human factor tension are worth noting. First, Pondy’s (1967) widely-applied stage model of organizational conflict includes the notion of “latent conflict” defined as the “drive for autonomy”. He further explains that ”autonomy needs form the basis of a conflict when one party either seeks to exercise control over some activity that another party regards as his own province or seeks to insulate itself from such control” (1967: 297). This is regarded here as an ever-present condition in all organizations. That is, there is always a potential for resistance, non-compliance, and recalcitrance given the inherent controlling nature of organizational life. This creates a constant state of uncertainty that precludes predictable control thus requiring theories and practices aimed at conceptualizing and managing the human factor of production.
A second approach to “latent conflict” is identified by Brehm and Brehm (1981) in their theory of “psychological reactance”. The theory argues that a “threat to or loss of freedom motivates the individual to restore that freedom…individuals will sometimes be motivated to resist or act counter to attempted social influence” (1981:4). Organizations are constraining structures that threaten and compromise human freedom and, as such, they generate reactance and resistance.
Organizational-Level Tension. A second inherent tension in all organizations is based on the division of work and authority. Differentiation, divisions of labor, hierarchy, and specialization are fundamental organizational principles. In almost all organizations, workers are assigned to particular jobs, departments, levels and units. Such a differentiated and specialized division of labor can undermine organizational unity and stimulate organizational conflict.
There are two obvious and common divisions of labor within organizations. First, there is the horizontal division of labor, where humans carry out different kinds of tasks at the same level of the organization. Second is the vertical division of labor involving differences in power, authority, rewards, and decision-making. Differentiation on both dimensions can produce organizational conflict.
Together, these individual and organizational level tensions have contributed to the history of organizational conflict and, in turn, the evolution of organizational and management theories (see Jaffee 2001). In this context, organizational conflict is viewed as a progressive force that draws attention to organizational problems, encourages critical reflection about the theoretical assumptions informing organizational systems, and drives changes in management practice.
ORGANIZATIONAL CONFLICT AND THE RISE OF THE FACTORY SYSTEM
The emergence of a factory system of production during the early stages of industrial capitalist development in Europe and the United States presaged the beginning of organizational conflict. The perpetual challenge posed by the human factor of production revealed itself even before workers had entered the factory. Capitalist production required that human labor be concentrated under one roof for the purpose of economic activity. However, the would-be workers, anticipating a loss of freedom and autonomy entailed in a subordinate wage labor relationship with factory owners, engaged in resistance and rebellion.This new relationship posed a threat to roles and identities. A traditional way of life and labor was disrupted. This provoked intense resistance, opposition, and conflict over the emerging organization of factory production (see Pollard 1965; Thompson 1963; Bendix 1956; Montgomery 1979; Gutman 1975). .
One necessary condition for instituting a factory system of production is the “formal subordination of labor” (Harvey 1982). In this process, those who might have owned or had access to productive property, providing an independent means of subsistence –such as peasants, small producers, farmers, craftsmen, and artisans -- gradually lose control or access to their property. As increasinglylarger portions of the population are forced into the labor market,where they must sell their labor power for a wage,the proletariat or working class is created. A large mass of workers are now organizationally constrained within a hierarchical factory system.
However, the establishment of the factory and wage labor system did not signal the end of the battle with labor -- only a shift in terrain. The struggle over the formal subordination of labor eventually subsided, and was replaced by conflicts between workers and owners over the “real subordination of labor” (Harvey 1982) entailingvarious managerial strategies designed to control labor and extract work effort. Since there is no final solution, or one best way, to achieve this objective, it is anongoing struggle and process in all organizations. A large part of the evolution oforganization theory and management strategy can be chronicled as a history of trial and error in developing methods and techniques for this control and extraction.
At the time, however, the monumental challenge of coordinating and controlling large numbers of workers within a single factory had never been confronted on such a scale. During this period, one of the most significant sources of conflict, according to Reinhard Bendix (1956), was "traditionalism" -- the ideological way of life among labor prescribing pre-capitalist customs, norms, routines and work habits. This stood as the major obstacle to the enforcement of the "new discipline" within the factory. In the United States the heterogeneity of the labor factor, fueled by the constant flow of immigrants, resulted in a variety of cultural habits that did not fit smoothly into the emerging industrial machine (Gutman 1975; Montgomery 1979).
Thus, the factory organization was characterized by an array of competing forces – traditional work habits, an emerging production system, managerial strategies to break traditions and impose discipline, and the reaction and resistance of labor. This produced an equally wide range of strategies to manage and contain the inevitable organizational conflicts. In the early stages, the primary strategy was to develop techniques that could accommodate the traditional culture carried into the factory. The system of "corporate welfare" (Montgomery 1979), for example, involved a personalized system of labor employment, recruitment, and control within a familial-likeenvironment. Over time, the system of paternalism gave way to a "subcontracting system" (see Littler 1982; Clawson, 1980). This strategy was utilized not only because it retained the familial relationships between workers and, in this case, the subcontractor or middleman (Bendix 1956), but also because owners continued to lack sufficient knowledge about production techniques and the labor process (Clawson 1980). Thus, the subcontractor, who often hired friends and relatives, assumed the managerial tasks of organization and motivation. Among the other, less paternalistic, methods designed to overcome problems of factory discipline were physical beating of children, the firing of workers or the threat of dismissal, and monetary fines for lateness, absenteeism and insubordination (Pollard 1965). Payment by results and piecework were also used as a means to entice labor to maximize work effort.
Conflict stemmed not just from the reorganization of work life, and the human reaction to it, but the hierarchical managerial command structure inherent in most organizational forms. This new system -- in which some command and others obey -- had to be bolstered with a legitimizing rationale.Here we find the initial development of "managerial ideology" (Bendix 1956) which remains a powerful analytic tool for conceptualizing managerial efforts to the present day. As defined by Bendix (1956: 13), managerial ideologies “interpret the facts of authority andobedience so as to neutralize or eliminate the conflict betweenthe few and many in the interest of a more effective exerciseof authority. To do this, the exercise of authority is eitherdenied altogether on the grounds that the few merely orderwhat the many want; or it is justified with the assertion thatthe few have qualities of excellence which enable them torealize the interests of the many”.
The increasingly important ideological strategy of control was a recognition that compliance could not be assured by either the wage labor relationship and or the formal authority system, exclusively. There remained the human capacity for subjective and behavioral resistance. As Bendix (1956:251) put it: "Beyond what commands can effect and supervision control, beyond what incentives can induce and penalties prevent, there exists an exercise of discretion important even in relatively menial jobs, which managers of economic enterprises seek to enlist for the achievement of managerial ends." Thisresidual discretion always allows workers to retain some control over the exertion of mental and physical energy.
In these early stages of developing a factory system of production we discover the historical legacy of the dialectical interplay involving efforts at organizational control, reactions of human resistance, and modified system of organizational control to accommodate and contain the resistance (Braverman 1972; Marglin 1974; Clawson 1980; Edwards 1979). There is no single method or strategy that ensures perpetual organizational harmony.This is clearly illustrated by Edwards’(1979) identification of organizations as “contested terrain” yielding a proliferation of managerial control strategies. He analyzed three major forms of control: direct, technical, and bureaucratic. Direct control involves the personal exercise of authority by bosses over their workers. Technical control involves the application of technologies, such as the assembly line, that control and monitor the pace of the labor process. Bureaucratic control ties the control of workers to the formal structure and social relations of the bureaucratic organization. Each new form of control is developed and implemented in response to the resistance against, and failure of, its predecessor. Though ultimate and effective control may be an impossible task given the unique capacities of the human labor input, it did not prevent generations of managers, and their consultants, from striving to develop such a system. Nowhere has the law of unintended and unanticipated consequences (Merton 1957; Portes 2000) operated with such predictable regularity. A classic example lies with the development of scientific management.
ORGANIZATIONAL CONFLICT AND SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT
Scientific management can be viewed as one of the first and best known attempts to deal systematically with the problem of labor control and recalcitrance. Much of the conflict and tension at the turn of the century can be linked to the perception by owners that the considerable residual discretion afforded the factory workers produced inefficiency and relatively low rates of productivity. The system of scientific management under the direction of Frederick Winslow Taylor (1911) was explicitly designed to address this “labor problem” in a comprehensive fashion. For Taylor, the key to establishing an efficient and productive workplace required the possession and control of knowledge about the methods of production. He was also interested in addressing what he described as “soldiering” – the individual and collective withholding of maximum work effort.
Worker control over production knowledge and know-how placed owners at a serious disadvantage. Skilled workers and foremen, rather than the owners, determined the organization and pace of production. The owners had to depend on these employees to organize production in what was hopefully the most efficient manner. However, there were no independent and reliable means for determining whether, in fact, output was reaching an optimal level. In this context, as others have noted (see Goldman and Van Houten, 1988), the knowledge of workers was a potent source of power. Though workers depended upon owners for employment, owners depended on the craft knowledge of workers for production to proceed. Shifting the balance of power decisively in favor of owners required eliminating this residual dependence on worker knowledge. Taylor viewed this as one of the fundamental objectives of scientific management.
Taylor believed that the application of scientific principles would allow the discovery of the "one best way" to complete any given task. The "one best way" meant that every production process could be reduced to tasks involving basic physical motions and requirements, and that human labor could be assigned these narrowly defined tasks as partsare fitted into a machine. Labor would then conform to the existing scientifically-determined tasks already in place, rather than determining its structure. In this way the organization would operate as a harmonious well-oiled machine.
Scientific management represented an engineering solution to a human problem. If human organizations of production could be conceptualized as machines, then machine design principles could be applied to organizing the division of labor. The primary challenge were the humans that populate the machine, possessing properties that engineers find least attractive -- temperament, resistance, friction, and non-uniformity. Taylor's science of management is aimed at minimizing the conflictand tension generated by this variable and unpredictable factor of production.
The horizontal differentiation of tasks built into the labor-as-machine-parts paradigm also entailed a vertical dimension. Taylor (1911:38) notes that, in contrast to earlier systems of management where "practically the whole problem is up to the workman," under scientific management "fully one-half of the problem is up to the management." While the fifty-fifty split can be viewed as an "equal division," quantitatively, there is a clear qualitative division. Vertically, there is the mental labor exercised by management and the manual labor exercised by workers. The managers conceive. The workers execute. This perpetual organizational principle of hierarchy would, of course, generate further conflict.
The application and implementation of scientific management principles produced a predictable response from human labor. Much of this is documented in a remarkable study of scientific management that was published in 1915 by Robert Hoxie (1966), who was appointed special investigator for the United States Commission on Industrial Relations. He includes in his study the official “trade union” position and its specific objections to scientific management (Hoxie 1966:15, 18). On the question of the meaning of scientific management, labor argued: