Managing Intractable Identity Conflicts

Abstract

Identity is often at the heart of ongoing intergroup conflicts in organizations. Drawing from theories of conflict management, social identity, and organizational identification, we develop the intractable identity conflict resolution model, which delineates a multiphase process by which the conflicting parties' identities shift in order to permit eventual intergroup harmony. At a community hospital in the midwestern United States, the medical staff complained that their CEO and her administrative team were ignoring, and even thwarting, patient initiatives and recommendations essential to improving the quality of patient care. This perceived behavior on the part of administration threatened the very essence of who the physicians believed themselves to be (those having control over medical decisions for their patients). Given that threat, the physicians retaliated by attacking the very core of the administrative team's professional identity (those in control of the organization's future) by refusing to buy into and support the vision they had for the hospital. This behavior led the administrators to withhold further support for the physicians' recommendations, and it led to the physicians' eventual costly and painful attempts to remove the CEO. Over time, the situation spiraled out of control in that the original dispute multiplied exponentially into numerous seemingly unrelated battles, such as fights over allocation of funds (O'Connor & Annison, 2002). Intergroup conflicts are ubiquitous in organizations. These conflicts often involve, but are not limited to, disputes over interests and resources (Kriesberg, 2003). As in the example above, many conflicts are also characterized by tensions stemming from differences in how groups fundamentally define themselves and from threats to those self-definitions. Numerous scholars have noted that when identities are implicated in a conflict, the conflict tends to escalate, encompassing an ever-widening number of issues (e.g., Northrup, 1989; Rothman, 1997; Rouhana & Bar-Tal, 1998). Parties then become trapped in an ongoing conflict spiral from which they have difficulty extricating themselves (e.g., Coleman, 2003; Diehl & Goertz, 1993; Zartman, 2005). The example is illustrative of a widespread problem not only in health care but in numerous types of organizational settings with interdependent groups. Research in a variety of areas is converging on the importance of identity dynamics in understanding ongoing and persistently negative interactions in organizations between and among professional groups and administrators (O'

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“…Rather, what is required for enhancing inclusion is more consistent with prescriptions made by Allport (1954) long ago: that people (a) are of approximately equal status; (b) have opportunities to get to know each other in more personal ways, establish cross-cutting ties, and rely less on stereotypes; and (c) work together across roles, levels, and demographic boundaries to solve shared problems through participative decision making (cf. Brewer & Miller, 1984, 1988Ensari & Miller, 2006;Fiol, Pratt, & O'Connor, 2009). Second, to the extent that diversity management practices that focus specifically on improving the outcomes of historically disadvantaged groups cause resentment or backlash on the part of individuals who do not directly benefit from these practices, they can have the un-intended effect of exacerbating negative stereotypes and perceived intergroup competition (Fiol et al, 2009).…”

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