See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345422417
Dynamics of Overt and Covert Conflict in
Organizations: The Power of Organizational
Identity
Article in Group & Organization Management · September 2020
DOI: 10.1177/1059601120961248
CITATION
1
READS
298
2 authors, including:
Elisabeth Naima Mikkelsen
Copenhagen Business School
24 PUBLICATIONS 152 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
All content following this page was uploaded by Elisabeth Naima Mikkelsen on 28 April 2023.
The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.
Article
Group & Organization Management
2020, Vol. 45(6) 768–807
© The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1059601120961248
journals.sagepub.com/home/gom
Dynamics of Overt
and Covert Conflict in
Organizations: The
Power of Organizational
Identity
Elisabeth Naima Mikkelsen1
and Didde Maria Humle2
Abstract
Conflict in organizations takes many forms. However, most existing literature
on organizational conflict focuses on overt forms of conflict expression and
handling. While covert conflict exists and shapes the collective organizing of
conflict in organizations, the relationship between overt and covert forms of
conflict has not yet been well explicated. This article offers a novel perspective
on the dynamics of overt and covert conflict in organizations by examining
why some forms of conflict gain legitimacy over others. We present an
ethnographic study of how the staff and management experienced everyday
conflict at a Nordic aid agency that highly prized harmony and collaboration
in the workplace and had therefore adopted a deliberate and logical approach
to conflict. An affective underside of the organization, marked by subtle and
suppressed conflict expression, however, alluded to an acknowledged organizational order that guided conflict interaction among members and kept
the production together. To explain these organizational dynamics, we use
narrative theory as an original and fertile perspective for studying both overt
and covert forms of conflict and their interaction. This reveals an important
feature of their relationship: they are intertextually linked through their
1Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
2LUSEM, Lund University, Sweden
Corresponding Author:
Elisabeth Naima Mikkelsen, Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School, Kilen,
Kilevej 14A, 4., Frederiksberg 2000, Denmark.
Email: [email protected]
relationship to the dominant organizational identity, which hegemonizes what
is and what is not allowed to get into conflict over. From these findings, we
develop a model of the structuring of overt and covert conflict through
organizational identity, thus contributing to the organizational conflict
literature.
Keywords
conflict in organizations, narrative theory, organizational identity,
ethnography, power
Introduction
Conflict in organizations takes many forms, from dramatic confrontations
during strikes and firings, to aired differences among work teams, to gossip
behind closed doors or the private toleration of a perceived unfairness. Despite
the various forms that conflict can take, most mainstream scholarship on
organizational conflict has focused on overt forms of conflict expression and
handling. For example, while substantial research has paid attention to defining conflict types, often distinguishing between how conflict over task,
relationship or process affects work processes and outcomes (De Dreu &
Weingart, 2003; Jehn, 1995, 1997; O’Neill, Allen, & Hastings, 2013;
Tjosvold, 2008), previous research has studied primarily “emerged” conflict
(DeChurch, Mesmer-Magnus, & Doty, 2013). Similarly, recent developments
advocating a process perspective on conflict focus explicitly on observable
expressions of conflict and behavioral manifestations (Weingart, Behfar,
Bendersky, Todorova, & Jehn, 2015). This narrow focus on confrontation
and open disagreement, however, overlooks many private or hidden forms of
conflict simmering beneath the surface of organizations (Morrill, Zald, & Rao,
2003).
Works by Kolb and Bartunek (1992) and Kolb and Putnam (1992) made
important attempts to change how organizational conflict is understood. These
scholars claimed that most conflict occurs informally and is hidden from view
and that covert forms of conflict are not independent of their public opposite.
In fact, covert forms of conflict affect conflict in the public arena, shaping the
collective organizing of conflict (Bartunek, Kolb, & Lewicki, 1992). Thus,
what appears to be a distinct phenomenon can be understood only by examining its opposite, even when the opposite is not visible. We should
therefore focus on the understudied dimension of subtle and less visible
aspects of conflict interaction to capture the ways conflict occurs in organizations and to see conflict processes in organizations in new ways. While this
Mikkelsen and Humle 769
pioneering work was conducted nearly 30 years ago, the potential to shift the
analytical perspective to how conflict works offstage to better understand how
conflict occurs in public remains unfulfilled.
To build on and extend this pioneering work, we conducted an ethnographic study of how staff and management experienced everyday conflict at
Development-Aid (pseudonym), a Nordic aid agency, which highly prized
harmony and collaboration in the workplace and had therefore adopted
a deliberate and logical approach to conflict. However, looking behind appearances, an affective underside of the organization, marked by subtle and
suppressed conflict expression, suggested an acknowledged organizational
order that shaped conflict interaction among members and held the production
together. Drawing on Garfinkel (1967), we define organizational order to be
the relatively persistent system of linked social structures, social institutions,
and everyday social practices, enforcing and maintaining appropriate and
“normal” ways that employees behave and relate to each other in organizations. To examine the dynamics of overt and covert conflict and how these
coexist, our analysis engages a “narrative lens” (Boje, 2001; Czarniawska,
2004; Rhodes & Brown, 2005). The performative focus of a narrative lens
combined with recent theorizing regarding dominant and counter-narratives
recognizing power dynamics between narratives (Frandsen, Kuhn, &
Lundholt, 2017; Linde, 2009) offers great potential to capture both overt
and covert forms of conflict in organizations and how they interact. We set out
to answer the following research questions: how is conflict at work narrated
and why do some narratives of conflict become dominant while others remain
marginalized?
We investigate these questions by examining why some narratives of
conflict are overtly acknowledged while others remain hidden. While conflict
in organizations, to our knowledge, has not before been studied through
a narrative lens, past research has used narrative theory to explore negotiations
and power battles related to different agendas, interests, and experiences in
organizations (Boje, 1995, 2006; Humphreys & Brown, 2002; Linde, 2009).
This theoretical approach therefore enables exploring the well-established
overt narratives of conflict as well as the more covert and fragmented narratives and how they are dynamically interrelated in the wider storytelling
practices of managers and staff. The term “covert conflict” describes forms of
conflict that are suppressed, not necessarily psychodynamically (Mikkelsen,
Gray, & Petersen, 2020). But because they are not endorsed by the organizational order, they are not expressed but can be uncovered through narrative
analysis.
This article contributes to the organizational conflict literature by demonstrating that the hidden dimensions of conflict and the celebrated
770 Group & Organization Management 45(6)
acknowledged forms of conflict are intertextually linked through their relationship to the dominant identity of the organization, which hegemonizes
what is and what is not allowed to get into conflict over. To develop our
argument, we first present a brief review of the literature on organizational
conflict and the narrative approach, emphasizing recent theorizing on dominant and counter-narratives in organizations. After having accounted for our
research approach, we present the key findings of what characterizes overt and
covert narratives of conflict at Development-Aid and how these are interlinked. Finally, we discuss how the article contributes to the study of organizational conflict.
Theoretical Background
Organizational Conflict
Originally meaning fight or struggle, the term “conflict” signifies disagreement and opposition of interests between parties (Pruitt & Rubin, 1986).
Conflict is often classified at three levels: interpersonal, intergroup, and interorganizational (Putnam & Poole, 1987), with most literature on organizational conflict focusing on interpersonal conflict in teams. Traditional
theories of organizational conflict applied the concept of conflict to overt
behavior and social interactions that occurred subsequent to perception of
mutually incompatible values or goals (Mack & Snyder, 1957; Schmidt &
Kochan, 1972). Conceptualizing conflict as an entirely negative dysfunctional
phenomenon, these theories considered conflict the opposite of cooperation
(Fink, 1968; March & Simon, 1958). However, during the second half of the
20th century, an emerging shift led to viewing conflict as an essential
mechanism in the positive evolution of society and organizations (Coser,
1956; Pondy, 1992). The view of organizational conflict as potentially
functional if the right type of conflict occurred and was handled correctly
inspired researchers to distinguish between dysfunctional and functional
conflict (Amason, 1996; Thomas, 1992).
This distinction propelled the development of the now widely used
conflict-type framework, which identifies task, process, and relationship
conflict (De Dreu & Beersma, 2005; De Dreu & Van de Vliert, 1997; Jehn,
1995, 1997), and later also status conflict (Bendersky & Hays, 2012), as core
typologies of conflict. Since the 1990s, much of the research on organizational
conflict has concentrated on developing and strengthening the conflict-type
framework to map out how these different types of conflict affect group
processes and outcomes such as performance and satisfaction. Research has
shown that whether conflict has negative or positive outcomes depends on
Mikkelsen and Humle 771
the type of conflict. While relationship conflict is commonly considered
dysfunctional, a major controversy concerns whether task conflict is beneficial
or detrimental to group performance. A meta-review however points to the
conflict-type literature’s continuous focus on overt and public forms of
disagreement and confrontation by concluding that “most research on conflict
states actually looks at ‘emerged’ conflict” (DeChurch et al., 2013, p. 566).
For example, Jehn (1997), in a seminal article conceptualizing process
conflict, used qualitative interviews to ask, “what types of conflict occur in
your work unit?” (p. 536) and direct observation of team work to capture “a
number of strong behavioral reactions to conflict” (p. 539). Similarly, the
preferred methodology within conflict research has been surveys designed to
measure conflict types and intensity (see for example, Behfar et al., 2011;
Jehn, 1995; Jehn & Mannix, 2001; Shah & Jehn, 1993), assuming that to
measure conflict, the disputants must acknowledge it. Even recent developments within the literature taking a process perspective on conflict continuously focus on overt forms of conflict and conflict handling by examining
“observable expressions of a conflict” (Weingart et al., 2015, p. 236) and
emergent “interaction processes around resolving and integrating differences”
(DeChurch et al., 2013, p. 559).
While overt forms of conflict dominate much of the existing literature on
organizational conflict, conflict is not always visible or acknowledged. The
narrow focus on overt disagreement and confrontation ignores conflicts that
are expressed through more private or hidden forms (Morrill et al., 2003).
Applying a dialectical approach to uncover conflict processes in organizations, Kolb and Bartunek (1992) and Kolb and Putnam (1992) argue that
what appears as a distinct phenomenon must be understood with reference to
its bipolar opposite, even if the opposite is hidden from view. Unlike conflicts
in the public arena, covert conflicts are often fused with other activities and are
often not conventionally considered conflicts. Instead, these conflicts may be
viewed as disloyalty and sabotage (Jermier, 1988), gossip (Tucker, 1993), or
interpersonal squabbles between isolated, dissatisfied individuals, thus designated by Goffman (1962) as the “underlife” of organizations.
Despite its relative absence in the literature, an understanding of covert
conflict is needed. First of all, because it may be particularly toxic and can
breed a climate of distrust and secrecy (Lewis, French, & Steane, 1997), and
second, because covert conflict can profoundly affect its public opposite
(Bartunek et al., 1992). For example, using a storytelling style, Van Maanen
(1992) examines “time-outs” from work, where police officers get together to
drink and discuss conflicts and responsibility issues at work that are otherwise
avoided. While these occasions for private and informal conflict handling are
more common than public mechanisms, Van Maanen considers them closely
772 Group & Organization Management 45(6)
connected to the formal job requirements through a normative order ensuring
that most conflicts are avoided or otherwise tolerated during routine workday
encounters between officers. Furthermore, Kolb (1992) used the participants’
own voices to show how women’s engagement in informal and private
methods of handling conflict enabled the public face of conflict management.
Keeping many conflicts out of sight enabled “behind-the-scenes peacemaking” (p. 64) which serves to individualize systemic conflicts, thereby
reducing the impetus for change. Thus, from an organizational standpoint, this
informal conflict resolution becomes essential for keeping up work.
These studies demonstrated that hidden conflict exists and shapes the
collective organizing of conflict in organizations. However, as Morrill et al.
(2003) argue, most studies on covert conflict concentrate on thick descriptions
rather than explaining its existence. How best to conceptualize the relationship
between overt and covert conflict has not yet been well explicated. To further
understand the dynamics of overt and covert forms of conflict and how they
interact, we focused on capturing staff and management’s experiences with
conflict by using a narrative perspective on organizations (Boje, 2001;
Czarniawska, 1998; Linde, 2009; Rhodes & Brown, 2005). Using a narrative
lens allows the exploring of how staff and managers understand, talk about,
and handle conflict in everyday work.
Narratives and Organizational Life
Narrative approaches are widely used in the humanities and social sciences
and have increased in popularity in management and organizational studies
because of their utility and versatility (Vaara, Sonenshein, & Boje, 2016).
Many narrative scholars view organizations as dynamic processes of organizing rather than homogenous and consistent entities, thus focusing on
complexities, pluralism, negotiations, and polyphony (Belova, King, & Sliwa,
2008; Boje, 2001; Hazen, 1993). A narrative lens has proven very fertile in the
study of negotiations and power battles between organizational members
related to diverse agendas and interests. For example, at a UK college,
Humphreys and Brown (2002) explored how the efforts of senior management
to author a hegemonic organizational identity narrative of being “researchactive” to obtain university status was resisted by employees who emphasized
excellent teaching rather than research. Boje’s (1995, 2006) study similarly
showed how organizational members challenged official management stories
of Walt Disney’s leadership. Additionally, Linde (2001, 2009) ethnographic
and narrative study of a large insurance company showed how employees
reproduced, rewrote, and contested the dominant and preferred narratives of
senior management.
Mikkelsen and Humle 773
Viewing narratives as performative acts related to and constitutive of
organizational phenomena such as conflict, we build on a growing strand of
narrative research that demonstrates how everyday organizational storytelling
is not always coherent but often fragmented, emergent, dynamic, and coconstructed (Boje, 1991, 2001; Vaara et al., 2016). Boje’s (1995, 2006, 2008,
2011) work shows that stories in and around organizations are rarely performed as classic, well-structured beginning, middle, and end narratives but
are often characterized by “partial-telling, story-starting, and stopping behaviors, referencing intertextual in-betweenness, gaps, pauses, and assumed
agreements about story wholeness that rarely get checked out” (Boje, 2006,
p. 34). This suggests that all utterances potentially have narrative qualities as
they are fragments of storytelling connected and interrelated to other story
performances, forming or contesting shared meanings. This broad and
nonrestrictive narrative approach allows studying the well-formulated and
well-established conflict narratives as well as the more fragmented and less
overt narratives of conflict, showing how they are dynamically related across
time and space.
Narratives and storytelling are central to how we construct ourselves as
individuals, groups, and organizations (Brown, 2006; Cunliffe & Coupland,
2012; Driver, 2009; Ernst & Schleiter, 2020; Humphreys & Brown, 2002;
Linde, 2001, 2009; Mallett & Wapshott, 2012), with research theorizing
identities as constituted in discourse and narratives being the largest body of
nonmainstream research on organizational identities (He & Brown, 2013).
Advocating a narrative approach to studying collective identities, He and
Brown (2013) argue that organizational identity can be defined as the totality
of identity-relevant narratives that organizational members author about
themselves “in their conversations, written histories, documents such as reports and web presences” (p. 10), refocusing attention to power, voice, and
plurivocity. Linde (2009) similarly claims that the questions of “who am I and
who are we?” (p. 221) are central to identity formation processes and that these
questions are answered primarily through storytelling practices, constantly
(re)constructing and enacting organizational self-understandings in polyphonic dialogues (Hazen, 1993). Organizational identity therefore connects to
storytelling practices about, for example, conflict and may play an important
role in structuring the relationship between overt and covert forms of conflict.
Often, much work is involved in organizational members’ efforts to
construct, maintain, and negotiate organizational or collective identities. The
notion of everyday story work covers the emotionally demanding, performative processes of meaningfully constructing self, others, work, and the
organization (Boje, 1991, 1995, 2001; Cunliffe & Coupland, 2012; Cunliffe,
Luhman, & Boje, 2004; Mishler, 1999). Everyday story work acknowledges
774 Group & Organization Management 45(6)
that individuals and collectives can balance many and sometimes opposing
organizational stories (Humle & Pedersen, 2015), enabling the exploring of
how we individually and collectively handle tension and contradictions when
balancing demands and expectations at work while striving to present positive
self-representations (Goffman, 1959). We should therefore explore both the
storytelling performances that reproduce dominant and official narratives and
the opposing understandings and experiences, conceptualized as counternarratives.
Dominant and Counter-Narratives in Organizations
To explore why some ways of perceiving, narrating, and performing conflict
become dominant while others remain marginalized, we examine the power
dynamics between dominant official narratives and the less salient counternarratives. Frandsen et al. (2017) argue that counter-narratives are an intrinsic
yet underexplored part of organizing, which enable scholars to study complexities and tensions of organizational life. A counter-narrative lens reveals
the power dynamics of how dominant narratives structure the order of social
reality while other narratives resist that ordering. The counter-narrative lens
demonstrates how covert systemic forms of influence privilege some
meanings and identities over others (Clegg & Hardy, 1996; Hardy, 1996). For
example, the importance of being an “egalitarian organization” may be
privileged in dominant organizational narratives through language and socialization processes that emphasize this characteristic and determine appropriate and inappropriate social practices.
Linde (2009) argues that the official dominant narratives of organizations
naturalize the status quo and stabilize the current relations of power. However,
“noisy silences,” that is, stories that do not have a place in official storytelling
practices but remain active in the organization, exist in all organizations.
Noisy silences are “matters of contested concern, matters that officially may
not be spoken of but that must be discussed nonetheless (…) what could be
said but is not” (Linde, 2009, p. 196–197). Counter-narratives are a form of
noisy silences that explicitly oppose the official, dominant narratives of the
organization. Linde distinguishes between counter-narratives, which are
critical in humorous or harmless ways, and the more penetrating counternarratives that challenge core aspects of dominant organizational narratives.
Counter-narratives only make sense relative to what they are countering
(Bamberg & Andrews, 2004). However, recent developments in narrative
theory challenge the idea of a static dichotomy between dominant narratives
and counter-narratives because organizational members may perform and
Mikkelsen and Humle 775
balance many and sometimes contradicting narratives (Humle & Frandsen,
2017).
Focusing on the interplay between dominant and counter-narratives,
studies have demonstrated interesting aspects of socialization processes
and power (Humle, 2014; Humphreys and Brown, 2002), particularly how
organizational members are socialized into storytelling communities, where
they learn to perform both the positive and dominant stories of organizations
and the more critical ones. To explore power relations through socialization,
Linde (2009) introduces the term “narrative induction”, which refers to the
processes by which individuals learn to tell the stories of the organization to
which they belong. Related to narrative induction are the questions of where
and by whom the stories of the organization are shared and performed. At
formal events, such as meetings, opposing narratives are often neutralized,
while dominant ones are collectively strengthened. Boje (1991) similarly
claimed that “part of knowing how to behave in a storytelling organization is
knowing who can tell and who can be told a particular story” (p. 110).
Linde’s (2009) conceptualization of narrative inductions helps to study the
complex socialization and identity construction processes, which, in our case,
specifically connect to the structuring of overt and covert forms of conflict.
Focusing on how organizational members are narratively induced into
a storytelling community provides insight into how they learn to perform the
dominant positive identity narratives of the organization and how these shape
conflict interaction at work. As organizational members oscillated between
different conflict narratives, we were able to capture how overt and covert
conflict interacted and how they connected to diverse understandings of
organizational identity.
Methods
Data Context and Collection
Data were derived from an ethnographic study of conflict at the Nordic aid
agency, Development-Aid. From its foundation in 1970, Development-Aid
has had a highly moralized vision of a more egalitarian world, and its main
purpose has been to promote human rights and democracy by strengthening
civil societies through social and political development. Development-Aid
employed thirty full-time staff members and approximately 20 volunteers.
Little diversity existed among the staff and management; all were middle-class
native citizens, most were women, and most either had undergraduate or
graduate university degrees, except the administrative workers, who were
trained in clerical work. Work at Development-Aid comprised implementing
776 Group & Organization Management 45(6)
and monitoring programs in partnerships with local actors in developing
nations to foster local, social, and democratic change. Programs included
educating women and children, protecting children from sexual exploitation,
and conducting peacebuilding activities in conflict zones.
An ethnographic fieldwork methodology (Bernard, 1994) was used to
study how staff and management narrated conflict in everyday organizational
life. Being closely connected to experience, narratives enable capturing the
everyday sensemaking that shapes people’s actions. Ethnographic fieldwork
allowed the researchers to access narratives and analyze their mimetic content,
that is, what the narratives said, and their diegetic form, that is, how the
narratives were told and by whom, and how different narratives compared with
each other (Ryan, 1992). From the mimetic perspective, storylines and
characters reconstruct reality, and analysis therefore establishes the links
between the narrative content and wider organizational issues. Storytelling
practices are central to building community meaning (Boje, 1991).
The data were collected during three periods of fieldwork between 2008
and 2010, amounting to 7 months of full-time fieldwork where the first author
was on-site every day of the work week. Between the second and the third
fieldwork period in mid-2009, selected staff and managers at DevelopmentAid participated in conflict management training. The study therefore had
a longitudinal design. Throughout the field experience, the first author focused
on understanding the dynamics of conflict in their complexities rather than
(only) training effects (Mikkelsen & Gray, 2016). For this study, we drew on
field data gathered during all three periods of fieldwork and interview data
collected during the first two. Fieldwork included participant observations at
the three departments of Development-Aid: Administration, Fundraising, and
Programs, where the first author was involved in daily work activities such as
translating documents, updating the membership database, and distributing
mail. Repeated in-depth qualitative interviews (Kvale, 1996) were additionally conducted with both staff and management. 31 interviews with 22
individuals were conducted (Table 1) to obtain multiple perspectives on the
same conflict because different organizational groups narrated conflict differently. All interviews lasted from 45–90 minutes, and all were audio-taped
and transcribed verbatim.
The fieldwork and the many days and weeks on site allowed for observing
conflicts that arose during everyday routines and mundane activities at
Development-Aid. In-the-moment conflicts were observed, and the researcher
accessed the staff and management’s own accounts of conflict interactions that
were either witnessed or heard about during fieldwork. In each interview, the
interviewee was asked to identify concrete tasks where they collaborated with
colleagues and then give examples of situations where collaborations had
Mikkelsen and Humle 777
gone either well or poorly, providing details about the nature of the problems
they experienced and significant events in the interactions. Combining interviews with ethnographic fieldwork was very productive as it enabled the
researcher to understand and relate the conversations of the interviews to other
organizational storytelling episodes. For example, when, during an interview,
an administrative worker appeared nervous when hinting at conflict, the
researcher, having spent time at the organization, understood the gravity of
what was hinted at and could simultaneously relate it to other situations,
conversations, and storytelling practices at the organization. Therefore, only
after spending time in the organization and becoming familiar with work and
everyday organizational storytelling practices could the researcher hear and
understand the nuances and silences of different conflict narratives
(Mikkelsen, 2013). As Boje (1991, p. 107) states, “Because of what is not said,
Tabel 1. Interviews.
Name Occupational position Gender Age Seniority No. of interviews
Management
1. Peter Secretary general Male 55 15 1
2. John Administrative manager Male 62 8 1
3. Mary Programme manager Female 58 21 2
4. Fran Fundraising manager Female 42 10 1
Administration
5. Hilary Administrative worker Female 43 4 2
6. Alice Administrative worker Female 62 25 2
7. Carolyn Accountant Female 51 2 1
8. David Accountant Male 51 11 1
9. Jane Administrative worker Female 42 15 2
10. Laura Administrative worker Female 35 1 1
Fundraising
11. Deborah Fundraiser Female 52 19 2
12. Karen Fundraiser Female 53 3 2
13. Lisa Fundraiser Female 50 2 1
14. Sarah Fundraiser Female 44 4 1
15. George Fundraiser Male 33 5 1
16. Joanne Fundraiser Female 43 12 2
Programmes
17. Frank Programme worker Male 42 5 1
18. Steven Programme worker Male 40 8 2
19. Marta Programme worker Female 60 16 1
20. Linda Programme worker Female 58 22 1
21. Helen Programme worker Female 56 18 2
22. Bill Programme worker Male 57 17 1
778 Group & Organization Management 45(6)
and yet shared, the audible story is only a fraction of the conversation between
people in their co-production performance.”
Data Analysis
We used a combination of performative and thematic narrative analysis
(Riessman, 2008) to analyze the interview data and field notes. This combination provided valuable insight into both the content conveyed in conflict
narratives and the story works of organizational members as they collectively
performed different possible narratives of conflict. In the thematic narrative
analysis, we focused on the story content, that is, the what, to explore how
story performances were thematically related. Thus, the thematic analysis
enabled exploring the content of key themes that were consistent across
multiple accounts in the data set, and we used it to explore core dimensions of
meaning construction (Maitlis, 2012). In the performative analysis, we focused on the storytelling contexts, that is, the when, how, by whom, and why
stories were shared. The performative analysis helped explore how individuals
performed and constructed different notions of conflict in interaction and
dialogue (cf. Riessman, 2008). Combining the thematic and performative
narrative analyses enabled exploring how stories and story fragments were
intertwined and formed clusters of shared meaning as well as how organizational members performed different conflict narratives depending on the
context and the people in it.
The steps in the data analysis were as follows. Beginning with our concern
with conflict, we conducted close readings of all interview transcripts and field
notes, searching for patterns that identified conflict-related themes. We coded
the transcripts by assigning inductive first-order codes to segments of data
describing particular themes. For example, statements that work relationships
were “free from conflict and negative interaction” (Linda) and were characterized by being “strong with good people in them” (Sarah), and that
collaboration worked “very well” (Steven) and “relatively smoothly” (Marta)
kept recurring. A closer look at these statements led to the first-order codes of
“a cohesive and well-functioning work community” where everyone experienced “strong identification with the organizational cause.” These codes
coalesced as the features of the broader second-order category of “conflict-free
work relationships.” During this step, other first-order codes that emerged
were “the egalitarian organization,” “different occupational roles,” “controlling management,” “silence/disavowal,” and the emotive metaphor of “the
family,”
Second, we explored the content of different codes and the relationships
within and between them. Here, we found strong links between staffs’
Mikkelsen and Humle 779
experiences of “different occupational roles” and “the egalitarian organization.” We therefore sorted the different codes into well-developed and recurring themes. This step was highly iterative, with many rounds of grouping
and regrouping codes into themes.
Early in the analytical work, the themes of conflict seemed to group around
a distinction between overt and covert conflict. The third step of the data
analysis revealed that focusing only on the content of the narrative talk was
insufficient. While the content of the talk captured explicit understandings, we
found, given our focus on covertly expressed forms of conflict, that many
understandings existed as unspoken assumptions that also guided behavior
(cf. Hansen, 2006). As we conducted the performative narrative analysis,
especially of the ethnographic field data, we focused on how organizational
members presented, negotiated, and performed different conflict narratives by
making cultural knowledge more explicit (cf. Gubrium & Holstein, 2009;
Riessman, 2008). Capturing the silences of conflict was challenging. As Linde
(2009) asks, “How is it possible to give an account of what is absent, what is
not said?” (p. 197). We therefore focused on the observed situations that
triggered more fragmented utterances, such as spontaneous outbursts, felt
injustices and silent reactions to the overt presentation of a possible storyline
of conflict. In the Findings section on covert narratives of conflict, we present
how organizational members negotiated what could and could not be said
about conflict in this organization.
Combining the thematic narrative analysis of interviews with the performative analysis of situations described in the field notes, we distinguished
between the two data sets, allowing interpretation of the field notes to inform
our understanding of key themes in the interviews. This allowed exploring the
social order (cf. Garfinkel, 1967) of how to narrate and engage in conflict at
Development-Aid. Our coding and analytical work suggested that four
subthemes constituting different conflict narratives clearly differed in whether
they represented overt or covert narratives of conflict. Table 2 presents our
coding structure and example quotes from the data, showing the different
levels of abstraction from first-order and second-order codes to the two
aggregate themes of overt and covert narratives of conflict.
Findings: Performing Stories of Conflict
at Development-Aid
Storytelling practices of conflict were performed in multifarious ways at
Development-Aid. Two overt conflict narratives were persistently performed
on official storytelling occasions, one of a conflict-free work environment and
780 Group & Organization Management 45(6)
Table 2. Data Structure and Illustrative Verbatim for Key Themes.
Examples of quotes from the interview data First-order codes
Second-order
categories Aggregate theme
I would say that work relationships are free from conflict
and negative interaction. We are all very good at
collaborating with each other, and nobody keeps
knowledge to themselves or believes that they own
a project. (Linda)
A cohesive and wellfunctioning work
community
Conflict-free work
relationships
Overt narratives of
conflict are aligned
with the dominant
organizational
identity narratives
The collaboration is very good. We’re a bunch of very special
people who are all very engaged in the humanitarian
development work we do. We really believe that the work
we do makes a difference and most of us can’t see ourselves
working anywhere else other than here. We’re very proud
of what we do. (Steven)
The level of professionalism at Developmental-Aid is very
high with so many interesting and good people, and the
work we do here is really good. We’re all so proud because
we’re one of the best aid agencies in the country. (Karen)
Strong identification with
the organizational cause
Everybody here is very committed to the work and super
engaged. It’s meaningful work and that’s important to me—it
needs to make damn good sense. Working for this
organization, you end up thinking like the organization. (Bill)
(continued)
Mikkelsen and Humle 781
Table 2. (continued)
Examples of quotes from the interview data First-order codes
Second-order
categories Aggregate theme
The fundraisers are spontaneous and creative, and we feel
that spontaneity every time we work with them. But
they’ve got to be like that, it’s part of their creative
personality. (Jane)
Different occupational
roles
Unavoidable
subcultural
frictions
The different subcultures are connected to the different work
roles and work activities of each department. The different
subsystems even have different ways of communicating
with their distinctive language, so we definitely see cultural
differences in our organization. (Peter)
We don’t see tensions, discords, and clashes between people
who work together as conflict. We regard such matters as
frictions. (John)
The organization has a flat structure, where all knowledge is
distributed to the whole of the organization. I definitely see
that the flat structure causes a flexibility among staff, they
simply work more and give more of themselves. (Martha)
The egalitarian
organization
The individual departments have their own distinct
personalities. For example, at my department, Fundraising,
there are many creative people who often come off as very
laid back. But up to a deadline they’ll work in full overdrive.
At the other departments, people are different. They have
skills and know how to do stuff that we don’t. But we need
all our skills to survive. (Fran)
(continued)
782 Group & Organization Management 45(6)
Table 2. (continued)
Examples of quotes from the interview data First-order codes
Second-order
categories Aggregate theme
Although we’ve got a flat structure, I believe that he’s way too
involved in our work processes and that actually blinds him
so that he’s not the leader he should be. (Frank)
Controlling management Concealed power
struggles
Covert narratives of
conflict oppose
the dominant
organizational
identity narratives
Management is really old fashioned. Peter is the boss and
whatever he says is the law around here. He’s got a team of
managers that he can control, none of them dare to
challenge him. The management team is extremely closed
and not much communication comes from them. (Sarah)
Peter has a lot of power. He’s like the Dad. And Dad says,
‘inside my head, it looks like this’. And then funnily enough,
this is what it becomes. (Joanne)
Humor
We’ve a lot of visions to save the world, but where do we
want to be in ten years’ time? We need a financial strategy
but it’s difficult to convince the General of this. (Bill)
(continued)
Mikkelsen and Humle 783
Table 2. (continued)
Examples of quotes from the interview data First-order codes
Second-order
categories Aggregate theme
The way they ask us to help them is really annoying. They give
orders, “give me this” or “do that,” and it’s not only staff
that treat us like underdogs but also managers from the
other departments. It’s not a nice way to be spoken to. It’s
almost as if they do it only to annoy us. (Jane)
Service providers Hidden status
conflict
The other departments think that we are a service function
purely available to their needs. But it’s often us who needs
things from them to do our job. (Laura)
Alice is really just a sulky old lady. She sees problems
everywhere and that’s probably because she’s been here in
the same job for way too long. (Hilary)
Silence/Disavowal
Alice is such a grumbler. She always complains about the rest
of us, for example, in relation to the cleanup of the kitchen.
(Laura)
784 Group & Organization Management 45(6)
the other of unavoidable, subcultural frictions. Additionally, two covert
counter-narratives of conflict as power struggles or status differences were
performed only on more private storytelling occasions. Overt and covert
conflict narratives differed significantly in their content, by whom they were
performed, how emotionally demanding and fragmented the story work was,
and possible impacts. Our findings demonstrate that overt and covert conflict
narratives were interconnected with the dominant identity narratives of the
organization either by opposing them or aligning with them. Figure 1
summarizes these conceptual findings, which are detailed below.
Overt Conflict Narratives
Overt conflict narratives were salient in the data and constituted legitimate
ways of narrating and performing conflict at Development-Aid. While these
narratives were pervasive in managers’ accounts, they were similarly enthusiastically performed and co-narrated by all staff members.
Conflict-free work relationships. The most dominant way to portray conflict at
Development-Aid was through narratives of nonconflict. Everybody in the
organization eagerly told stories of a virtually “conflict-free” work community
at meetings, at gatherings with leaders present, and in interviews. Staff and
Figure 1. Structuring of overt and covert conflict through organizational identity.
Mikkelsen and Humle 785
management often accentuated and praised Development-Aid for being an
exceptionally good place to work, characterized by a strong sense of community and a spirit of “freedom, equality, and fraternity,” as Carolyn, an
accountant, called it. When talking about work, many emphasized coworkers’
support of each other and the good atmosphere. For example, Helen from
Programs said, “We support each other, and the organization is good at taking
in new staff members. I definitely sense that people are happy working here.”
It was not that steps were taken to avoid conflict in this organization—
conflict simply did not occur. Employees repeatedly highlighted that working
relationships among staff were comfortable and good. For example, Mary, the
Programs manager said, “Our organization is characterized by good social
relations because people care about each other. Most think that there’s a good
community here and people don’t experience conflict.” Staff and managers
emphasized the coherence and consistency of this dominant narrative of
a well-functioning, conflict-free work community by using unifying images of
the organization as one big family and coworkers as their friends. The overt
and most prevalent narratives of the conflict-free organization supported and
were easily integrated into the dominant and mutually shared identity narratives of Development-Aid as a happy, well-functioning family, collaborating
to do good.
In their everyday story work, staff and managers directly linked the
conflict-free work community to their united efforts to change the world.
Many emphasized that working together for the same valued social cause
generated solidarity and positive staff relations. Jane from Administration
said, “Development-Aid is a good place to work. We have a good working
climate with sympathetic, tolerant and easygoing people, and that’s probably
because we all have chosen to work for social change in nonprofit.” Many saw
their job as a privilege and an end in itself because it brought great personal
fulfillment:
I’m extremely privileged because I know that many people work at places they
can’t identify with. I love working here because Development-Aid is very close
to my heart. I feel very passionate about the cause that we work for (Karen,
Fundraising).
The data revealed many examples of strong identification with the organizational cause and a positive, easily narrated correspondence between the
dominant organizational identity narratives and the well-functioning work
community. Joy and pride were attached to the narratives of conflict-free work
relationships. Management had a strong and powerful voice in articulating
the positive identity narratives of the organization, and all staff members
786 Group & Organization Management 45(6)
incorporated it into their everyday story work and performed it as positive
narratives of self, work, and work relations.
Unavoidable subcultural frictions. Although staff and management emphasized
the conflict-free work community at Development-Aid, narratives of “frictions” or “situations” occasionally occurred. Situations that arose were, for
example, if fundraisers appeared at the Administration and expected the
administrative workers to drop everything and help them, which annoyed the
administrative workers. Such situations were however most often narrated as
unavoidable frictions between organizational subcultures, conveying the
shared understanding that because different departments undertook different
tasks, the staff needed different skills and personalities, and the departments
therefore developed different, sometimes divergent subcultures. David from
Administration explained, “Some are creative and impulsive, and some are
organized and punctual. It’s all about culture and the different ways we work.”
Laura similarly said, “There are those who always put it off until the last
minute before a deadline. We call them the creative staff.”
Grounded in an identity construction of divergent organizational subcultures, these narratives presented conflict as innate to the organizational
roles that administrative workers and fundraisers needed: the roles of the
organized sticklers and the impulsive creatives, respectively. Because of these
roles, administrative workers and fundraisers saw the world differently and
sometimes acted opposingly. However, because Development-Aid needed
staff that were good at both fundraising and administrative tasks, frictions
between organizational subcultures were often understood as a matter of
occupational differences. Thus, narratives that appeared to oppose the
dominant stories of Development-Aid as a conflict-free work community were
instead unproblematically integrated into the positive identity narratives of the
well-functioning organization where everyone tolerated and accepted each
other’s differences. The overt and accepted narrative of unavoidable subcultural frictions offered staff and managers a shared frame of reference,
allowing them to handle and accept different behaviors without challenging
the overt, dominant narratives of a conflict-free work community.
Our data showed how the staff was narratively induced into this mutually
shared understanding of unavoidable and naturally occurring friction between
groups. Department meetings formed important storytelling occasions in
maintaining this narrative across time. At meetings, to normalize and control
conflict between the two groups, John, the administrative manager, would say
to his staff that conflict arising between them and the fundraisers was
completely natural, “What we are talking about is two different worlds, which
both have to be here.” He would also emphasize that although “creative” and
Mikkelsen and Humle 787
“administrative” functions were culturally incompatible, Development-Aid
needed both: “I know, they’re extremely messy these people, but they’ve
raised tons of money, so they know how to do something right.”
By narratively reconstructing conflict as a matter of occupational differences, John often reduced conflict intensity, and over time the groups were
socialized into tolerating each other’s behavior, even if they considered it
inappropriate. Alice from Administration said, “When people hadn’t submitted their timesheets, we would always get upset, that was the tendency. But
today we are more tolerant.” Hilary said, “They’re very driven by their
impulses, but I sort of like that they have this relaxed attitude toward rules. I
like their creative ethos.” Steven from Programs similarly said, “It has to work,
and I’m very aware of building relationships with everyone across departments, also the administrative workers who are a bit uptight.” Across departments, staff seemed aware that to do a good job, they needed to maintain
good relationships.
The shared understanding of the value of both creative and administrative
functions was grounded in one of the most prevalent identity narratives of
Development-Aid: the egalitarian organization. While egalitarianism represented the foundational value of the organization’s vision of a more just world,
guiding its mission to combat global inequality, it was also a common frame of
reference that staff and management identified with and therefore actively
applied to their work relationships. Management often performed identity
narratives of the egalitarian organization through stories about the flat organizational structure. At work seminars, Peter, the secretary general would
say, “Everyone’s contribution is equally important for the Development-Aid
machinery to function properly.” Staff similarly explicitly connected the
organization’s policy of equal pay for all to its well-functioning work
community:
We have a good collaborative culture where no one shows off in front of
management and takes all the credit. I think this relates to our structure of equal
pay and the fact that there are no bonuses or other personal allowances (Frank,
program worker).
These narratives about how everyone was equally valued and important
emphasized that staff should tolerate and accept each other’s differences and
guided the way staff and managers narrated and performed frictions between
subcultures.
The two overt narratives of conflict-free work relationships and unavoidable subcultural frictions emphasized only positive aspects of the work.
They were legitimate ways of narrating conflict at Development-Aid because
788 Group & Organization Management 45(6)
they supported the dominant identity narratives of the organization as a happy
family, where everybody was equal and worked in unity to change the world.
Covert Conflict Narratives
The overt conflict narratives were the most visible, prominent ways of narrating and performing conflict at Development-Aid. However, after spending
some time at the organization, different, more covert storylines appeared in
the form of counter-narratives to the officially performed understandings of
conflict, noisy silences that were not always easily performed but voiced
nonetheless. Two counter-narratives of conflict appeared: concealed power
struggles with management and hidden status conflict. Both were performed
by staff only. The similarities and differences between them are described
below.
Concealed power struggles. All staff members persistently performed and
shared critical counter-narratives of conflict but never around management.
During informal talks in small groups, staff discussed their relationship with
management as a power struggle because of management’s insatiable need to
control all activities and decision-making. Staff members shared their frustrations with management’s urge for control, which was a bottleneck, slowing
the workflow. Linda from Programs said, “We start processes that get stuck
with her because she’s got too many tasks she wants to oversee and control.
This creates a lot of frustration, but we only talk about it behind her back.”
Steven similarly said, “Management doesn’t communicate much to us. They
keep their cards close to their chests, so often we don’t perform as well as we
should.”
Although these counter-narratives were less visible, management appeared
to be aware of the bottleneck issues and related frustrations among staff
because they attempted to accommodate this. Specifically, management attempted to decentralize decision-making by suggesting that all departments be
restructured into teams, with their own team coordinator responsible for
leadership and decision-making. Management presented this new organizational structure at a seminar, saying that they expected this new structure to
“lift the burden of leadership in each department and delegate more accountability to staff” (Fran, fundraising manager), so the four managers could
prioritize tasks that were crucial to the organization’s future. However, at the
seminar, the staff opposed the new structure, collectively saying that this was
not what the organization needed.
After the seminar, staff shared their frustrations with each other but only in
hallways and office chats. These private talks revealed that staff saw the new
Mikkelsen and Humle 789
structure as management’s attempt to cheat them into doing management’s job
while retaining power. With no transparency regarding who could make which
decisions, the staff agreed that management would continue to overrule their
decision-making. For example, in an office chat, Karen from Fundraising said,
“On paper, they give us free hands, but then 5 mins before deadline they’ll
criticize us, by saying that we should have done it differently.” Lisa agreed,
“So often they invite us to participate in decision-making, but once we’ve
made a decision, we’re told that this was not our decision to make.”
Staff particularly criticized Peter, the secretary general, for exhibiting an
autocratic leadership style that clashed with the dominant identity narratives
of the egalitarian organization: “Outwardly, he’s open and democratic, but he
always begins a discussion by closing off any space for disagreement” (Sarah,
fundraiser). Deborah similarly said, “On paper it all looks good, with policies
for virtually everything. But Peter is very centralistic and controlling because
he wants to retain power.” While critical statements like these directly opposed
the dominant organizational identity narratives of the happy and egalitarian
family, they were often performed in humorous ways to reduce their impact.
For example, the secretary general was sometimes referred to as a patriarchal
father or “the General.” “He doesn’t always accept the chain of command.
Often, he’ll bypass the department manager and approach staff directly to get
them to do stuff for him, and it’s difficult to say no to the General” (Frank,
Programs). While the notion of “the General” clearly articulated the secretary
general’s desires for power and control, it was performed as a joke, paraphrasing the title of secretary general to the General to soften its potential
threat to the organizational status quo as an egalitarian workplace to which
everyone enjoyed belonging.
Others similarly made fun of management’s inability to look outward.
“They don’t see the world around them. If I came to work with my hair dyed
blue, they wouldn’t notice (Joanne, fundraiser). Humor is often used as a form
of worker resistance to management control (Bolton, 2004), and it was
similarly incorporated into the staff’s everyday story work when opposing
management at Development-Aid. The staff used humor to make fun of
management’s urge for power and control and inability to see people around
them, making references to Development-Aid’s raison d’etre of seeing and ˆ
fighting global injustices. Similarly, during a department meeting at Programs,
Mary, the department manager, was talking about how one reward of working
at Development-Aid was a strong sense of ownership to one’s work, when
Marta uttered, “but we never receive any praise from management.” Presumably to deflect the threat of overt criticism, Marta quickly continued, “In
January, I picked up an envelope from my pigeonhole, thinking that it was
a thank-you note for all the hard work we had done the previous year. But it
790 Group & Organization Management 45(6)
was nothing but that damn postcard I had written to my future self at our wellbeing workshop last summer. I got SO disappointed (laughs loudly).” Everyone at the meeting burst into laughter as if to seek relief from the tension
caused by the potential threat. By using laughter and humor when criticizing
management, the staff downplayed the gravidity of the experienced discrepancies between egalitarianism and management control, self-management
and no management, and minimized their potentially devastating impact on
organizational life. That way, counter-narratives of power struggles with
management were allowed a life in the organization.
Because it can be painful and difficult to raise doubts about the competence
and legitimacy of one’s management (Linde, 2009), critical counter-narratives
were often concealed from management, thus presenting a less official version
of conflict at Development-Aid. They were however easily performed and
shared by all members of staff and appeared to have a positive and cathartic
effect on the organization by allowing staff to collectively vent their frustrations and ambivalent emotions. Thus, expressing critical stories in collective forms normalized the staff’s frustrations. Using humor additionally
enabled minimizing the undesired positioning of management as villains and
staff as victims, thereby making these critical counter-narratives less
threatening to the positive identity narratives of the organization, allowing
them to coexist in parallel.
Hidden status conflict. Counter-narratives of conflict were additionally related
to organizational inequality. In these story performances, the administrative
workers evoked hierarchy to express that they sometimes felt unvalued at
Development-Aid and were sometimes treated as service providers to the
other groups. These critical counter-narratives were more covert and less
accessible to outsiders than those of concealed power struggles with management. One of our first encounters with these counter-narratives highlighted
the pervasive anxiety and emotionally demanding story work associated with
performing them:
During an interview with Hilary in Administration, I sensed that she was
nervous as we talked about her work. As I closed the interview and said that I
had no further questions, she heaved a sigh of relief, saying, “Oh, was that it?”,
not hiding her relief that it was over. “Yes, it’s not dangerous in any way,” I
replied to her foregoing display of discomfort. “But I thought you wanted to talk
about conflict,” she said. “Well, we can certainly do that,” I suggested, but
Hilary was already moving toward the door in an attempt to escape, “No, no, no,
there aren’t any,” she hastily said in a tone that revealed her distress as she ran
out the door.
Mikkelsen and Humle 791
While this observation singles out one staff member, it illustrates how
conflict was a difficult topic for staff members because it made them feel
distressed. Fragments of observed situations and relationships could be interpreted as more covert conflict only after long-term fieldwork.
Occasionally, situations would occur where staff and managers from other
departments turned up at the Administration minutes before a deadline, ordering the administrative workers to serve them immediately. These situations
frustrated the administrative workers. “Arh, why can’t she do it herself!” Jane
uttered a loud outburst one afternoon after a manager from another department
had ordered her to immediately print out spreadsheets of last quarter’s costs
and intakes. Jane later explained, “Some of them act as if we are their personal
secretaries that they can use whenever they want to.” Talking about these
situations appeared to be very emotionally demanding as the administrative
staff explained how they felt a lack of respect from the other groups and that
their work was less important than that of others. For example, Alice said, “I
get upset because it matters a lot how they ask for my help. There are those
who come in thinking that they can give me orders.” Because these situations
were characterized by painful emotions and taboo, they were often only hinted
at. Moreover, the administrative staff rarely appeared to share their frustrations, which in effect individualized their experiences of inequality.
The highly fragmented and emotionally demanding story performances of
hidden status conflict reflected the strength of the official, dominant identity
narratives of an egalitarian, happy family, working together to make the world
a better place. The administrative workers struggled to balance the opposing
organizational storylines of a conflict-free, well-functioning organization and
their experiences of feeling like “the underdogs” of a sometimes unjust organization. Because they did not voice their concerns, we inferred that they
feared further exclusion from the positive and well-functioning work community that all in the organization agreed existed. They therefore endured
feeling treated as underdogs and mostly kept their grievances to themselves. It
appeared that counter-narratives of hidden status conflict posed such a serious
threat to the shared identity narratives of Development-Aid and to the administrative workers’ positions as equally valued members of the organization
that they could not coexist with the overt narratives of conflict. They therefore
remained mostly unspoken or silenced, emphasizing their invisibility.
In one incident, however, an administrative worker tried to voice her
concerns of not feeling respected at work, but the following events showed
how dangerous and unspeakable the counter-narratives of inequality were:
At a one-day organizational workshop about employee well-being, staff and
management discussed what generates good psychological well-being. Frank
792 Group & Organization Management 45(6)
from Programs stated, “well-being comes when our work makes sense and we
see that it works out there,” and Sarah from Fundraising said, “we’re all responsible for each other’s well-being, so we should look after each other.” As
the discussion continued, the idea of applicable tools to better each other’s wellbeing became more popular. Liking the idea of practical tools, Alice from
Administration said, “We should all be more aware of the tone we use when
writing emails to each other. We should always begin with ‘dear such and such’
because that shows that we respect each other and shouldn’t order people
around. We don’t always feel that kind of respect.” Her statement was followed
by silence until the secretary general got up and began to recap what they had
agreed on so far.
In this example, the issue with lack of respect toward administrative staff
not only presents itself as a noisy silence of the organization, it was actively
silenced or ignored despite being highly relevant to the theme of the
workshop: employee well-being. Alice’s statement “We don’t always feel that
kind of respect” appeared so penetrating and threatening to the dominant
organizational identity narratives that silence was the only response. After the
seminar, several administrative workers disavowed Alice’s statement. Jane
said, “She’s got a bad attitude toward all our colleagues, saying that they don’t
respect her. I don’t feel that way at all.” Staff from the other departments talked
about the administrative workers as grumblers. Later, during an interview, one
fundraiser, however, acknowledged that embarrassment was the primary
reason for ignoring Alice’s statement about lacking respect:
The administrative workers provide a service function that no one really values
in this organization. Such inequality in a democratic human rights organization
is embarrassing, but we’re a very hierarchical organization, and there is a big
difference between the administrative workers and the rest of us (Joanne,
fundraiser).
Because the lack of respect appeared to be associated with feelings of
embarrassment and fear of exclusion, the administrative staff collectively
suppressed their negative experiences and only articulated counter-narratives
of hidden status conflict in secrecy.
Another example of narratives in tension where silence was experienced
was around the organizational narratives of equal pay. Management and staff
often emphasized that equal pay was standard practice at Development-Aid.
For example, Mary said, “We have equal pay here at Developmental-Aid,
which means no reward structure in terms of money and no differential
treatment”. Carolyn said, “I like the organizational openness toward
Mikkelsen and Humle 793
Table 3. Summary of the Attributes of Overt and Covert Narratives of Conflict.
Narrative
content
Organizational
identity
narratives Narrated by
Storytelling
occasions Story work
Emotions
attached to
story work Impacts
Overt
narratives
of conflict
Conflict-free
work
relationships
Unavoidable
subcultural
frictions
A happy
family
working
in unity
to change the
world
The egalitarian
organization
Management
Department
leaders
Staff in all
departments
At formal
gatherings
During leader
presence
In interviews
In everyday
work
situations
Easily
performed
Coherent
storylines
Agreement
Joy
Love
Pride
Tolerance
Solidarity
Positive
relations
Toleration
and
acceptance
of each
other
Covert
narratives
of conflict
Concealed
power
struggles
Controlling
management
Absent
management
Staff in all
departments
During informal
talks in
smaller
groups with
no leaders
present
In interviews
Easily
performed
Coherent
storyline
Painful
Pain is
relieved
through
sharing and
humor
Frustration
Annoyance
Ambivalent
emotions
Cathartic
relief
Collective
forms of
expression
Normalization
(continued)
794 Group & Organization Management 45(6)
Table 3. (continued)
Narrative
content
Organizational
identity
narratives Narrated by
Storytelling
occasions Story work
Emotions
attached to
story work Impacts
Covert
narratives
of conflict
Hidden status
conflict
The unjust
organization
The administrative
staff
Only in
private
conversations
after
long-term
fieldwork
Hinted at
during
everyday
work
Very
emotionally
demanding
Fragments
Less accessible
Anxiety
Embarrassment
Inadequacy
Silence
Disavowal
Individualizing
effect
Mikkelsen and Humle 795
disclosure of individual pay rates. It facilitates equality of pay.” However, the
administrative workers felt that there were considerable differences between
how much the different occupational groups earned. “Graduates can negotiate
much better benefits than we can. So, our pay is not the same” (Jane). Hilary
added, “We are paid an idealist salary, but we don’t ask management for a raise
because they’ll say, ‘you do know what it means if we give you a raise’….”
The administrative workers felt that salary negotiations were used to remind
them not to ask for a raise if they did not want organizational budgets to suffer.
Feeling conscientious of the organization’s work overseas, they refrained from
complaining about their lower salary and did not request benefits.
The two covert narratives of concealed power struggles and hidden status
conflict were suppressed ways of narrating conflict at Development-Aid
because they opposed the dominant identity narratives of the organization.
Table 3 provides an analytical overview of how overt and covert conflict
narratives were characterized in terms of their core dimensions and
distinctions.
Discussion
Following the call by Morrill et al. (2003) that organizational conflict research
should better address covert conflict to explain it and how it shapes the
collective organizing of conflict in organizations, in this article, we have paid
particular attention to the dynamics of overt and covert conflict, specifically
why some forms of conflict become dominant while others remain marginalized. Our literature review showed that most studies on organizational
conflict look at “emerged” conflict and behavioral manifestations despite an
emerging literature demonstrating that hidden conflict does in fact exist. In our
study of the ways conflict occurs in organizations, we used narrative analysis
to analyze the interpretive and performative processes related to both overt
and covert conflict and how these forms of conflict coexist. Our findings
reveal two core contributions to theorizing on organizational conflict.
Structuring Overt and Covert Conflict Through Organizational
Identity
The first contribution concerns the conceptual link between overt and covert
conflict in terms of organizational identity. Existing research on hidden
conflict in organizations (Kolb & Bartunek, 1992; Kolb & Putnam, 1992)
shows that the covert dimensions of conflict do not exist independently of their
public opposite, with empirical studies suggesting they are related (Kolb,
796 Group & Organization Management 45(6)
1992; Van Maanen, 1992). Our study goes further by demonstrating that overt
and covert conflict are intertextually linked through their relationship to the
dominant organizational identity, that is, its claims of distinctiveness (Glynn,
2000), by either opposing or aligning with them. An important feature of the
relationship between overt and covert conflict is that the dominant organizational identity reflects an ongoing organizational order that structures what
employees can and cannot get into conflict over. We show how dominant and
shared claims of “who we are” and “what we do” (cf. Linde, 2009) in organizations significantly influence how staff and management define conflict,
what can be said overtly and covertly about conflict, and their repertoires for
handling it.
A strong organizational identity unifies organizational members through
their internalization of organizational values and beliefs (Ashforth & Mael,
2004). While management in our case actively celebrated dominant notions of
conflict and silenced others, all organizational members enthusiastically coauthored and incorporated dominant notions of conflict into their personal
identity narratives. Conflict by its sheer nature could have been seen to oppose
the dominant understandings of “who we are” because the “we” that is attributed to an organization may have diverse values and priorities. Its overt
status in our case, however, showed that organizational members adhered to
deliberate and rational conventions, portraying conflict as either not arising at
all or as arising naturally in diverse work communities where everyone filled
important roles in the much-valued cause of changing the world. With these
salient prescriptions, overt conflict narratives had regulatory effects and could
therefore easily be integrated into the dominant identity narratives of the
“egalitarian organization.”
However, covert conflict simmering beneath the surface as noisy silences
may oppose and challenge core elements of the dominant organizational
identity if made overt. While covert narratives of conflict had no space in the
official organizational storytelling in our case, they appeared to differ significantly in whether they were allowed a life in the organization. The decisive
factor appeared to be how deeply they threatened the dominant organizational
identity. Although expressed primarily at the backstage regions of the organization, our case shows that using humor to perform counter-narratives of
conflicts may soften their threat to dominant organizational identity narratives,
allowing them to coexist in parallel with the overt conflict narratives. This use
of humor accentuated its potential to enable workers to undermine management control and propose opposing identities while keeping the production
together (cf. Bolton, 2004; Butler, Hoedemaekers, & Russell, 2015).
The dominant organizational identity can, however, be so strong and
hegemonic that covert forms of conflict are suppressed or actively silenced.
Mikkelsen and Humle 797
Workers may restrain themselves from voicing their concerns out of fear that
others will view them as troublemakers or complainers, unfit for this organization and that they will consequently be further excluded from the work
community. This dynamic occurs because a strong organizational identity is
a powerful mode of control over workers’ own self-identity as they want to be
part of the group (Bouchikhi & Kimberley, 2003; Hatch, 1997). Workers’
internalization of and adherence to the organization’s main values, which in
our case occurred through narrative induction, become part of their personal
identity regulation and are potent means of developing and maintaining staff
engagement. As covert forms of conflict are prevented from surfacing, for
example, by being actively silenced by management and coworkers, workers
are left with apparently individualized experiences and solitary concerns,
feeling completely powerless to speak up.
Our study has implications for research linking conflict outcomes to
conflict types. For many years, mainstream conflict research focused on
mapping how different types of conflict affect performance and satisfaction,
finding that relationship conflict is commonly considered dysfunctional and
task conflict may benefit group performance under specific circumstances (De
Dreu & Beersma, 2005; Jehn, 1997). Our study however showed that conflict
outcomes may not always be linked to the type of conflict, but rather to the
relationship between conflict and the dominant organizational identity, or its
claims of distinctiveness, which is linked to the kind of work performed in the
organization. In our case, outcomes of both overt and covert conflict were
often productive because staff either tolerated and accepted each other’s
differences, cathartically complained about management behind closed doors,
or simply silenced their concerns. Toleration, backstage complaining, and
silencing appeared to enable the public life of the organization to proceed
smoothly without appearance of threatening conflicts.
A strong organizational identity may thereby work so that overt conflict is
routinely accepted, normalized, and resolved, possibly leading to positive
outcomes, while covert conflict, because of its threatening status, likely
generates negative outcomes and is therefore hidden or suppressed. While the
dominant organizational identity structures what employees can and cannot
get into conflict over, conflicts that are overtly acknowledged are so because
they most likely lead to positive outcomes that strengthen the dominant
organizational identity. This dynamic produces a stable situation, an interlocking of conflict behaviors that is controlled by the collective structures of
the dominant organizational identity (cf. Weick, 1979) because it poses no
threat. These insights lead us to our second contribution concerning the dual
workings of power as the other conceptual link between overt and covert
forms of conflict.
798 Group & Organization Management 45(6)
The Dual Workings of Power in Conflict
The relationship between overt and covert conflict reveals different ways in
which power operates in conflict situations. The collective structures of the
dominant organizational identity are hegemonic because they shape definitions of what is and what is not allowed to get into conflict over. For
example, conflict over differences is acceptable, but conflict over inequality is
not. Thus, power operates insidiously by forming the way staff and management think about, talk about, and behave during conflict. In our case, the
extreme, positive organizational storytelling, in which notions of family and
friends prevailed, effectively excluded and suppressed the critical voices
about control and inequality. Because everybody eagerly performed stories of
doing good in the world and of how much they loved working at
Development-Aid, failure and inadequacy became excluding factors. Our
study thereby shows that although a strong organizational identity may unify
organizational members (Ashforth & Mael, 2004), it may also play a dysfunctional role. For example, if the gathering around stories of being part of an
amazing organization makes it difficult and even painful for staff to voice their
concerns, their concerns may become individualized rather than shared.
A positive organizational identity strongly affects how organizational
members see themselves and each other as appropriate members of the organization. Its regulating effects ensure that organizational members exhibit
self-control and keep conflict in check for the sake of the greater organizational cause. This enables the organization to promulgate a vision of harmony
and maintain the appearance that everything is running smoothly without
serious conflict to the organizational functioning and performance. These
dynamics keep the covert forms of conflict behind closed doors and minds. By
outwardly organizing the collective collaborative front of organizational life,
significant grievances, impulses, and negative feelings are individualized and
relegated to the backstage arenas of the organization (cf. Goffman, 1959),
reinforcing its current status system. With power operating through systemic
forms of influence (cf. Clegg & Hardy, 1996), such as dominant collective
structures of “who we are,” the dominant organizational identity defines
which forms of conflict predominate by structuring frontstage and backstage
conflict behavior, relegating the latter to the backstage regions of the organization. These power dynamics are effective because they take a positive
form when staff and management actively choose to discipline themselves
according to the values and priorities of the dominant organizational identity
(cf. Foucault 1980 cited in Kenny, Whittle and Willmott, 2016).
Power additionally works through the status of social relationships. The
most powerful groups of the organization control the dominant organizational
Mikkelsen and Humle 799
narratives. For example, managers may use them actively to “mask” conflict
(Kolb & Putnam 1992) by renarrating potentially threatening status conflict
into unavoidable subcultural friction. This renarrating preserves the current
working relationships that might otherwise be threatened by the covert
conflict. While keeping many conflicts out of sight may be essential from an
organizational standpoint because it keeps the production going (Kolb, 1992),
it becomes an instrument of social control, which has negative consequences
for the less privileged individuals and groups in the organization.
The social power and status of less privileged individuals and groups affect
whether they can voice their concerns. Our case shows that the avoidance and
toleration modes of the administrative workers reproduced the marginality of
their organizational status. Less privileged individuals and groups often
handle conflict in the few “acceptable” ways that remain open to them, ultimately reinforcing their subordinate positions (Bartunek et al., 1992) and
reaffirming organizational power relationships. Thus, power relationships
structure which conflicts are overtly acknowledged and which remain hidden
and are simultaneously the source of conflicts that emerge owing to perceived
inequities. Because conflict may simultaneously emerge from power dynamics and be silenced by them, nothing happens. Conflict is there, but the
dynamics surrounding it stabilize the organization instead of changing it.
While these dynamics may seem desirable to the organizational power
holders, previous research shows that covert forms of conflict may be especially toxic (Friedman, 1992; Lewis et al., 1997). Although they may
produce short-term hegemony, as workers silence their concerns, they breed
a climate of distrust, which may explode. Research on employee voice and
silence similarly shows that silence can inflict a high psychological price on
workers and may generate feelings of humiliation, anger, and resentment,
which, if kept inside, can contaminate social interaction and lead to high levels
of employee stress and dissatisfaction, which can undermine work performance (Morrisson, 2014; Perlow & Williams, 2003). These insights lead to
the practical implications of our study.
Practical Implications
Our case yields several practical implications for management and organizing.
Organizations gathering around a positive hegemonic organizational identity
may create work environments where it is difficult to speak up about problems
because criticism becomes an excluding factor. Instead of ignoring and silencing problematic issues or monolithically controlling organizational
identity narratives, managers should engage in different organizational dialogues, including critical ones, to make room for multiple opinions and
800 Group & Organization Management 45(6)
differences and to understand and actively engage in conversations about
problematic and difficult organizational issues. As argued by Hazen (1993),
when we listen to the humming of people working and engage in praxis by
dialogue, a process of comprehension and transformation is possible.
We suggest that managers and others working with human resources or
personnel management should not fear expressions of conflict, as they may
not undermine the positive organizational identity narratives. Organizational
members can perform and balance opposing narratives of work. Similarly,
employees do not either hate or love their organizations. By encouraging
employees to express critical or ambivalent concerns, these may become
matters of shared distress, making them less personal and shameful and no
longer noisy silences.
Conclusion
Although overt forms of conflict dominate much of the existing literature on
organizational conflict, conflict may not be visible or acknowledged. The
narrow focus on open disagreement and confrontation overlooks conflicts that
are expressed in more private or hidden forms (Morrill et al., 2003). What
appears as a distinct phenomenon must be understood with reference to its
bipolar opposite, even if the opposite is hidden from view (Kolb & Bartunek,
1992; Kolb & Putnam, 1992). In an ethnographic study of everyday conflict at
a Nordic aid agency, we engaged a narrative approach to capture both overt
and covert narratives of conflict to explore why some narratives of conflict
become dominant while others remain marginalized. Our account explicates
that the hidden forms of conflict and the celebrated, acknowledged forms of
conflict are intertextually related through their relationship to the dominant
organizational identity, which structures what employees can and cannot get
into conflict over.
Our study is among the few to examine both overt and covert forms of
conflict and the relationship between them. Acknowledging that conflict
displays an essentially contested nature (Mikkelsen & Clegg, 2019), we
encourage future theorizing on organizational conflict to engage more with the
covert forms of conflict. Although covert forms of conflict are more subtle and
therefore harder to identify and analyze, coupling the study of conflict in
organizations with a narrative approach provides insights into the otherwise
hidden, emotionally charged organizing within, which Gabriel (1995) termed
“the unmanaged spaces of organizations.” By shedding light on the interpretive processes underlying conflict emergence and the ways these processes are articulated overtly and covertly at different times and places,
Mikkelsen and Humle 801
narrative analysis can significantly contribute to developing our understanding of conflict in organizations.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.
ORCID iD
Elisabeth Naima Mikkelsen  https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2015-9687
References
Amason, A. C. (1996). Distinguishing the effects of functional and dysfunctional
conflict on strategic decision making: Resolving a paradox for top management
teams. Academy of Management Journal, 39(1), 123-148.
Ashforth, B. E., & Mael, F. (2004). Social identity theory and the organization. In M. J.
Hatch, & M. Schultz (Eds.), Organizational identity: A reader (pp. 134-160). UK:
Oxford University Press.
Bamberg, M., & Andrews, M. (Eds.). (2004). Considering counter-narratives: Narrating, resisting, making sense (Vol. 4). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins
Publishing.
Bartunek, J. M., Kolb, D. M., & Lewicki, R. J. (1992). Bringing conflict out from
behind the scenes: Private, informal, and nonrational dimensions of conflict in
organizations. In D. M. Kolb, & J. M. Bartunek (Eds.), Hidden conflict in organizations (pp. 209-228). California: Sage.
Belova, O., King, I., & Sliwa, M. (2008). Introduction: Polyphony and organization
studies: Mikhail Bakhtin and beyond. Organization Studies, 29(4), 493-500.
Behfar, K., Mannix, E., Peterson, R., & Trochim, W. (2011). Conflict in small groups:
The meaning and consequences of process conflict. Small Group Research, 42,
127-176.
Bendersky, C., & Hays, N. A. (2012). Status conflict in groups. Organization Science,
23(2), 323-340.
Bernard, R. H. (1994). Research methods in anthropology. UK: Sage Publications.
Boje, D. M. (1991). The storytelling organization: A study of story performance in an
office- supply firm. Administrative Science Quarterly, 36(1), 106-126.
Boje, D. M. (1995). Stories of the storytelling organization: A postmodern analysis of
disney as “Tamara-Land”. Academy of Management Journal, 38(4), 997-1035.
Boje, D. M. (2001). Narrative methods for organizational & communication research.
London: Sage.
802 Group & Organization Management 45(6)
Boje, D. M. (2006). Breaking out of narrative’s prison: Improper story in storytelling
organization. Story, Self, Society, 2(2), 28-49.
Boje, D. M. (2008). Storytelling organizations. London: SAGE.
Boje, D. M. (Ed.). (2011). Storytelling and the future of organizations. An antenarrative handbook. New York: Routledge.
Bolton, S. (2004). A bit of a laugh: Nurses’ use of humor as a mode of resistance. In J.
Chandler, & J. Barry (Eds.), Questioning the new public management
(pp. 177-189). Aldershot: Ashgate.
Bouchikhi, H., & Kimberly, J. R. (2003). Escaping the identity trap. MIT Sloan
Management Review, 44(3), 20.
Brown, A. D. (2006). A narrative approach to collective identities. Journal of
Management Studies, 43(4), 731-753.
Butler, N., Hoedemaekers, C., & Russell, D. S. (2015). The comic organization.
Ephemera, 15(3), 497-512.
Clegg, S., & Hardy, C. (1996). Some dare call it power. In C. Hardy, S. Clegg, & W.
Nord (Eds.), Handbook of organization studies (pp. 622-641). London: Sage.
Coser, L. (1956). Functions of social conflict. New York, NY: Free Press.
Cunliffe, A., & Coupland, C. (2012). From hero to villain to hero: Making experience
sensible through embodied narrative sensemaking. Human Relations, 65(1),
63-88.
Cunliffe, A. L., Luhman, J. T., & Boje, D. M. (2004). Narrative temporality: Implications for organizational research. Organization Studies, 25(2), 261-286.
Czarniawska, B. (1998). A narrative approach to organization studies. Thousands
Oaks: Sage.
Czarniawska, B. (2004). Narratives in social science research. London: Sage
Publications.
De Dreu, C. K., & Beersma, B. (2005). Conflict in organizations: Beyond effectiveness
and performance. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology,
14(2), 105-117.
De Dreu, C. K. W., & Van de Vliert, E. (1997). Using conflict in organizations. UK:
Sage.
De Dreu, C. K. W., & Weingart, L. R. (2003). Task versus relationship conflict, team
performance, and team member satisfaction: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 88(4), 741-749.
DeChurch, L. A., Mesmer-Magnus, J. R., & Doty, D. (2013). Moving beyond relationship and task conflict: Toward a process-state perspective. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98(4), 559-578.
Driver, M. (2009). From loss to lack: Stories of organizational change as encounters
with failed fantasies of self, work and organization. Organization, 16(3), 353-369.
Ernst, J., & Schleiter, A. J. (2020). Organizational identity struggles and reconstruction
during organizational change: Narratives as symbolic, emotional and practical
glue. Organization Studies. doi:10.1177/0170840619854484
Fink, C. F. (1968). Some conceptual difficulties in the theory of social conflict. Journal
of Conflict Resolution, 12(4), 412-460.
Mikkelsen and Humle 803
Frandsen S., Kuhn T., & Lundholt M. W. (Eds.). (2017). Counter-narratives and
organization. UK: Routledge.
Friedman, R. A (1992). The culture of mediation: Private understandings in the context
of public conflict. In D. M. Kolb, & J. M. Bartunek (Eds.), Hidden conflict in
organizations (pp. 143-164). California: Sage.
Gabriel, Y. (1995). The unmanaged organization: Stories, fantasies and subjectivity.
Organization Studies, 16(3), 477-501.
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Glynn, M. A. (2000). When cymbals become symbols: Conflict over organizational
identity within a symphony orchestra. Organization Science, 11(3), 285-298.
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Doubleday.
Goffman, E. (1962). Asylums: Essays on the social situation of mental patients and
other inmates. New York: Anchor Books.
Gubrium, J., & Holstein, J. (2009). Analyzing narrative reality. California: Sage.
Hansen, H. (2006). The ethnonarrative approach. Human Relations, 59(8), 1049-1075.
Hardy, C. (1996). Understanding power: Bringing about strategic change. British
Journal of Management, 7(1), S3-S16.
Hatch, M. J. (1997). Organization theory: Modern, symbolic, and postmodern perspectives. UK: Oxford University Press.
Hazen, M. A. (1993). Towards polyphonic organization. Journal of Organizational
Change Management, 6(5), 15-26.
He, H., & Brown, A. D. (2013). Organizational identity and organizational identification. Group & Organization Management, 38(1), 3-35.
Humle, D. M. (2014). Remembering who WE are-memories of identity through
storytelling. Tamara: Journal for Critical Organization Inquiry, 12(3), 11-24.
Humle, D. M., & Frandsen, S. (2017). Organizational identity negotiations through
dominant and counter-narratives. In S. Frandsen, T. Kuhn, & M. W. Lundholt
(Eds.), Counter-narratives and organization (pp. 113-136). UK: Routledge.
Humle, D. M., & Pedersen, A. R. (2015). Fragmented work stories: Developing an
antenarrative approach by discontinuity, tensions and editing. Management
Learning, 46(5), 582-597.
Humphreys, M., & Brown, A. D. (2002). Narratives of organizational identity and
identification: A case study of hegemony and resistance. Organization Studies,
23(3), 421-447.
Jehn, K. A. (1995). A multimethod examination of the benefits and detriments of
intragroup conflict. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40(2), 256-282.
Jehn, K. A. (1997). A qualitative analysis of conflict types and dimensions in organizational groups. Administrative Science Quarterly, 42(3), 530-557.
Jehn, K. A., & Mannix, E. A. (2001). The dynamic nature of conflict: A longitudinal
study of intragroup conflict and group performance. Academy of Management
Journal, 44(2), 238-251.
804 Group & Organization Management 45(6)
Jermier, J. (1988). Sabotage at work: A rational view. In N. DiTomaso, & S. B.
Bacharach (Eds.), Research in the sociology of organizations (101-134).
Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Kenny, K., Whittle, A., & Willmott, H. (2016). Organizational identity: The significance of power and politics. In M. G. Pratt, M. Schultz, B. E. Ashforth, &
D. Ravasi (Eds.), The oxford handbook of organizational identity (pp. 140-159).
UK: Oxford University Press.
Kolb, D. M. (1992). Women’s work: Peacemaking in organizations. In D. M. Kolb, &
J. M. Bartunek (Eds.), Hidden conflict in organizations (pp. 63-91). California:
Sage.
Kolb, D. M., & Bartunek, J. M. (1992). Hidden conflict in organizations. USA: Sage.
Kolb, D. M., & Putnam, L. L. (1992). The multiple faces of conflict in organizations.
Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13(3), 311-324.
Kvale, S. (1996). Interviews: An introduction to qualitative research interviewing. UK:
Sage.
Lewis, D. S., French, E., & Steane, P. (1997). A culture of conflict. Leadership &
Organization Development Journal, 18(6), 275-282.
Linde, C (2001). The acquisition of a speaker by a story: How history becomes memory
and identity. Ethos, 28(4), 608-632.
Linde, C (2009). Working the past, narrative and institutional memory. UK: Oxford
University Press.
Mack, R. W., & Snyder, R. C. (1957). The analysis of social conflict-toward an
overview and synthesis. Conflict Resolution, 1(2), 212-248.
Maitlis, S. (2012). Narrative analysis. In G. Symon, & C. Cassell (Eds.), Qualitative
organizational research: core methods and current challenges (pp. 492-511).
London: Sage.
Mallett, O., & Wapshott, R. (2012). Mediating ambiguity: Narrative identity and
knowledge workers. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 28(1), 16-26.
March, J. G., & Simon, H. A. (1958). Organizations. London: Wiley.
Mikkelsen, E. N. (2013). A researcher’s tale: How doing conflict research shapes
research about conflict. Qualitative Research in Organizations and
Management – An International Journal, 8(1), 33-49.
Mikkelsen, E. N., & Clegg, S. (2019). Conceptions of conflict in organizational conflict
research: Toward critical reflexivity. Journal of Management Inquiry, 28(2),
166-179.
Mikkelsen, E. N., & Gray, B. (2016). Everyday conflict at work: An organizational
sensemaking ethnography. In A. R. Pedersen, & D. M. Humle (Eds.), Doing
organizational ethnography (pp. 17-39). New York: Routledge.
Mikkelsen, E. N., Gray, B., & Petersen, A. (In press 2020). Unconscious processes of
organizing: Intergroup conflict in mental health care. Journal of Management
Studies. doi:10.1111/joms.12611
Mishler, E. G. (1999). Storylines. USA: Harvard University Press.
Morrill, C., Zald, M. N., & Rao, H. (2003). Covert political conflict in organizations:
Challenges from below. Annual Review of Sociology, 29(1), 391-415.
Mikkelsen and Humle 805
Morrison, E. W. (2014). Employee voice and silence. Annual Review of Organizational
Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1(1), 173-197.
O’Neill, T., Allen, N., & Hastings, S. (2013). Examining the “pros” and “cons” of team
conflict: A team-level meta-analysis of task, relationship, and process conflict.
Human Performance, 26(3), 236-260.
Perlow, L. A., & Williams, S. (2003). Is silence killing your company? Harvard
Business Review, 81(5), 52-58.
Pondy, L. R. (1992). Reflections on organizational conflict. Journal of Organizational
Behavior, 13(3), 257-261.
Pruitt, D., & Rubin, J. (1986). Social conflict: Escalation, stalemate, and settlement.
New York: McGraw-Hill.
Putnam, L., & Poole, M. (1987). Conflict and negotiation. In F. Jablin, L. Putnam, K.
Roberts, & L. Porter (Eds.), Handbook of organizational communication: An
interdisciplinary perspective (549-599). California: Sage.
Rhodes, C., & Brown, A. D. (2005). Narrative, organizations and research. International Journal of Management Reviews, 7(3), 167-188.
Riessman, C. K. (2008). Narrative methods for the human sciences. California: Sage.
Ryan, M. L. (1992). The modes of narrativity and their visual metaphors. Style, 26(3),
368-387.
Schmidt, S. M., & Kochan, T. A. (1972). Conflict: Toward conceptual clarity. Administrative Science Quarterly, 17(3), 359-370.
Shah, P. P., & Jehn, K. A. (1993). Do friends perform better than acquaintances? The
interaction of friendship, conflict, and task. Group Decision and Negotiation,
2(2), 149-165.
Thomas, K. W. (1992). Conflict and conflict management: Reflections and update.
Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13(3), 265-274.
Tjosvold, D. (2008). The conflict-positive organization: It depends upon us. Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 29(1), 19-28.
Tucker, J. (1993). Everyday forms of employee resistance. Sociological Forum, 8(1), 25-45.
Vaara, E., Sonenshein, S., & Boje, D. (2016). Narratives as sources of stability and
change in organizations: Approaches and directions for future research. The
Academy of management Annals, 10(1), 495-560.
Van Maanen, J. (1992). Drinking our troubles away: Managing conflict in a British
police agency. In D. M. Kolb, & J. M. Bartunek (Eds.), Hidden conflict in organizations (pp. 32-62). California: Sage.
Weick, K. (1979). The social psychology of organizing. Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley.
Weingart, L. R., Behfar, K. J., Bendersky, C., Todorova, G., & Jehn, K. A. (2015). The
directness and oppositional intensity of conflict expression. Academy of Management Review, 40(2), 235-262.
Associate Editor: William L. Gardner
Submitted Date: October 25, 2018
Revised Submission Date: August 29, 2020
Acceptance Date: September 1, 2020
806 Group & Organization Management 45(6)
Author Biographies
Elisabeth Naima Mikkelsen is Associate Professor of Organizational Psychology at
the Department of Organization at Copenhagen Business School. She often uses
ethnographic methods to study conflict, sensemaking and power in organizational
settings. Her work has been published in journals such as Organization, Journal of
Management Inquiry, and Journal of Management Studies.
Didde Maria Humle is Researcher at Lund University and Lecturer at Copenhagen
Business School. Her research interests are within work- and organizational psychology including narrative approaches, identity and well-being at work. She has
publications in journals such as Management Learning, Nordic Journal of Working life
Studies and in Routeledge books.
Mikkelsen and Humle 807
View publication stats