Interpersonal conflict at work : An exploration through the analysis of mental models

Abstract

Workplace dynamics are increasingly becoming important in organizations as people from different social and cultural backgrounds come together to work towards common goals of the Company. People have different mental models with respect to work, deadlines, colleagues, etc which are the reasons for conflicts that arise between individuals at workplace. Therefore, studying these mental models would be helpful in understanding people as well the interpersonal dynamics between individuals better at workplace. The main objective is to study conflicts at workplace and relate these to the differences in the mental models being adopted by each of the parties with regard to the conflict situation. The main intension is to examine how different individuals behave in such contexts and what could be done to mange such situations for the benefit of the organization. As per the methodology proposed, depth interviews were carried out with 15 different individuals in Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and the transcripts were documented. These transcripts are the used as the input data for further analysis. For the purpose of analysis, the process of grounded theory building is used along with other techniques such as ladder of inference used in the analysis of mental models. Using the ladder of inference, the underlying beliefs that amount to the persona conflict are explored and then they are analyzed to find any patterns across various cases. The analysis stage in the grounded theory building process is used to find direct and indirect connections between various data points or cases. Then, all the concepts beneath the patterns are integrated and then further processes to develop a theoretical framework that explains such behavior. Based on the analysis and the subsequent re