Exploring Different Perspectives on Conflict

When a disagreement breaks out between two team members on a farm or in an agribusiness office, what’s your first instinct – shut it down immediately, let it play out, or even encourage more debate? How you answer that question likely reflects one of three major schools of thought that have shaped how managers understand conflict over the past century. These three perspectives – the Traditional View, the Human Relations View, and the Interactionist View – each offer a fundamentally different lens for understanding what conflict is, where it comes from, and what to do about it.

What do we mean by “conflict”? 🔗

Before exploring these perspectives, it helps to be clear on the term itself. Conflict is broadly defined as a process that begins when one party perceives that another has – or is about to – negatively affect something the first party cares about. It’s important to note that conflict is a perception: if both parties walk away from a heated discussion without feeling unheard or wronged, no real conflict exists. It only becomes conflict when at least one side feels their interests, ideas, or goals are being threatened or dismissed by the other.

This perception-based nature of conflict is precisely why different people – and different management theories – have interpreted and responded to it so differently over time.

The traditional view: conflict as a problem to eliminate 🔗

The Traditional View of conflict dates back to the late 19th century and was most prominent in management thinking through the 1930s and 1940s. Its core premise is straightforward: conflict is bad, full stop. Under this framework, any disagreement within an organization was seen as a sign that something had gone wrong – poor communication, unclear authority, or a failure of leadership.

What the traditional view got right – and wrong 🔗

The Traditional View treated conflict as a dysfunctional outcome resulting from bad communication, a lack of openness and trust, and the failure of managers to attend to the needs of their employees. Early management frameworks like scientific management and administrative theory responded by designing rigid organizational structures – detailed rules, clear hierarchies, and defined procedures – with the goal of leaving no room for disagreement to take root.

There is a surface-level logic to this approach. Clearly defined roles and expectations do reduce certain types of friction. But the traditional view had a critical blind spot: it focused entirely on suppressing conflict rather than understanding its root causes. By pushing disagreements underground, managers didn’t resolve them – they simply delayed them, often allowing underlying tensions to fester and resurface later in more damaging ways. While many people still instinctively take this view – that conflict is bad and needs to go away – organizational behavior research since the late 1940s has increasingly shown that this is not the full picture.

The human relations view: conflict as natural and manageable 🔗

As the field of organizational behavior matured in the late 1940s and continued through the mid-1970s, researchers began to challenge the traditional stance. The result was the Human Relations View, which accepted a more realistic picture of how people actually behave when working together.

The Human Relations View held that conflict was a natural occurrence in all groups and organizations, and since it was inevitable, it should be embraced rather than eliminated. This was a significant philosophical shift. Instead of treating disagreement as evidence of dysfunction, this perspective acknowledged that wherever people work together – each bringing different goals, personalities, and priorities – some level of tension is simply unavoidable.

From suppression to management 🔗

The Human Relations View redirected management energy away from avoidance and toward resolution. Rather than trying to prevent conflict from occurring at all, managers were encouraged to facilitate open discussions, mediate disputes, identify shared goals, and work toward solutions that addressed underlying concerns. This gave rise to structured conflict resolution techniques that are still widely used today.

Crucially, this school of thought also started to recognize that conflict was not always harmful. Researchers began to see that conflict might actually benefit a group’s performance – though this idea was still emerging at this stage. The Human Relations View planted the seed, but didn’t fully develop the argument that conflict could be actively useful. That development came next.

The interactionist view: conflict as a necessary force 🔗

The most forward-thinking of the three perspectives emerged prominently in the 1970s and remains the dominant framework in modern organizational behavior. The Interactionist View doesn’t just tolerate conflict – it argues that a certain minimum level of conflict is necessary for any group to remain healthy, innovative, and responsive.

The Interactionist View holds that conflict is necessary to operate effectively and can be beneficial for a group, distinguishing between conflict that is functional and conflict that is dysfunctional. This distinction is the heart of the framework.

Functional vs. dysfunctional conflict 🔗

Functional conflict is constructive and task-focused. It involves debate over ideas, methods, goals, or approaches – the kind of disagreement that sharpens thinking, surfaces blind spots, and leads to better decisions. Functional conflict encourages healthy debate, drives innovation, and improves problem-solving, with team members challenging ideas in ways that foster creativity and enhance decision-making. In an agribusiness context, this might look like a procurement manager and a sustainability officer debating supplier selection criteria – the tension between cost efficiency and ethical sourcing ultimately leads to a more balanced, well-reasoned policy.

Dysfunctional conflict, by contrast, is destructive. It typically involves personal attacks, miscommunication, or unresolved grievances that generate tension, reduce productivity, damage morale, and undermine organizational goals. This is the type of conflict that the Traditional View was reacting to – and rightly so. The Interactionist View doesn’t dismiss those concerns; it simply insists that not all conflict belongs in this category.

Why too little conflict is also a problem 🔗

One of the most important contributions of the Interactionist View is its warning against the dangers of too much harmony. An organization that never experiences conflict risks becoming static, apathetic, and unresponsive to the need for change and innovation. When teams always agree, it often means that people are holding back – avoiding difficult questions, deferring to authority, or conforming to group pressure rather than sharing genuine assessments. This is what organizational psychologists call groupthink, and it can lead to poor decisions that go unchallenged simply because no one felt safe – or motivated – to push back.

The Interactionist View therefore encourages group leaders to maintain an ongoing, minimum level of conflict – enough to keep teams self-critical, creative, and alert to the need for change. In practice, this might mean a manager who plays devil’s advocate during planning sessions, invites dissenting opinions, or structures team discussions to ensure multiple viewpoints are heard before a decision is finalized.

How the three views compare 🔗

It is useful to place these three perspectives side by side to appreciate how thinking has evolved. The Traditional View treats conflict as inherently negative and prescribes elimination. The Human Relations View accepts conflict as inevitable and focuses on managing it constructively. The Interactionist View goes further still – it positions a moderate level of conflict as not just acceptable, but essential for high-performing organizations.

Conflict can be thought of like a bell curve: too little leads to stagnation, too much leads to destructive behavior, but a moderate, well-managed level of healthy disagreement can enhance individual and group achievement. The challenge for any manager – whether overseeing a cooperative, a food processing facility, or an agricultural input company – is to find and maintain that productive middle ground.

Applying these views in agribusiness management 🔗

In practice, none of these views is entirely obsolete. Elements of the Traditional View still apply in contexts where strict safety protocols, regulatory compliance, or standardized procedures must be followed without deviation. There is no room for a “healthy debate” about whether food safety standards should be met. However, for strategic planning, team dynamics, innovation, and problem-solving, the Human Relations and Interactionist Views provide far more useful guidance.

Modern agribusiness managers benefit most from understanding when to intervene in a conflict and when to let it run its productive course. One of the most effective tools for keeping conflict functional is mediation – bringing conflicting parties together to communicate their concerns and work toward solutions that benefit the broader organization. Equally important is creating a workplace culture where people feel safe to voice disagreement without fear of retaliation, a condition that research consistently links to better team performance and greater organizational adaptability.

The three views of conflict – traditional, human relations, and interactionist – are not just historical artifacts of management theory. They reflect real attitudes that still exist in workplaces today. The manager who immediately shuts down any sign of disagreement is operating from the Traditional View. The one who acknowledges tension but tries to mediate it reflects the Human Relations perspective. And the one who deliberately invites dissent in strategy meetings to sharpen the team’s thinking embodies the Interactionist View at its most applied.

What do you think? Does your organization lean toward eliminating conflict, managing it, or actively using it as a tool for innovation – and has that approach served you well? If a team you were part of never disagreed on anything, would you see that as a sign of healthy culture or a warning sign worth investigating?

References

1. https://www.tutorialspoint.com/different-views-of-conflict
2. https://indiafreenotes.com/transitions-in-conflict-thought-traditional-human-relations-interactionist/
3. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-organizationalbehavior/chapter/what-is-conflict/
4. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wmopen-organizationalbehavior/chapter/conflict-management-2/
5. https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/conflictmanagement/chapter/1-1-conflict-defined/
6. https://thebusinessprofessor.com/management-leadership-organizational-behavior/conflict-management-in-groups
7. https://www.aihr.com/hr-glossary/functional-conflict/
8. https://www.aihr.com/hr-glossary/dysfunctional-conflict/
9. https://www.viquepedia.com/archive/conflict-management
10. https://study.com/academy/lesson/functional-vs-dysfunctional-conflict-in-organizations-differences-and-mediation.html