Studying organizational conflict is intriguing for a number of reasons. Pruitt and Rubin apply well across the board. But organizational conflict is also different. The concept of confidentiality, for example, must have a different meaning in an organization in which relationships exist on many levels. Perhaps because thinking about conflict in organizations is somewhat different from thinking about it, say, in community or international settings, the dispute resolution field has only recently begun to think seriously about it at all.
Organizational conflict fits well with the interests of most of our students.
Many, of course, are mid career professionals working in organizations. Interestingly, many of our international students have also brought curiosity about organizational conflict, opening the possibility of developing cross-cultural approaches to the question. The idea of offering a curricular emphasis on organizational conflict can be traced back to the year before the Masters Program began when outside evaluators Craig McEwen and Deborah Kolb proposed it. Their reasoning then is still persuasive. And one can add to it that such an emphasis would be unique among graduate dispute resolution degree programs nationally and would offer potential students considering dispute resolution graduate study some clarity about their alternatives.