Cooperation vs. Conflict: Best Management Approach for Knowledge Development
This paper investigates which management approach — encouraging cooperation or fostering conflict among staff — produces the best outcomes for organizational knowledge development. Beginning with clear definitions of knowledge development, cooperation, and conflict, the paper reviews research on strategic alliances, communities of practice, and social network analysis before examining how managed conflict counters groupthink and accelerates innovation. Case studies including NASA's Challenger and Hubble failures, Bell Labs, and the iPad tablet race illustrate both approaches in action. The paper concludes that managed conflict, including practices such as brainstorming, is the more effective driver of knowledge development, while acknowledging that cooperation remains essential once knowledge has been established.
- Introduction: Organizations depend on managed knowledge development to survive
- Definitions: Defining knowledge development, cooperation, and conflict
- Cooperation vs. Conflict: Research evidence comparing both approaches to knowledge growth
- How Management Should React: Practical guidance on using conflict to develop knowledge
- Conclusion: Managed conflict is the superior knowledge development strategy
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper grounds its argument in clear definitions before moving to analysis, ensuring readers understand the key terms — knowledge development, cooperation, and conflict — before evidence is presented.
- It uses concrete, recognizable case studies (NASA's Challenger disaster, Bell Labs, Apple's iPad) to make abstract management concepts tangible and persuasive.
- The paper acknowledges the merits of both approaches before committing to a reasoned conclusion, which strengthens its credibility and demonstrates nuanced thinking.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper employs a compare-and-contrast analytical structure, systematically weighing the research evidence for cooperation against the evidence for conflict before synthesizing a qualified conclusion. This technique — presenting a genuine tension between two positions and resolving it with evidence — is a hallmark of effective argumentative academic writing at the undergraduate level.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a broad framing of organizational complexity before narrowing to its central research question. A definitions section establishes conceptual clarity. The main body presents cooperative and conflict-based approaches in sequence, with supporting citations throughout. A practical "How Management Should React" section bridges research to application. The conclusion uses an extended metaphor (Pacific Rim geology) to reinforce the core argument before closing with a direct managerial recommendation.
Introduction
Understanding business, and what that process contains, is extremely complex. It takes years of study and focus to gain even a rudimentary idea of all a company has to do to remain viable. A company must have employees who understand their jobs, clear work goals for all concerned, accounting practices that accurately reflect the company's finances, and many other processes running across every level of the organization. Threads run through all of an organization's working practices that tend to bind it together. These threads can be tangible communication channels — email, phone lines, and other forms of information technology — or they can be intangible. These intangible communication lines represent another layer of complexity that managers must control and shape. How people deal with one another is the way an organization actually functions, because people are the true glue that holds a company together more than any other single asset. People also add the most complexity to the organization, and how they are managed largely determines the relative success or failure of an enterprise.
The members of an organization provide the knowledge upon which it is based, and they can absorb further knowledge that will help sustain the company. Knowledge development and management are critical because an industry is always changing as processes improve, and an organization must continually develop its knowledge base or it will fail. Management of employees with regard to knowledge development is equally crucial, but determining how to manage that development can be daunting. Encouraging cooperation among participants is one way to generate knowledge, but fostering some amount of conflict also helps the knowledge base grow. This paper examines these two methods of developing knowledge and attempts to determine which process is the more efficient approach according to existing research.
Definitions
The central question is: in order to achieve the best outcomes for knowledge development, what management approach is best — one that encourages cooperation between staff, or one that encourages conflict? Three terms must be more clearly understood before an analysis can be conducted: knowledge development, cooperation between staff, and conflict between staff.
Knowledge can be simply defined as "awareness or learning" (Knowledge), but the development of this concept is more involved. Knowledge — sometimes called intellectual capital, meaning "nonfinancial measures and other related information" (Moon & Kym) — development implies that there must be a method by which knowledge is acquired; it is not necessarily something the individual possessed previously. The management aspect of knowledge development involves assisting individuals to continuously acquire knowledge that will benefit the entire organization, whether by helping them experience different aspects of the organization or by giving them the means to educate themselves (Cohen). This acquisition can come through either cooperation or conflict.
The cooperation aspect has been the most studied in the emerging field of knowledge management (Mischen & Jackson). Cooperation among employees means that they share the knowledge they possess and try to improve the overall knowledge base in any way they can. Researchers have examined this under such frameworks as community of practice (Liu & Fisher) and social network analysis (Mischen & Jackson). It might seem intuitive that people learn more readily from willing colleagues, but this is not always the case.
Throughout the history of organizations, companies have specifically worked to pit departments, groups, or individuals against one another for the betterment of the entire company (Morris, Kocak & Ozer). This is not a combative practice, but one in which groups work against each other to improve the knowledge base for the good of the whole. Many examples of this practice exist within technology companies. One specific example is the individual work that Bell Labs scientists conducted to produce many early innovations, including the transistor. This style of management may seem counterintuitive, but only if the conflict and competition do not ultimately result in an addition to the company's total knowledge.
Conflict can also arise directly in meetings and workgroups. When people experience a degree of conflict between individuals, they may be better able to arrive at a positive outcome (Fischler). Sometimes what appears to be a viable solution is not, and what seems to be a detriment turns out to be exactly what the company needed to add to its knowledge base (Fischler).
Works Cited
Cohen, Debra J. "Knowledge Development — Future Focus: Emerging Issues — in Human Resource Management." HR Magazine (2003). Web.
de Dreu, Carsten K.W., and Evert van de Vliert. Using Conflict in Organizations. New York: Sage Publications, 1997. Print.
Fischler, Michael L. "From Crisis to Growth… Race, Culture, Ethnicity, Conflict and Change." Education 124.2 (2003): 396–398. Print.
"Knowledge." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2011.
Liu, Yongcan, and Linda Fisher. "Danwei as a Community of Practice and Induction Teachers as Legitimate Peripheral Participants." Research in Education 75 (2006): 99–101. Print.
Mischen, Pamela A., and Stephen K. Jackson. "Connecting the Dots: Applying Complexity Theory, Knowledge Management, and Social Network Analysis to Policy Implementation." Public Administration Quarterly 32.3 (2008): 314–322. Web.
Moon, Yun Ji, and Hyo Gun Kym. "A Model for the Value of Intellectual Capital." Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences 23.3 (2006): 253–262. Web.
Morris, Michael H., Akin Kocak, and Alper Ozer. "Coopetition as a Small Business Strategy: Implications for Performance." Journal of Small Business Strategy 18.1 (2007): 35–48. Web.
Porter, Gina, Fergus Lyon, Fatima Adamu, and Lanre Obafemi. "Conflict and Cooperation in Market Spaces: Learning for the Operation of Local Networks of Civic Engagement in African Market Trade." Human Organization 69.1 (2010): 31–34. Print.
Suseno, Yuliani, and Vanessa Ratten. "A Theoretical Framework of Alliance Performance: The Role of Trust, Social Capital and Knowledge Development." Journal of Management and Organization 13.1 (2007): 4–18. Print.
Ward, Sandra E. "The Common Sense Model: An Organizing Framework for Knowledge Development in Nursing." Scholarly Inquiry for Nursing Practice 7.2 (1993): 79–85. Print.
Zhang, Haisu, Chengli Shu, Xu Jiang, and Alan J. Malter. "Managing Knowledge for Innovation: The Role of Cooperation, Competition, and Alliance Nationality." Journal of International Marketing 18.4 (2010). Web.
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