**Information and Information Technologies in Conflict Management Management**

**Information and Information Technologies in Conflict** 

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.72109

Andrei Aleinikov, Daria Maltseva, Alexander Kurochkin

Andrei Aleinikov, Daria Maltseva, Alexander Kurochkin and Tatiana Koulakova and Tatiana Koulakova Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.72109

#### **Abstract**

This paper analyzes information and modern information technologies as applied in different organizational environment and considers the content and peculiarities of conflict management process based on implementation of communicative scenarios. Currently, the need for escalated organizational transformations has become imminent, taking into account the intensifying development of the differentiated information society, which requires properly interactive and transparent policy-making. Correct understanding of information and effective implementation of information technologies is a rational attempt to harmonize the modern organizational environment reducing the level of conflict and improving efficiency indexes.

**Keywords:** information technologies, conflict management, IT innovations, strategy, communication

#### **1. Introduction**

Evidently, policy-making process in contemporary organizations takes place in conditions of uncertainty, flux, unpredictability and variation. It means that the analysis of policy design and implementation requires clear understanding of a multi-agent system affected by various internal and external communications. The policy-making approach and the underlying policy process need instruments that help to control potential risks preventing their turning into destructive dangers for organization environment. In that case, conflict management plays a significant role in decision-making process and cannot be ignored for deeper understanding of efficient strategy formulation in modern organizations.

Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons

Many books, thesis papers and articles have already dealt with negative points of conflicts at a workplace. Surprisingly enough, that is not the end of it. Having conflicts at a workplace appears to bring benefits as well. Morozov in his article dealing with conflicts at a workplace [1] classified the gain of them into seven main categories. And let us dwell a little bit on them. The first one is that conflicts help people adapt and integrate into the organization better. The second one is that they relieve the inner tension and in the long run make the working environment more balanced. The third one shows that conflicts indicate a changing balance of power within the organization. The fourth is that conflict brings to the surface deeply hidden objections, dissatisfaction and mistakes. The fifth is that a conflict may provoke a solution that would not happen otherwise. This kind of solution may be very dramatic and unusual, not to say unexpected. The sixth is that conflicts stimulate organizational processes. And finally, the seventh one clearly shows that after facing a conflict, the group actually becomes more efficient as a nation at war does. People sort of stand together to solve the problem and it certainly promotes cooperation and team spirit. Needless to say, it only works in case the conflicts are successfully settled and not suppressed.

Organization environment may be considered from various scientific viewpoints, for example, sociological, economic, political, psychological, cognitive, semiotic, etc. However, the processes of globalization, high industrialization, scientific and technical advance (which caused significant transformation of modern civilizations in twentieth and twenty-first centuries) led to the appearance of new aspects in understanding of management process. In the near future, modern enterprises will primarily need informational and communication development; therefore, actors are required to work more efficiently in order to transform the current habitual non-transparent administration methods. Despite the formal structural development of modern organizations, the need for escalated transformations has become imminent, taking into account the intensifying development of the differentiated information society, which requires proper interactive and transparent policies implemented wherever. Strategic models in administrative process are rationalized attempts to understand how it is possible to avoid common disruptions, accelerate the development of the entire variety of the organization structure, and, most importantly, come to social, economic and political modernization. In the current organization environment, the study of conflict management as an intellectual product is intended to analyze the significance of various factors of the behavior of subjects for the purpose of creating universal patterns of reproduction and positive transformation of organization realm based on the implementation of communication and information technologies.

Currently, dramatic information flow has affected almost all spheres of life. It is attended by the development of new communicative structures and processes, profound changes in the social communicative environment and communicative nature of organizational reality, and reconsideration of the role of information technologies in global development. This prompts the need for a new paradigm and methodology of studying information and communication as an autonomous objects of study that perform specific functions in conflict management process. Transformation of the socio-cultural, political and economic reality during the last 20–30 years has significantly shifted our understanding of the effectiveness of the managerial process. These changes are mostly described using the methodology of post-industrialism with the help of such terms as: technological revolution, network society, information economy, globalization, characterized by growing instability and the disintegration of social systems, unpredictability and the extreme complexity of economic processes, social identity problems, confusion and the exceptional diversity of cultural currents.

Many books, thesis papers and articles have already dealt with negative points of conflicts at a workplace. Surprisingly enough, that is not the end of it. Having conflicts at a workplace appears to bring benefits as well. Morozov in his article dealing with conflicts at a workplace [1] classified the gain of them into seven main categories. And let us dwell a little bit on them. The first one is that conflicts help people adapt and integrate into the organization better. The second one is that they relieve the inner tension and in the long run make the working environment more balanced. The third one shows that conflicts indicate a changing balance of power within the organization. The fourth is that conflict brings to the surface deeply hidden objections, dissatisfaction and mistakes. The fifth is that a conflict may provoke a solution that would not happen otherwise. This kind of solution may be very dramatic and unusual, not to say unexpected. The sixth is that conflicts stimulate organizational processes. And finally, the seventh one clearly shows that after facing a conflict, the group actually becomes more efficient as a nation at war does. People sort of stand together to solve the problem and it certainly promotes cooperation and team spirit. Needless to say, it only works in case the

Organization environment may be considered from various scientific viewpoints, for example, sociological, economic, political, psychological, cognitive, semiotic, etc. However, the processes of globalization, high industrialization, scientific and technical advance (which caused significant transformation of modern civilizations in twentieth and twenty-first centuries) led to the appearance of new aspects in understanding of management process. In the near future, modern enterprises will primarily need informational and communication development; therefore, actors are required to work more efficiently in order to transform the current habitual non-transparent administration methods. Despite the formal structural development of modern organizations, the need for escalated transformations has become imminent, taking into account the intensifying development of the differentiated information society, which requires proper interactive and transparent policies implemented wherever. Strategic models in administrative process are rationalized attempts to understand how it is possible to avoid common disruptions, accelerate the development of the entire variety of the organization structure, and, most importantly, come to social, economic and political modernization. In the current organization environment, the study of conflict management as an intellectual product is intended to analyze the significance of various factors of the behavior of subjects for the purpose of creating universal patterns of reproduction and positive transformation of organization realm based on the implementation of communication and information technologies. Currently, dramatic information flow has affected almost all spheres of life. It is attended by the development of new communicative structures and processes, profound changes in the social communicative environment and communicative nature of organizational reality, and reconsideration of the role of information technologies in global development. This prompts the need for a new paradigm and methodology of studying information and communication as an autonomous objects of study that perform specific functions in conflict management process. Transformation of the socio-cultural, political and economic reality during the last 20–30 years has significantly shifted our understanding of the effectiveness of the managerial process. These changes are mostly described using the methodology of post-industrialism with the help of such terms as: technological revolution, network society, information

conflicts are successfully settled and not suppressed.

148 Management of Information Systems

In these conditions, the key component of an effective conflict management process is communication ability or communication success. By "communicative efficiency" in conflict management, we will understand the function of minimizing transaction costs, considered here in a broader sense, as the costs of ensuring unimpeded communications in the process of social and economic exchanges, as it was presented by Kurochkin [2].

The proposed approach to the conceptualization of the concept of communicative efficiency and, therefore, drawing four types of information technologies is based on the following methodological assumptions: (1) Communicative conflict management efficiency consists of minimizing uncertainty at all levels of the organization management, offering clear "rules of the game" for all counter parties and closely controlling their execution. (2) Communicative efficiency directly depends on the coordination potential of the organizational core, as well as the ability of the preventive conflict resolution. (3) The main way to enhance the coordination potential of the corporation is by introducing the development and implementation of institutionalized practices that clarify the social and economic interactions of actors, as well as ensuring fairness of interactions and, as a consequence, preventing and eliminating conflicts. The basic theoretical foundations of this approach are the concept of communicative action and the theory of agreements in institutional economics.

The concept of communicative action, developed by Habermas [3], proceeds from a new interpretation of the very act of communication: not as an indirect transfer of information from subject A to subject B, but as an equitable discursive dialog, during which both sides should strive to achieve a rational consensus. An important addition to the theory of communicative action in evaluating the effectiveness of conflict management process is the idea of the plurality in value orders structuring communication of people, which found the most complete reflection in the works of French neo-institutionalists, representatives of the theory of agreements: Theveno, Boltyanski, Favorot, Kyapello etc. [4].

Based on works of such researchers in the field of communication and conflict studies as Burton, Karpenko and others, we will carry out the analysis of specific features of the conflict and reveal how rejection of information influences its development. Methods of conflict studies are mostly based on the theory of activity. According to it, the activity of the subject (a) is motivated by certain needs and interests and (b) is aimed at some items (things, money, knowledge, status, etc.) that he needs. But in the process of this activity, the subject is forced to enter into relations with other people. As a result, he himself unwillingly (or wishing) is in conflict with other actors.
