A common conflict situation I have seen often in the workplace is the perception of favoritism. This conflict seems to arise more often when coworkers do not typically get along with each other in the beginning before the perception has even been established. The anecdote below will hopefully give a better insight.
Almost four years ago, I worked in a small media production office that is a division of a large command Public Affairs Directorate. Two non-commissioned officers (NCOs) were recently retrained into the career field and arrived at the workplace only two weeks apart. Not only did they arrive virtually at the same time, they both were the same rank and had the same amount of service time. The two on paper and at first glance were equal in every way; however, they did not get along very well. After several months, it became clear that one of them was having difficulty keeping up with the workload while the other was doing quite well. The evidence eluding to this was consistently late or unfinished products and defensiveness when questioned. For these reasons, the office manager had no choice but to cut back on a number of assignments and, therefore opportunities for the struggling NCO. The result of noticing that more assignments/opportunities were being given to the other NCO caused a great deal of tension in the workplace. Unfortunately, instead of owning up to their faults, seeking help, or trying harder, the person began to find excuses on why they could not complete their assignments or why it wasn't important to them. These actions were the beginning of what became an onslaught of issues expansion. "In issues expansion, extra issues are attached to the conflict to increase the apparent distance between the parties' positions (Walton, 1969)."
The reactions from the NCO grew worse and worse until there became outright accusations of racism and bigotry. The individual in question was an African American female working under the almost solely Caucasian leadership and even though the manager was female, somehow the NCO developed the idea that sexism was taking place. These "umbrella" issues would be the final straw before stronger action took place. "Umbrellas are issues one party introduces to legitimize grievances when the original issue is one that others would not normally accept as valid (Walton, 1969)." After a year of this behavior, the command leadership became involved. After a long investigation, it was determined the claims were indeed false. Eventually, the NCO admitted her faults and became a more proactive member of the office, but the damage had been done. Unfortunately, the once bright and motivated NCO separated from the military.
Framing perspective
"The ways in which conflicts are framed is also influenced by conflict interaction. As parties interact, they give each other cues that may trigger certain types of frames. How a conflict is framed is influenced by the interaction among parties, and frames ...
