4 Types of Organizational Conflict (Levels)

Organizational Level of Conflict is always present in organizations and need to be identified by the project manager to help them manage the stakeholders accordingly. There are 4 types of organizational conflict with different levels as you go deeper into an organization structure between teams and managers.

Intraorganizational conflict is one of many aspects of conflict that classifies conflict that exists within an traditional or an agile organization. Four of these types of conflict are intrapersonal, interpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup.

These levels of conflict are types of disagreements that can affect one individual or a group of them. They each come with their own sets of challenges as well as ways for resolving conflict. 

Organizational Levels of Conflict
Organizational Levels of Conflict

Intrapersonal Conflict

Is when an individual has a cognitive conflict within themselves. It arises out of an individuals thoughts, values, or ideas and can present itself when you are struggling with making a decision on what you want to do or what you should do. An example of this would be if the team member that is responsible for designing a gallery for a website is debating with themselves whether or not they should code for the gallery to be positioned as a carousel or tiled.

They personally like they know that the client would prefer for it to be tiled, but they prefer for it to be in a carousel format. The cognitive conflict in this scenario can exist to knowing that their values exists to fulfilling the exact requests of the client or going with what they think is best.

Interpersonal Conflict

Interpersonal conflict is an affective conflict between individual people, usually two or more. Often times interpersonal conflict presents itself when there are people that differ in personality or perspectives comes together to determine how to accomplish a goal or they may have two competing goals. A goal conflict sometimes can occur without a party knowing that there was conflict to being with.  An example of this occurring would be if two people disagree on which target audience they should develop their client’s website for.

Intragroup Conflict

Intragroup conflict occurs when people within a organization, group or team have conflict with other members within the group. This conflict is also caused when there are people with a variety of opinions and perspectives that may disagree on how to accomplish a goal or may disagree on which goal should be accomplished first. Having a goal conflict in an intragroup can also occur when there are differences in communication and personalities. An example of this is a group being responsible for building the JavaScript for the website and having disagreements on varying methods of organizing it.

Intergroup Conflict

Is when a group or team has conflict with another group within an organization. It is a form of intraorganizational conflict that tends to occur when groups do not have the same goals and involves discord or tension. This could occur if multiple groups within an organization has disagreements on a completion deadline for each part of a website.

>> More info on Five Levels of Organizational Conflict in Agile Environment

Scroll to Top