Re: LO 18450
Ina,
You asked about theoretical frameworks for addressing issues of
conflict and ethics (in an inter-cultural business context). The question
of how to deal with conflict ethically is at the heart of Mary Parker
Follett's approach to "learning organizations" (although the term wasn't
coined until quite a few decades after her death).
Of course, MPF understood there is no such thing as a learning
organization, just as Senge also makes clear in The Fifth Discipline. It
is people who learn -- and she believed that conflict may serve as our
greatest inhibitor or our greatest benefactor in learning, depending
significantly, upon the attitude we take toward it and upon whether we
learn how to engage conflict constructively -- which from her point of
view, is also to say, ethically.
MPF's classic chapter on conflict is back in print, compliments of
Pauline Graham (editor) and the Harvard Business Press (1996), chapter 2.
The lecture in which she most concisely stated her concept of the business
organization, unfortunately, is still out of print. However, one can get
the sense of it by reading the rest of Mary Parker Follett--Prophet of
Management.
Best wishes,
Terence Harwick
Performance Research
terence@actionlearn.net
--"B Terence Harwick" <Terence@ActionLearn.Net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>