Arguments that are ignored escalate into conflicts between and among internal and external organizational stakeholders. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon tragedy exemplifies this escalation, where a narrative of profit eclipsed a commitment to safety. Georg Simmel1 considers conflict to be a unifying communicative force. He argues that conflict is “designed to resolve divergent dualisms; it is a way of achieving some kind of unity” (Simmel 1955, p. 13). Conflict can unify various perspectives that emerge within the marketplace. For Heath (2000), the marketplace is not simply a place of argument, but a context for a “rhetorical battleground” replete with ongoing conflicts. Conflict within and between organizations and stakeholders ...
Get Corporate Communication Crisis Leadership now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
