Conflict Management Within the Rcmp: a Critical Incident Study

This work investigates what helps and what hinders RCMP employees in managing conflict in their workplace. Resolving conflict in the workplace is becoming increasingly meaningful and important for both workers and employers in organizations. The study is important to the field of conflict management, and related fields such as organizational development, in terms of both theory and practice, as it concretely expands our understanding of the experience of workplace conflict for employees. The issues impacting conflict management identified by the participants in this study can be grouped into four categories: Process, Perception, People, and Power. The four categories can be further broken down into 11 sub-categories: perceived organizational support, peers, management, communication, training, mediation, psychological support, personal circumstance, transition, and stress leave. In each of these categories both helping and hindering critical incidents were identified by participants. This study provides a detailed description and analysis of the critical incidents that help or hinder RCMP employees in managing conflict in their workplace.