Strategic Conflict Management – A Game–Theoretical Introduction

Whenever a group of individuals comes together and interact in order to reach a common goal, differing individual preferences can lead to conflict. This book focuses on the management of these internal conflicts within business organizations.

Peter-J. Jost and Utz Weitzel analyze organizational conflicts and illustrate how the parties involved utilize strategic actions to achieve a desired outcome in conflict. The authors use numerous examples of internal conflicts that are well-known to both practitioners and academics to define and explain the basic concepts of game theory. They then focus on the management of conflict, highlighting how the strategic behavior of conflicting parties can be influenced by direct governance or by changing organizational framework parameters. In contrast to much of the existing literature in this field, the focus is not on formal definitions or mathematical proofs, but solely on the application of game theory to strategic conflict management.

This book represents a valuable tool in the assessment of organizational conflicts from a fresh, strategic perspective underpinned by game theory. It will therefore prove fascinating reading for scholars and practitioners with an interest in a broad range of fields encompassing business and management, strategic management, organizational studies, human resource management and game theory.

Peter-J. Jost, WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, Vallendar, Germany and Utz Weitzel, Radboud University, The Netherlands