Building a collaborative workplace culture: a South African perspective

Abstract

This contribution proceeds from a number of assumptions, i.e., that (a) conflict is an inevitable part of any employment relationship but is also a manageable and potentially valuable phenomenon (Swanepoel 1999; McNully et al. 2013); (b) low levels of trust in work environments serve either as a trigger or aggravating factor in the escalation of conflict (Purcell 2012a); (c) improved levels of trust can reduce the occurrence and intensity of conflict, or facilitate the constructive resolution of workplace conflict, or both (Douwes Dekker 1990); and (d) collaboration to resolve workplace conflicts and disputes normally delivers superior outcomes with less relational consequences that results arrived at through competitive or adversarial means (Van Boven and Thompson 2003). As our first assumption suggests, we adopt a pluralistic industrial relations frame of reference, as opposed to a unitary or radical approach.