Interorganizational conflict: a labor-management bargaining experiment

The recent growth of research on conflict has been stimulated principally by the work of game theorists and psychologists.2 Relatively few recent contributions have been made by sociologists whose interest in conflict is of long standing (cf. Bernard, 1965). One outstanding exception is Coser's work in codifying Simmel's analysis of conflict and in advancing the thesis that conflict often has positive functions in social systems (Coser, 1956). Another exception is Lipset's work on the importance of conflict for democracy and societal integration (Lipset, 1960, pp. 1-2, 27-28, 428ff). Several decades ago, Ross formulated the proposition that noncoincident multiple lines of cleavage have a stabilizing function