Understanding conflicts between health professionals: a narrative approach

This article is an examination of one conflict story out of a total of 101 conflict stories from a Norwegian urban hospital. The data comes from an ethnographic study and was gathered through interviews, observations, and existing documents. The author demonstrates how conceptualizing professional conflicts as narratives can bring new insights to understanding, explaining, and resolving conflicts. A major contribution of the narrative approach to conflict management is the emphasis on the conflict as an integral part of the story. Conflict management approaches inspired by research from a positivistic tradition often look beyond the story to the real issues, treating the stories as anecdotes. Within the narrative approach, the parties' stories are considered an integral part of the conflict and solution.