Because organization members must interact and organizations need such interaction to be productive, several different models for reducing or even eliminating conflict have been proposed by theorists. But many of these models and “prescriptive formulations” seem ineffectual or irrelevant. In their study, Hidden Conflict in Organizations, Kolb and Bartunek observed that most of the concepts advanced in formal studies of conflict did not help them to make sense of what they found in their field research: “. . . it became clear to us that conflict was embedded in the routine and mundane activities of the work settings and that it was rarely officially acknowledged or managed in the ways most conflict models suggest.”