Is ‘power struggle’ different from ‘status conflict’?

The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines struggle as either a competition or a conflict. If we agree that struggle is a broader concept, then the distinction between struggle and conflict, essentially boils down to the nuanced distinction between competition and conflict.

Now to differentiate conflict from competition, we could refer to the paper by Schmidt and Kochan (1972). According to this paper, since goal incompatibility is a necessary precondition of both conflict and competition, it appears that

• Struggle involves goal incompatibility
• Competition does not involve goal interference
• Conflict as opposed to competition is characterized by not just perceived goal incompatibility, but also shared resources, interdependent activities and perceived opportunity for interference

Thus struggle, depending on whether it takes the form of conflict or competition, may or may not involve goal interference.

A recently co-authored paper with Dr Ruchi Sinha theoretically explores this distinction further. The paper has been selected for oral presentation at the 3rd Indian Academy of Management Conference.

Paper summary:
Power and status, two distinct yet related bases of social hierarchy, are intensely sought resources in groups. In this article, we propose a theoretical framework that examines how power and status motives of individuals lead to intragroup struggles. We differentiate between power/status contest and power/status conflicts, and present propositions on how they are related to one another. Drawing on tenets from sociology and psychology, we integrate these phenomena, and propose a process by which they shape group dynamics. We examine how perceptions of socio-structural variables (legitimacy, stability and permeability of hierarchy) moderate the effect of power struggle on status struggle, and power/status contest on conflict. Lastly, we highlight the implications for intragroup conflict research.