Provides a holistic and interdisciplinary approach to understanding conflict analysis and management as a field of study and practice. Focuses on engaging with conflict, change, and systems specifically related to organizational contexts.
Links theory with professional practice. Develops professional skills for dealing with conflict in and among groups and teams in a safe learning environment. Analyzes the different characteristics of interpersonal, intra-group and intergroup conflicts and how this informs professional practice.
Focuses on reflective practice, professional conduct, and leadership skills for the conflict management practitioner. Applies a systems approach to conflict and change management. Develops competencies for tapping into the creative potential of conflict towards the goal of productive organizational change.
Provides an introduction to legal systems and quasi-legal processes used in conflict resolution, including courts, arbitration and restorative justice. Advances skills of legal analysis, case analysis and problem-solving. Critically examines the role of law in shaping relationships between individuals and groups as well as between the state and society.
Examines conflict-management process design in organizational contexts, including impact assessment. Advances interpersonal communication and intercultural competencies. Explores the use of technology as a process tool.
The course will provide you opportunities to delve into your own approaches to conflict engagement and how you engage with diversity in thought, worldview, cultures, and needs with an aim to address differences and bridge similarities. We will explore how (and whether) to engage with a particular conflict, consider the analysis of the conflict, potential processes to address it, and how to engage with complexity.
One of the key goals of any engagement with a conflict system is to make a connection. This applies to the conflict engagement specialists connecting with the system (as third party assistance or third party intervenor, even as embedded practitioner) as much as to facilitation connection between and among the parties and stakeholders. This requires consulting the people within system to learn where the “pain points” and “leverage points” are. The place where a process takes place is essential. The place may also inform choices for smaller processes that are used within larger process designs.
A key aspect for any process choice is the impact on individuals as well as the overall conflict system. What ‘better’ looks like might be different than what was originally asked for or even anticipated. Often, the impact of the presence of a third party is underestimated in process design thinking and planning. This includes intended and unintended consequences of engagement with a conflict system and the impact the have on structures, attitudes, and transactions and the people making up the system.
Examines core concepts and theories on culture and cultural competence. Engages students in application of theoretical frameworks in professional and personal settings. Provides students with an opportunity to critically examine their own socio-cultural locations to raise intercultural awareness, assist in intercultural mindset development, and facilitate intercultural competence development. Enables students to apply an intercultural analysis to complex situations involving stakeholders of different cultural backgrounds. (Last offering planned for 26-Jul-2027 till 26-Sep-2027, approximate dates, to be confirmed)
Explores the nature and impacts of conflicts related to environmental and resource management issues in domestic and international contexts. Examines diversity of perspectives and mandates of stakeholders associated with these types of conflicts, and explores strategies for engaging with these issues to support sustainable development and protect basic human rights.
Develops core skills for professionals working in conflict and change management contexts: reflective practice, use of self, skills, process, and context of application. Examines design and implementation of sustainable and integrative changes at organisational and community levels, as well as in complex multi-stakeholder environments. Builds professional competencies for dealing with resistance and generating buy-in and ownership in change processes.