Motorboat manufacture Tamarack Industries has a summer student hire program. The program is designed to backfill the permanent employees while they take vacation time, primarily during the summer months. The majority of Tamarack Industries permanent employees do not care for the summer hire program due to the students’ lack of skills and unprofessional behavior. Supervisor Dan Jensen decided this summer he would try a different strategy and put all the summer hires on one team. Mark Allen the most experienced employee leads the charge with enthusiasm. Mark’s training techniques related to the younger, technological savvy students, and soon their production rate matched the experience employees. What started out as friendly competition …show more content…
Dan Jensen had enough of the rivalry between the two groups and decided to shuffle the summer hires and permanent employees together. Mark did not feel that was the appropriate action, he feared the students would quit. There are six main conditions that cause conflict in organizational settings: incompatible goals, differentiation, interdependence, scarce resources, ambiguous rules, and communication problems (McShane & Von Glinow, 2014). Tamarack Industries shows a few signs of structural conflicts, the biggest source is differentiation. According to McShane & Von Glinow (2014), “Differentiation differs from goal incompatibility; two people or departments may agree on a common goal but have different beliefs about how to achieve that goal” (pg. 317). The older employees did not care for the students’ antics. When they finished their production for the day, they would goof off and be condescending towards the other group of employees. Interdependence conflict was prevalent as well; this type of interdependence increased as resources were sabotaged and work production was affected. “Resource scarcity generates conflict because each person or unit requiring the same resource necessarily undermines others who also need that
classes working together. The conflict was the bosses knew what was going on but kept it a
Potential conflicts are stepping on each other’s toes, lack of compromise, lack of communication, or a member not being committed to turn in assignments on time or come to class prepared.
Understanding how situations can become conflicts are important matters to investigate in hopes of preventing it from happening again. Every employee (in their minds) have different perspectives as to why conflicts happen. Such things include a lack of communication, feeling as if others are not doing their jobs, crazy rules, special treatment of friends as well as expectations that they feel are not reasonable. Conflicts that management may be involved in could be poor communication, lack of appropriate response to any given situation, not taking responsibility for their own errors, letting work & personal life interfere with the other, as well as not having good prioritizing
Riaz, M. & Junaid, F. (2011). Types, Sources, Cost and Consequences of Workplace Conflicts. Asian Journal of Management Research. 2(1), 600-611.
The textbook definition of conflict is when two or more individuals or concepts appear to be incompatible, and in this case low productivity versus high productivity is the conflict that must be addressed between the employee and manager. Power on the other hand is the capacity to do something either by physical force or strength and in this case the employee perceives that the manager has all the power in this situation. This now becomes a power imbalance or struggle of major proportion as the employee perceives t...
According to the Theorists as groups turn into teams, most conflict happens in the “storming” stage of team development (De Janasz, Dowd & Schneider, 2001). First, one must understand what conflict is. Capozzoli (1999) cites Boulding’s 1962 definition of conflict as “a situation of competition in which the parties are aware of the incompatibility of potential future positions and in which each party wishes to occupy a position which is incompatible with the wishes of the other.” Conflict can be either constructive or destructive to the team and can be created in several ways. Conflict must be analyzed and understood for the team to resolve it.
This form of conflict can materialize either through oversuperiority or overinferiority. In both cases, there is an inverse relationship between the degree of stratification between people and the severity of conflict. Put differently, overstratification causes more conflict among people who are more similar to begin with. Oversuperiority occurs when a superior gains more status than before. During my interview day for medical school, the Dean of Admissions made it a point to let us know that the school has a distinctively collaborative environment.
Conflict as defined by Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary is a competitive or opposing action of incompatibles: antagonistic state or action (as of divergent ideas, interest, or persons), Mental struggle resulting from incompatible or opposing needs, drives, wishes, or external or internal demands. Simply put conflict is the disagreement and disharmony that occurs in groups when differences are expressed regarding ideas, methods, and/ or members (Engleberg, Wynn, and Schuttler, 2003). Conflict among teams or groups develops in many ways. In developing an effective team, members will generally experience the five stages of evolution: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning. The storming and norming stages deal with the process of conflict (storming) and resolution (norming). During the storming stage, exact conflict has not yet been identified and therefore chaos, disorganization, and disputes are apparent. The Norming stage is where conflict is identified and dealt with and resolutio...
Many people enjoy working or participating in a group or team, but when a group of people work together chances are that conflicts will occur. Hazleton describes conflict as the discrepancy between what is the perceived reality and what is seen as ideal (2007). “We enter into conflicts reluctantly, cautiously, angrily, nervously, confidently- and emerge from them battered, exhausted, sad, satisfied, triumphant. And still many of us underestimate or overlook the merits of conflict- the opportunity conflict offers every time it occurs” (Schilling, nd.). Conflict does not have to lead to a hostile environment or to broken relationships. Conflict if resolved effectively can lead to a positive experience for everyone involved. First, there must be an understanding of the reasons why conflicts occur. The conflict must be approached with an open mind. Using specific strategies can lead to a successful resolution for all parties involved. The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument states “there are five general approaches to dealing with conflict. The five approaches are avoidance, accommodation, competition, compromise, and collaboration. Conflict resolution is situational and no one approach provides the best or right approach for all circumstances” (Thomas, 2000).
Although there is a plethora of possible sources of conflict in any workplace, the ones in this case are rather explicit. These include personal differences, Informal deficiencies’, role incompatibility, environment stress, perceptions, and expectations. Personal differences could be related to personal values, physiognomies, family bonds or ties, and material belongings.
Differences within the team are the major reason for conflict. This stems from differences in opinion, attitude, beliefs, as well as cultural back grounds and social factors. The Conflict can be positive which is functional and supports or benefits the organization or a person’s main objectives (Reaching Out, 1997). Conflict is viewed as positive when the conflict results in increased involvement form the group, increased cohesion, and positive innovation and creativity. Conflict tends to be positive as well when it leads to better decisions, and solutions to long-term problems.
This model distinguishes six possible sources of conflict that may arise: incompatible goals, differentiation, interdependence, scarce resources, ambiguous rules, and communication problem (McShane and Von Glinow 332-333). Incompatible goals involves that “the goal of one person or department seem to interfere with another person’s or department’s goal” (McShane and Von Glinow 333). Differentiation is described as the “difference among people, departments, and other entities regarding their training, values, beliefs, and experiences” (McShane and Von Glinow 333). Interdependence “occurs where individuals operate interdependently except for reliance on a common source or authority” (McShane and Von Glinow 335). Scarce Resources are a source of conflict when several persons or units require the same recourse to fulfill their goals. Ambiguous Rules occur as a source of conflict because “uncertainty increases the risk that one party intends to interfere with the other party’s goals” (McShane and Von Glinow 335). Communication Problems are a source of conflict “due to the lack of opportunity, ability, or motivation to communicate effectively” (McShane and Von Glinow 333).
(Asawo, 2011). Conflict can occur in any setting and as leaders in organizations guide and
Conflict exists in every organization as a result of incompatible needs, goals, and objectives of two people while aligning to the overall business requirements. Though disagreement is linked with negative impact, the approach has healthy considerations (Leung, 2008). For instance, some conflicts create an avenue for the exchange of ideas and creativity to meet the set organizational purposes. However, damaging disagreement in organizations results in employee dissatisfaction, turnover, and poor services and reduced productivity. The paper establishes different types of interpersonal conflict and key resolution strategies used to address the problem. Human resource managers need to have the capacity to identify different levels of conflicts and the best methods to negate them.
Industrial Conflict is a broad and complex topic and conflicts may arise from many diverse issues resulting hostile acts by employers and employees.