Types and sources of conflicts
The perception of the work life takes into consideration the existence of difference in interests, values and cultural background among the employees, which makes the employment relations more pluralistic and diversified. In any case, it is impossible to avoid conflict situations, which are regarded as a natural process in attaining cooperation within the working environment (Leopold, Harris, Watson, 1999). Effective management of conflict situations includes the understanding and analysis of the types and sources of the conflict conditions.
Mostly, a conflict is associated with aggressive or hostile behaviour but it also may stay quiet or hidden. In this regard, we can outline two major types of conflicts: at the level of interest and at the level of behaviour.
Conflict at the level of interest appears when the managers and employees differently see the desired results of the work performance. While the behavioural level of conflict exists when the parties clash over the perceived differences and engage in open confrontation (Leopold, Harris, Watson, 1999).
The two abovementioned types of conflicts may derive from the several major sources, which are:
Organisational. This source is related to hierarchy and inability to resolve the conflict of interest. The problem of `employees vs management` still exists in many organisations, consequently there is tension created by the difference in levels of responsibilities among the employees as well as among different departments. Conflict can arise over resource distribution, the dispersal of accountability, workload and perks and benefits, different levels of acceptance for risk taking, and changeable opinions on responsibility (Donais, 2006).
Miscommunica...
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... environment which brings in more stress and conflicts connected with variations in management style, downsizing/promotion and modern work technologies. Many workplaces suffer from continuous reorganization, leading to further stress and conflict.
External factors. Economic forces such as recession, fluctuating markets, domestic and foreign competition are those factors with effect all the employees in different countries. Conflicts can exists with clients and contractors affecting customer service and delivery of goods. Also public and non-profit workplaces in particular can face political pressures and demands from special interest groups (Donais, 2006). Changes in government policies can have a sufficient influence, especially on public and non-profit organizations. These concerns can direct to clash between employees and even between high levels of management.
Look up the word conflict in the dictionary and you will see several negative responses. Descriptions such as: to come into collision or disagreement; be at variance or in opposition; clash; to contend; do battle; controversy; quarrel; antagonism or opposition between interests or principles Random House (1975). With the negative reputation associated with this word, no wonder people tend to shy away when they start to enter into the area of conflict. D. Jordan (1996) suggests that there are two types of conflict: good, which is defined as cognitive conflict (C-type conflict) and, detrimental, defined as affective conflict (A-type conflict). The C-type conflict allows for creativity, to pull together a group of people with different opinions or ideas, to combine and brain storm all thoughts to develop the best solution for the problem. The A-type conflict is the negative form when you have animosity, hostility, un-resolveable differences, and egos to deal with. The list citing negative conflicts could go on forever. We will be investigating these types of conflicts, what managers can do to recognize conflict early, and what strategies they can use to resolve conflicts once they have advanced.
Conflicts situation can happen at any time. There are many different ways to handle conflict situations. To strengthen our skills in responding to conflicts situation we must understand the various conflict management style. The five styles of conflict management style include: Competing, Avoiding, Accommodating, Collaborating, and Compromising. The competing style is like a shark, a competitive approach to ensure only your views counts. Avoiding is like a turtle, avoiding every situation and giving up. Accommodating is like a teddy bear, working against your own goals to move forward. Collaborating is like an owl, working together with your partner to achieve both your goals. Compromising is like a fox, negotiating half your goals in order
One of the essential tasks of the management is identifying and solving workplace conflicts which Bent failed to accomplish. Several sources of conflicts are organizational changes (e.g. layoffs and change in ratio), different values (employee priorities versus corporate profits), threats to one’s status (employees; beliefs that they deserve the bonus), contrasting perceptions (beliefs on how the Scanlon Plan should work and how the management should handle downturns), lack of trust (employees’ distrust in management), and workplace incivility (Newstrom, 2014, p. 290), all of which are present in Engstrom. Workplace incivility pertains to the lack of respect in the organization (Newstrom, 2014, p. 290). Consequently, unresolved conflicts have diverse individual and organizational impacts. Fusch and Fusch (2015) studied leaders' conflict resolution strategies in the production line and learned that poor conflict management contributed to lower productivity and performance. A manager who cannot resolve intrapersonal clashes and identify work conflicts can indirectly contribute to displace organizational performance and morale
Conflict is known to be some means of disagreement, or some kind of disharmony rising within a group or between persons when the beliefs or actions of any one party is offensive to another party. Conflict can take place between two individuals, in small groups and work teams, or between two or more groups (Al-Hamdan, Shukri, and Anthony 2011)which may include violence or some kind of mental pressure on either parties involved in conflicts. Usually conflicts start with some kind of disagreement and gradually gets intense and leads way to Conflict resolution.
Conflict would occur when “disagreement exists” within an organisation over different issues (French, 2011). These issues can be associated with power; “the potential ability to influence behaviour” (Pfeffer, 1992 p. 713: cited in Martin, 2005).
Conflict is a process that happens when one party aware of something that another party concern about has negatively affected. The sources of conflict are communication, structure and personal variables occur in both party. The source of conflict is the communication between different cultures with various meaning in words. The higher chance of organizational structure causes conflict as the size of organization is larger. Personal variables causes conflict as both parties involve in same issue with different opinion. There are two reasons of cognition and personalization is perceived conflict and felt conflict. Perceived conflict is one or more parties aware of certain condition will cause conflict. Felt conflict is an emotional
In several occasions, conflict occurs in the communication of one or two people. Several people have thought of conflict as cases involving pouring of furious anger in a communication process. Nonetheless, conflict is the misinterpretation of an individual’s words or values (Huan & YAzdanifard, 2012). Conflict can also be due to limited resources in an organization (Riaz & Junaid, 2010). Conflict may as well arise due to poor communication or the use of inappropriate communication channel of transmission of information between the involved parties. Management of conflict has various conflict management styles that include avoidance style, forcing style, passive-aggressive style, accommodating style, collaborating style and compromising style. Workplace conflict comes in two different kinds: task involving conflict, which focuses on the approaches used in resolving the problem and blaming conflict that has the aspects of blame and never brings element of resolving problems between the conflicting parties. In the perception of several individuals, relationship conflict is negative.
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.
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).
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 McShane and Von Glinow, conflict is “a process in which one party perceives that his or her interests are being opposed or negatively affected by another party” (328). The Conflict Process Model begins with the different sources of conflict; these sources lead one or more parties to perceive that a conflict exists. These perceptions interact with emotions and manifest themselves in the behavior towards other parties. The arrows in the figure illustrate the series of conflict episodes that cycle into conflict escalation (McShane and Von Glinow 331-332).
A-type conflict is a disagreement that focuses on the person or personal issues rather than the idea presented. Disagreement can become rather personal and hurtful instead of professional. ‘A-type conflict often results in hostility, anger, resentment, distrust, cynicism and apathy’ (McWilliams & Williams 2014, p.86).
In the organizational setting, it comes through job retention or desires to be met, employer/employee disagreements and settlement, confidentiality reports and information sharing; all these leads to change in feeling and attitude. However, there are conflict management challenges facing many organizations in Nigeria. It is phenomenal, but can be controlled or managed. Notably, there seems to be growing importance of the conflict in various organizations. Olu and Adesobomi (2013) in a survey revealed that managers spend most of their time handling issues and that conflict management is important for them to function effectively. This means that conflict is always an issue and that peace is one of the important tools needed for an effective running of the organizational Conflict Levels of Educational Supervisors”, stated that supervisors sometimes experience organizational conflict which included other inter-groups and even with departmental heads. Furthermore, communication competence was reported to predict organization conflict. However, conflict remains an issue in organizations and the objective of conflict management are mainly to issue good lasting and quality solution. It is to give disputants fair process and sense of empowerment to resolve conflicts (Spiroska, 2014). This means that conflict is a continuous process and does not cease. However, as a result of a large number of cases of poor conflict management, its
This study aims to increase understanding of factors that influence employees’ reactions in the workplace. The relationship between conflict among employees, the perception of organizational politics, conflict or ambiguity of workplace roles and several other work outcomes was explored by studying 11 research articles to investigate individual and organizational effects of workplace attitudes and behaviors. Employees need to work together toward common goals in order for an organization to function well but there are many roadblocks hindering the process. Results demonstrated a clear relationship between stressors and behaviors.
Industrial Conflict is a broad and complex topic and conflicts may arise from many diverse issues resulting hostile acts by employers and employees.