MANAGEMENT OF ORGANISATIONAL CONFLICTS

Conflict is not confined at the individual level alone but is manifesting itself more and more in organizations. Management today is faced with the awesome responsibility of ensuring optimum levels of growth and productivity in an environment that is full of conflicting situations.  A survey suggests that the modern manager spends over 20% of his time handling one form of conflict or the other. Top and middle level managers in the same survey have pointed out the importance of conflict management skills.

TYPES OF CONFLICT

1. Conflict within an Individual: There could be conflict within oneself-the intra-personal conflict. Example - You may have an excellent job offer in a city you are not willing to go to.
2. Conflict between Individuals: Conflict between individuals takes place owing to several factors, but most common are personal dislikes or personality differences. When there are only differences of opinion between individuals about task-related matters, it can be construed as technical conflict rather than interpersonal conflict. Of course, technical and interpersonal conflicts may influence each other due to role-related pressures.
3. Conflict between an Individual and a Group: Intragroup conflicts arise frequently due to an individual's inability to conform to the group norms.
4. Conflict between groups within an Organization: Intergroup conflicts are one of the most important types of conflict to understand, as typically, an organization is structured in the form of several interdependent task groups. Some of the usually chronic conflicts in most of the organizations are found at this level, e.g., Union vs. Management, one Union vs. another Union.
5. Conflict between Organizations: Conflict between organizations is considered desirable if limited to the economic context only. The laissez-faire economy is based on this concept. It is assumed that conflict between organizations leads to innovative and new products, technological advancement, and better services at lower prices.

THE PROCESS OF CONFLICT

The four-stage conflict-process model is a very useful framework to understand the episode of any conflict. Conflict is a dynamic process which includes antecedent (pre-existing) conditions, cognitive states, affective states and conflicting behaviour. Below figure on the conflict process will be able to describe and analyse conflict as chain of episodes and tend to unfold in a particular sequence.

Stage-1] Potential Antagonism/Precursor Conditions for Conflict:

You may refer to this stage as the source of conflict where presence of antecedent/precursor conditions that create opportunities for conflict to arise. Some of these antecedent conditions refer to scarcity of resources, heterogeneity of members and diversity of goals, values, perception; degree of dependence between groups; insufficient exchange of information, etc. 

These precursor conditions need not necessarily lead to conflict and may be present in the absence-of conflict as well.

Stage-2] Cognition and Personalization:

The antecedent/precursor conditions may or may not lead to conflict. If a conflict is perceived, it does not mean that it is personalized ("felt conflict"). The situation may be ignored if it is seen as minimally threatening.

However, if situations start hurting individual/party goals/feelings to a reasonable level, conflicts gets to the phase “FELT Conflict level”  where individuals become emotionally involved and parties experience feelings of threat, hostility, fear or mistrust.

Stage-3] Conflictive and Conflict-management Behaviour

Manifest behaviour is the action resulting from perceived and/or felt conflict. At this stage, a conscious attempt is made by one party to block the goal achievement of the other party. Such behaviour may range from subtle, indirect and highly controlled forms of interference to more open forms of aggressive behaviour like strikes, riots and war.

Most conflict-handling behaviours are displayed in several forms like resignation and withdrawal, appeasement and compromise, confrontation and collaboration, et. These behaviours are often referred to as conflict management styles.

Stage-4 ] Aftermath

The interplay between evident conflict behaviour forms and conflict handling strategies influence the consequences. These consequences (in terms of performance of the group, the level of satisfaction and management of organizational conflicts and quality of relationship in the involved parties, change of structure and policies etc.) in turn influence the antecedent conditions and probability of future conflict. 

Sometimes, the aftermath sows the seeds of yet another conflict episode in which case the entire process is repeated.