Conflict Management

Conflict Management
MGT-412
Chapter-7
Conflict In organization

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© 2007 Lynn Van Der Wagen & Anne Goonetilleke Dr. M Abdur Rahman
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Learning Outline

 Organizational conflict
 Issue and reason of Organizational Conflict
 Cause of Organizational conflict
 Types of Organizational Conflict
 Stage of Organizational Conflict
 Organizational Conflict: 6 Factors
 Organizational Conflict: Behavioral and structural factors

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Conflict In Organization

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Conflict in Organization

Organizational conflict is the discord that arises when the

goals, interests or values of different individuals or groups are
incompatible and those individuals or groups block or thwart
one another's attempts to achieve their objective

Organizational Conflict or otherwise known as

workplace conflict, is described as the state of disagreement
or misunderstanding, resulting from the actual or perceived
dissent of needs, beliefs, resources and relationship between
the members of the organization.

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Cause of conflict in an Organization

Conflict is a state of mind in which you find it

impossible to make a decision.
Conflict management is the practice of being able
to identify and handle conflicts sensibly, fairly, and
efficiently. Since conflicts in a business are a natural
part of the workplace, it is important that there are
people who understand conflicts and know how to
resolve them.

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Cause of Conflict
The following sections discuss five of the most
common factors that lead to conflict situations
within organisations.
Misunderstandings.

Poor communication.  

Lack of planning. 

Poor staff selection. 

Frustration, stress and burnout.

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Conflict Management

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Types of Organizational Conflict

1. Task Conflict:
Task conflict relates to the content and goal of the work.
According to Graves, task conflict arises among members
of team and affects the goals and tasks they are striving to
achieve. It can be based on differences in vision, intention,
and quality expectation. It is essential to focus and
channel any task conflict so that these differences. become
collaborative and lead to improvements in the way and go
about accomplishing current and future task. Converting
conflict to friendly competition might be one way of taking
the best from both sides. 

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Types of Organizational Conflict

2. Role Conflict:
Conflict surrounding roles and responsibilities are especially
common during or immediately following organisational
change, particularly restructurings. People may be unclear
on who is responsible for which decisions and outputs. 

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Types of Organizational Conflict

3. Process Conflict:
This is related to how the work gets done. This form of
conflict centers around, the process, procedures, steps or
methods used to reach goal. One person might like to
plan many steps ahead while others might like to dive in
headfirst. These differences in approaches or processes
can lead to communication break downs and ultimately
conflict. Healthy differences in approaches to process will
often lead to improved way of doing job. Process conflict
commonly arises when two departments, teams, or
groups interact on a process.
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Types of Organizational Conflict

4. Directional Conflict:
Directional conflict arises when organisations are forced to
rethink their strategies and focus on shorter-term activities,
as many did during the economic downturn. Employees
may not know how to prioritise long-term versus short-term
needs, or one department may work tactically while
another remains strategic. 

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Types of Organizational Conflict

5. External Conflict:
External conflict arises when pressures from customers or
other stakeholders impact internal decisions. Recent
economic challenges compelled organizations to adjust and
adapt, for example, by lowering prices while providing
enhanced customer service. Sales or customer service
personnel advocating for customers’ needs may have come
into conflict with operations trying to meet internal goals.

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Types of Organizational Conflict

6. Relationship Conflict:
It focuses on interpersonal relationship. They are directly
between people and may be over roles style, resources or
even personalities. This conflict can penetrate and damage
all aspect of an organisation. Relationship conflict can
quickly demand all the attention and energy. 

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Louis R. Pondy 5 stage of

organizational Conflict
1. Latent conflict 
2. Perceived conflict 
3. Felt conflict 
4. Manifest conflict and 
5. Conflict Aftermath. 

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Organizational Conflict – 6
Major Factors:
1. Heterogeneity amongst members 
2. Incongruence in status hierarchy 
3. Role dissatisfaction 
4. Defective formalisation 
5. System of decision making, and 
6. Merging conflicting units. 

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Conflict Management

Major Factors:
1. Heterogeneity amongst Members: 
In large organizations heterogeneity amongst members is
distinctly seen due to cultural and religious background,
values and beliefs, educational level, age factor etc. In due
course of time, heterogeneity is likely to be replaced by
homogeneity. 
2. Incongruence in Status Hierarchy: 
Conflict also occurs due to work place or ignored feelings of
different departments and units and not being given the
requisite status in the organizational structure. Thus, it
becomes a status and ego problem of the personnel
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Conflict Management

Major Factors:
4. Defective Formalisation: 
Formalisation means the form of rules and regulations, standardising
the behavioural pattern of individuals in an organisation. If the roles of
individuals and the units are well-defined in a manner reducing the
chance of conflict. In any case, if formalisation is defective, the chances
of conflict over roles, function and jurisdiction are likely to increas5. 5.
5. System of Decision Making: 
In an organisation, decision making is an important aspect of
management. This system needs to be streamlined in a department.
Those who are authorised to take important decisions on
administrative, financial and discipline matters, etc., be specified and
let known to the departments, sub-sections and units. 

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 Organizational Conflict – 6
Conflict Management

Major Factors:
6. Merging Conflicting Units:
In an organization, where one or more units are in the
habit of conflicting on various issues and which they care
not to resolve, is not a healthy situation. In such cases, role
conflicts, ego problems, inadequate performance data, etc.,
ought be evaluated by the management and if necessary,
merger of such units be recommended in the appropriate
manner keeping in view the best interests of the
organization to avoid conflict. 

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 Organizational Conflict: Behavioral
Conflict Management

and Structural
1. Behavioral Pattern:
In most of the organisations, it has been noticed that the problems are mainly
related to human beings
I. Frustration:
This takes place in an individual’s behavioural pattern, when his motivational
drives are prevented prior to reaching the desired goal. Frustration leads to
many other psychological problems like decision making and subjective
uncertainty to find proper alternatives. The remedy for such situations is
appropriate motivation of the individual to accept the alternatives to avoid
conflicts. 
II. Goal Conflict:
Wherever a state of competing goals exists, it creates conflict between
individuals, for one is not in a position to select from appropriate agenda to
strike collaboration acceptable to all.  
  
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and Structural
2. Structural Conflict:  
i. Hierarchical conflict – It is that conflict, which exists among different
levels of management of an organisation. For example, the top
management may conflict with the middle management. 
ii. Functional conflict – This surface between various functional
departments of the organisation. For instance production department
having conflict with the marketing department. 
iii. Line and staff conflict – This may be stated as the conflict between
members of line and members of the staff. This normally takes place,
for the staff members have no authority over the line management. 
iv. Formal and informal conflict – This, as a matter of course, occurs
between formal organisation and informal organisation existing in an
establishment.

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Where there is problem,

resolution always present !!!

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Thank you
Stay Safe !!!

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