Types of Conflicts in an Organization and Conflict Management

Conflict is a disagreement between individuals due to variation in interests, views, and conditions of working. Its basis lies in disagreement among employees in a given organization. Employees end up disagreeing due to having different ways of viewing certain things, desire for different things, and variation in thoughts (Kondalkar, 2009). Other areas that result in conflicting situations include fear, the discrepancy in funds utilization, or a forceful working environment.

The conflict has got three crucial elements among which desire for power, value, and organizational requirements are the most essential. It can occur among individuals, which is also referred to as interpersonal conflict, or within groups in an organization (intra-group conflict). Intrapersonal conflict emanates when an individual lacks certainty on what he or she is supposed to do in order to meet organizational demands due to the absence of appropriate guidelines from the management. Different people in a company have the urge to possess the power of enforcing others to work. The failure of achieving such interests results in conflict within groups in an organization (Kondalkar, 2009). Organizational demands also pose great challenges to groups working in a given organization, the inability in meeting the objectives of which contributes to the emergence of conflict among groups of persons working it. Self-esteem leads to the emergence of conflicts, in particular, the variation in the worthiness of persons in an organization to intra-group conflict. In addition, employees and other staff members within a company demand security and recognition, and due to scarcity of resources they end up in conflict.

Conflicting situations cause the start of either negative or positive effects in an organization. One of the positive effects of conflict in a company is that it helps considerably in diffusing serious conflicts encountered. This is achieved by allowing the persons involved in the conflicts to share their views in minor conflicts, such as entertainment values, hence, positively influencing the ways of thought of the persons involved in the conflict.

Conflict also plays a significant role in advancing the creativity of the persons in an organization. It enables these people to embark on searching for ideas and amicable solutions to the problems faced by the company. Through conflict, employees unite once sharing their opinions and as a result boosting group cohesion and productivity. It also portrays the abilities of the persons involved in the conflict.

On the other hand, conflict greatly hampers the advancement of a company since it hinders the smooth running of the organization by interfering with its smooth working conditions. Conflict also deters the decision-making process which leads to cropping up of competing coalitions, at the same time majoring in lowering the productivity of an organization.

The main aim of managing conflict is to prevent the dispute from becoming destructive to the persons and the organization involved. It is also appropriate to resolve conflicts in time for the sake of the organizational growth, its survival, and boosting of the employees’ performance. The management of conflict aims at attending to the personal issues of persons involved in it enhancing the creation of the constructive relationship. It is, therefore, the responsibility of the management to recognize the existence of conflict situations and make appropriate decisions on how to solve them before it affects the overall productivity of the company (Music and Robinson, 2004). Through enhancing communication strategies, the management of an organization will succeed to cool the rising temperature of the conflict. This situation results in the fact that both parties involved in a conflict will have the chance of airing out their disagreements, and at the same time deciding on the appropriate ways of dealing with conflict. Addressing the design required also plays a significant role in managing a conflict. From this view of the subject, it advocates for creativity that results in the production of new ways of solving problems within an organization.

References

Kondalkar, G. (2009). Organization Development. New York: New Age International.

Musick, N & Robinson, J. (2004). The National Guide to Educational Credit for Training Programs. New York:American Council on Education.

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