Page 304 - DMGT402_MANAGEMENT_PRACTICES_AND_ORGANIZATIONAL_BEHAVIOUR

Unit 14: Conflict Management

look at the issue, the context, and the parties involved. The following questions can be Notes
used to diagnose the nature of the conflict a manager faces:
(a) Are the parties approaching the conflict from a hostile standpoint?
(b) Is the outcome likely to be a negative one for the organisation?
(c) Do the potential losses of the parties exceed any potential gains?

(d) Is energy being diverted from goal accomplishment?
If the majority of the answers to these questions are 'yes', than the conflict is probably
dysfunctional. Once the manager has diagnosed the type of conflict, he or she can either work to
resolve it (if it is dysfunctional) or to stimulate it (if it is functional).

14.4 Causes of Conflict

There are numerous sources of conflict within formal organisations. To manage it effectively,
managers should understand these sources of conflict.

Caselet A Consultant's View of Conflict

art and parcel of any organisation is the presence of conflict. Kenneth Sole, president
of Kenneth Sole and Associates, training and consulting firm, believes that since
Pconflict is inevitable, his task is to reduce its adverse impact on corporations.
Sole says every conflict can be turned into a positive or negative situation, depending
upon the attitudes participants bring to it. The worst mistake is to suppress conflict once it
has been perceived. Sole says if people were better able to allow conflict to surface naturally,
there would be more battles, but less costly ones.
Sole argues that it is better to react initially than to let trouble brew over time. By
suppressing conflict, misattribution may arise and the conflict is taken out on innocent
bystanders.
Talking around the issue is another problem resulting from suppressed conflict. Sole says
this situation damages the people and the organisation until someone realizes it rests on
one basic conflict.
Those discussed below have been analyzed extensively by researchers. They can be classified
into two broad categories:
1. Structural factors

2. Personal factors.
Figure 14.1 below illustrates the causes of conflict.
Figure 14.1: Causes of Conflict in Organizations

CONFLICT

Source: Debra L. Nelson, James Campbell Quick "Organisational Behavior – foundations, realities and challenges".
(Second Edition), West Publishing Company, Minneapolis (1997), Page 380.

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 299