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Management Practices and Organisational Behaviour

Notes (d) Skills and Abilities: Diversity in skills and abilities hold potential for conflict, especially
when jobs are interdependent. Experienced workers may find it difficult to work
alongside new and unskilled recruits. Employees can become resentful when their
new boss, fresh from business school, knows a lot about managing people but is
unfamiliar with the technology with which they (employees) are working.
(e) Emotions: Moods and emotions can be a source of conflict in the workplace. Personal
problems at home often take their toll at the work place and the resultant mood-
swings can be hard for others to deal with.
(f) Personalities: Personality conflicts are realities in organisations. To expect that you
will like all of your co-workers may be a naïve expectation. One personality trait
that many people find difficult to deal with is abrasiveness. Abrasive individuals
create stress and strain for those around them.

14.5 Changing View of Conflict

If we look back over the happenings of the last century, it becomes obvious that assumptions
about whether conflict is good or bad for organisations have changed substantially. The traditional
view is that conflict must be avoided because it indicates a malfunctioning within the group. The
Human Relations view is that conflict is a natural and inevitable outcome in any group. The
third view is that conflict is absolutely necessary for groups to perform effectively. These three
views are explained below:
1. Traditional View: This view of conflict, which was popular until the early 1940s, assumed
that conflict was bad for organisations. In the view of the traditionalists, organisational
conflict was proof that there was something "wrong" with the organisation. The view that
all conflict is bad certainly offers a simple approach to looking at the behaviour of people
who create conflict. Since all conflict is to be avoided, we need merely direct our attention
to the causes of conflict and correct such malfunctions in order to improve group and
organisational performance.

Because conflict was viewed as bad, considerable attention was given to reducing,
eliminating or even suppressing it. While these tactics sometimes worked, they were
largely ineffective because
(a) They did not get at the exact cause of the conflict, and
(b) Suppressing the conflict did not allow any of the positive aspects of conflict emerge.
The traditional view of conflict appears to be losing ground as time passes, despite the fact
that many people still subscribe to that viewpoint.
2. Human Relations View: According to this view, organisational conflict is neither good
nor bad per se, but is inevitable. Thus, conflict will occur even if organisations have taken
great pains to prevent it. Thus, organisations will experience conflict even if they have
well defined job descriptions, and their managers are reasonable people who treat
employees well. Since conflict was inevitable, the human relations school advocated
acceptance of conflict. In other words, they rationalize its existence.
3. Interactionist View: This approach encourages conflict on the ground that a harmonious,
peaceful and cooperative group is prone to becoming static, and non-responsive to needs
for change and innovation.
According to the Interactionist view of conflict, when the amount of conflict (low to high)
is related to organisational performance (low to high), we see that there is an optimum
level of conflict which maximizes organisational performance. This optimum level is

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