Group Communication and Conflict

“Role conflict can arises when these expectations about how to play a role or set of roles are inconsistent in some way” (Losh, pg. 89). Role conflict is a type of social conflict caused from an individual being forced to take on separate and incompatible roles. Role conflicts usually occur when an individual becomes torn between separate roles for different organizations or groups or within an organization, when an individual is asked to perform multiple roles in the same group. An employee with both work and management roles in a department, for example, assumes the conflicting roles of the supervisor and co-worker. Many feel as though most role conflicts occur because of multiple obligations to different groups role conflicts can also occur within a one organization. When individuals have various conflicting responsibilities role conflicts tend to cause friction and frustration depending of the personality of the individual. While conducting my research I saw a lot of this going ground from the Customer Assistant Specialist’s, Medical Communication Specialist’s, Consultant Nurse’s, Pharmacists and especially the floaters. Many of the employees look extremely frustrated and overwhelmed. It appears that even though we are complying with client needs we are hurting our employees at the end of day. We are forcing our employees to basically handle 2-3 positions in 1 to make the client satisfied. The client request for someone to be online all day but wants them to manage to do call backs as well. That task is impossible considering the fact we have such a high call volume. The problem appears to be there are not enough people on this particular project. We are spreading our employees to thin. We a...

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...iscommunication may be the death knell of any organization.

References:

1. Losh, S. (2011). Group behavior in organizations. San Diego: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

2. Wright, Norman S., and Glyn P. Drewery. "Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal | Forming Cohesion in Culturally Heterogeneous Teams: Differences in Japanese, Pacific Islander and Anglo Experiences." Emerald. 1994. Web. Nov.-Dec. 2011. .

3. Myers, Scott A. "The Fundamentals of Small Group ... - Scott A. Myers, Carolyn M. Anderson." Google Books. 2008. Web. 05 Nov. 2011. .

4. Webster's Dictionary, P.S.I. & Associates, Inc., 1986.Sherif, Muzafer, In Common Predicament (Social Psychology of Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1966.