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Role of negotiations in conflict resolution
Case study on organization conflict
Conflict in organizations
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The role of negotiation in conflict resolution
Introduction
Conflict or disagreement over the range of issues has become inherent aspect of modern organisational life. People from different cultural and education background work in an organisation. People working in an organisation may possess different goal and interest. People working in organisation may tend to different over a range of issues including organisational politics, organisational procedure, personal preference or political preference. It is also argued that conflict is essential characteristics of organisational life. Role of manager is paramount with regard to negotiating the conflict that arises in organisational life (http://www.sagepub.com/). Often lack of effective and direct communication between the employees or employees and management are major contributory factor towards the organisational conflict. Failure of manger to establish direct communication with the employees can be also regarded as principle factor behind the organisational conflict.
According to Jambrek, and Penić (2008), conflict of the outcome of social situation and social interaction where the activities and interest of individuals or group of individual confronts. Conflicts are normal in every type of organisation because people have diverse opinion and some individual may display their reluctance in accepting the opinions of others. It is true that conflicts are inevitable aspect of organisational life. However, it can be dangerous for an enterprise if it faces too many conflicts (Spaho, 2013).
Conflict management and conflict management style
Conflict management is concerned with solving the conflict. Conflict management is not concerned with reducing or limiting the durati...
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...ternational Workshop on Agent Mediated Electronic Trading, AMET-98, pages 70–91, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
Gonan Božac, M., Angelovska, I., (2008): Menadžment konflikta: razmatranje teoretske paradigme i makrostrateškog pristupa, Ekonomska istraživanja, 21 (4), pp. 45-61. Cited in Organisational communication and conflict management, Management, Vol. 18, 2013, 1, pp. 103-118
Jambrek, I., and Penić I., (2008): Upravljanje ljudskim potencijalima u poduzećima – ljudski faktor, motivacija zaposlenika, kao najbitniji čimbenici uspješnosti poslovanja poduzeća, Zbornik Pravnog fakulteta Sveučilišta u Rijeci, 29 (2), pp. 1181-1206. Cited in Organisational communication and conflict management, Management, Vol. 18, 2013, 1, pp. 103-118
Leonard Greenhalgh, 1987, “The Case Against Winning in Negotiations,” Negotiation Journal 3 (April ): 167–173.
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Lipsky, D. B., Seeber, R. L., & Fincher, R. D. (2003). Emerging systems for managing workplace conflict: lessons from American corporations for managers and dispute
Blake & Mouton, 1984. "Interpersonal Conflict and Conflict Management." Devito, Joseph A. The Interpersonal Communications Book. Boston: Pearson, Allyn & Bacon, 2009. 279-280.
In several occasions, conflict occurs in the communication of one or two people. Several people have thought of conflict as cases involving pouring of furious anger in a communication process. Nonetheless, conflict is the misinterpretation of an individual’s words or values (Huan & YAzdanifard, 2012). Conflict can also be due to limited resources in an organization (Riaz & Junaid, 2010). Conflict may as well arise due to poor communication or the use of inappropriate communication channel of transmission of information between the involved parties. Management of conflict has various conflict management styles that include avoidance style, forcing style, passive-aggressive style, accommodating style, collaborating style and compromising style. Workplace conflict comes in two different kinds: task involving conflict, which focuses on the approaches used in resolving the problem and blaming conflict that has the aspects of blame and never brings element of resolving problems between the conflicting parties. In the perception of several individuals, relationship conflict is negative.
Abigail, R. A., & Cahn, D. D. (2011). Managing conflict through communication. 4th Ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Thomas, K. W. (1992). Conflict and conflict management: Reflections and update. . Journal Of Organizational Behavior, 13(3), 265-274.
Before understanding how to deal with conflict, one must understand what conflict is. Conflict can be defined as, “any situation in which incompatible goals, cognitions, or emotions within or between individuals or groups lead to opposition or antagonistic interaction” (Learning Team Toolkit, 2004, pp 242-243). Does the idea of conflict always have to carry a negative connotation? The growth and development of society would be a great deal slower if people never challenged each other’s ideas. The Learning Team Toolkit discusses three different views of conflict: traditiona...
Differences within the team are the major reason for conflict. This stems from differences in opinion, attitude, beliefs, as well as cultural back grounds and social factors. The Conflict can be positive which is functional and supports or benefits the organization or a person’s main objectives (Reaching Out, 1997). Conflict is viewed as positive when the conflict results in increased involvement form the group, increased cohesion, and positive innovation and creativity. Conflict tends to be positive as well when it leads to better decisions, and solutions to long-term problems.
Look up the word conflict in the dictionary and you will see several negative responses. Descriptions such as: to come into collision or disagreement; be at variance or in opposition; clash; to contend; do battle; controversy; quarrel; antagonism or opposition between interests or principles Random House (1975). With the negative reputation associated with this word, no wonder people tend to shy away when they start to enter into the area of conflict. D. Jordan (1996) suggests that there are two types of conflict: good, which is defined as cognitive conflict (C-type conflict) and, detrimental, defined as affective conflict (A-type conflict). The C-type conflict allows for creativity, to pull together a group of people with different opinions or ideas, to combine and brain storm all thoughts to develop the best solution for the problem. The A-type conflict is the negative form when you have animosity, hostility, un-resolveable differences, and egos to deal with. The list citing negative conflicts could go on forever. We will be investigating these types of conflicts, what managers can do to recognize conflict early, and what strategies they can use to resolve conflicts once they have advanced.
Gross and Guerrero (2000) supported Rahim’s conflict management styles and identified that these styles are associated with organizational climate and culture, job satisfaction. Their research on 50 employees uncovered some facts include employees who were involved in unmanaged conflict end up in job dissatisfaction and subsequently their performance deters (p. 208). The competence-based model developed by Canary, Cupach and Serpe (2001) contrast with Rahim’s theory, where the effectiveness of conflict management styles is based on the situation and understanding of individuals (p. 81). They tried to find a resolution for the conflict instead of implementing the strategy to reduce tension by applying conflict management styles, resulting in inconsistent outcomes (p. 531).
Behavior variations in any organization take the form of conflict in most cases. This arises as a result of various competitions experienced in the organization. These competitions may be from individual persons or certain groups in the organization. The competition is basically directed towards gaining material resource, having a voice in decision making, command for a certain attention and status position. With this in mind, many organizations therefore make efforts to establish a social change in their various systems of management at all times. This is normally achieved through creation and reviewing of various governing p...
Organizational Conflict in a Formal Organization The above subject matter cannot be discussed without first elucidating on the key subjects viz: ‘conflict’ and ‘formal organization’. The oxford dictionary of current English describes conflict as a lack of agreement between opinions another school of thought sees conflict as ‘a state of dysfunctionality in a system’. What ever the case, conflict occurs in our everyday life either within a person when faced with problem and possible options and/ or with another individual either in a formal or informal setting. On the other hand, a formal organization is typically understood to be system/ group of people of coordinated and controlled activities that arise when work is embedded in complex networks of technical relations and boundary-spanning exchanges. In effect, organizational conflict can be described as the interaction of interdependent people who perceive incompatible goals and interference from each other in achieving those goals.
(Asawo, 2011). Conflict can occur in any setting and as leaders in organizations guide and
According to McShane and Von Glinow, conflict is “a process in which one party perceives that his or her interests are being opposed or negatively affected by another party” (328). The Conflict Process Model begins with the different sources of conflict; these sources lead one or more parties to perceive that a conflict exists. These perceptions interact with emotions and manifest themselves in the behavior towards other parties. The arrows in the figure illustrate the series of conflict episodes that cycle into conflict escalation (McShane and Von Glinow 331-332).
In the workplace, disagreement or arguments may arise due to several reasons. This can further result into a state of antagonism or opposition, resentment, avoidance, verbal assaults, and inability to work together. Such may arise due to personality clashes, differences in style, differences in leadership, interdependence conflicts and differences in the background or gender. With reference to the conflict between Norm and Norma, disagreement arose due to differences in styles. This is because Norma was after quick result from the initiated project while Norm believed he could work from home and still meet the expected standard. However, Norma expected full commitment from all the staff under her. For good working relations, conflicts should always be resolved and hence improve good working relationship among the employees both the juniors and seniors. Professionally, conflicts can be solved via two models; circle of conflict and triangle of satisfaction (Susan Holton, 1998).
Borisoff, D., & Victor, D.A. (1998). Conflict Management: A Communication Skills Approach (2nd Ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.