CONFLICT IN ORANISATION

CONFLICT IN ORANISATION

1.0        INTRODUCATION

Interest in the study of conflict in organisation has continued to grow inspite of early dismissals of its governing hand in organisations. Early perceptions of conflict as the result of error in planning deliberate sabotage and system unavailability have largely changed to an appreciation of its necessary presence, as well as the adoption of pragmatic principles in its management.

A common view has been that the presence of conflict may be inexplicable. This is borne out of the very subtle build-up of the elements that mature to full-scale conflict and the lack of vigilance in tracking their early indicators.

Conflict conditions then appear to take organisations unawares and lead to a stampede of ideas, all aimed at bringing conditions back to normal, with the ultimate goal of organisational stability.

There is agreement among scholars that conflict in organisations is inevitable. While there is no position among scholars that organisations should deliberately stir up conflict in the organisation, the point is that conflict and plans, as well as strengthen the necessary interaction process for the ultimate good of the organisation and its staff.

2.0    THE NATURE OF CONFLICT IN ORGANISATIONS

Conflict is often the result of poor, ineffective communication, a breakdown in normal communication, social-cultural factors, environmental factors, personality factors, among several others. It could also be influenced by economic or political consideration which is an expressed struggle between at least two interdependent parties who perceive incompatible goals scarce rewards, and interference from the other party in achieving their goals.

Conflict is only possible among those who interact, have interacted or will interact. It can be safely ruled out or said to be quite unusual among parties that have never interacted nor have no plans to interact. Organisations experience conflict at various levels because there are stated relationships and common objectives, there are stated means and there is a select group of people, management and staff that have to interact within defined structures.

3.0    CAUSES OF CONFLICT IN ORGANISATION

Five conditions are among those identified that leads to conflict. They are as follows:

a.           Incompatible Goals

This happens when two or more parties involved in coordinating activities do not agree on expected results or goals of such activities. A manager and foreman may have different goals or ideas about the effect of introducing automation in the company factory. While one would see automation as easing the production process, they may see it as the first step in reducing staff strength.

b.           Unrealistic Expectations

Unrealistic expectations are usually the features of many organisational yearly projections. These projections introduce fear, tension and an uneasy work climate.

c.           Differing Rates of Relational Growth

This is a prominent feature of international and group dynamics. Parties or partners view relationships as being of different level of growth and this affects their sense of judgment of otherwise normal occurrences. Imagine that two colleagues, Mr. Jones and Mallam Abdullahi, are both Administrative Officers in the organisation. Mr. Jones is informed through a memo, that he is no longer required to oversee the cross-checking of invoices but to only ensure that they are assembled. Mr. Jones could view this development as a question on his competence to supervise the cross-checking of invoices. The premise of both thinking is that it is a much easier task to assemble invoices. It can be assumed here that Mr. Jones who would not want to feel inferior to his colleague. This is a veritable source of conflict interaction. Similarly, transfer of responsibility from one unit in an organisation to another unit may be perceived as gain and loss by competing units. This could precipitate conflict interaction.

d.           Inaccurate Perceptions and Attributions

Conflict is shaped by the parties perceptions of the situation rather than what the situation may actually be. Usual organisational stereotypes of who is likely to be a good employee or a bad one are informed by perceptions relating to self confidence, charisma, carriage, mode of dressing, communication skill ad very importantly, testimonials, usually verbal. The well dressed, loud-talking, charismatic young manager may not be as productive as the quiet, reflective, even sober one. No positive correlation exists, to our knowledge, between level of intelligence or intellectual ability and competence.

e.           Cultural Differences

This is another condition that easily leads to conflict. Behaviour and attitude are usually a function of cultural orientation, so are bases and prejudices, which are learnt informally in the process of development. Plurality of cultural orientation in an organisation would definitely allow for some conflict interaction. In some organisations, cross-cultural prejudices are so strong that they create multiple interest groups and ultimately hinder the attainment of set goals.

f.           Management Styles

Over time, the advantages and disadvantages of general management have been highlighted by various scholars. It is clear that management can set the agenda for the structure and function of an organisation and invariably determine the direction of interaction. Conflict could come in as a deliberate or inadvertent result of management style.

g.           Overload

Huge volume of work at different levels of an organisational structure could lead to conflict interaction. The normal frustration expressed as a result of the pressure of much work is a sure sign of the imminence of conflict. Complaints, harshness, short temper, rudeness etc are features of overload. It should be noted that information overload could precipitate the overload attitude and turn material transaction into a problem requiring attention, especially at higher levels in an organisation.

h.           Communication Breakdown

Basic problems in interpersonal communication could be played up and lead to conflict. The blocking of information, distortion, alteration of details, omission of information or addition of details are ready causes of conflict.

i.             Organisational Politics

The treatment of politics in an organisation is often ambivalent, owing to the conformed virtues of its existence. Behaviours which fall outside those which are either required or desired by the organisation or are forbidden by the organisation and which are designed to promote or protect the self interest of individuals or subunits, have as their intent the attaining of some kind of competitive advantage.

In its classical cases, politics in organisations could be exercised smoothly with little suspicion or overt negativism to provoke a problem. When there are indications of its existence, however, accusations of distrust or by passing become definite pointers to conflict.

4.0    TYPES OF CONFLICT

Conflict manifests in different ways and at different levels of the organisational structure. Its manifestation could also be restricted to the immediate environment or spread to other segments of the organisation. We can categorise its manifestation under the two broad groups of manifest conflict and latent conflict.

a.           Manifest Conflict

This is characterised by clear and overt indicators and expressions of grievances, ultimately leading to full-blown conflict interaction such overt indicators would include verbal or written expressions of grievances, open threats of industrial action etc.

b.           Latent Conflict

Latent conflict captures the under-the-current and subtle evidences of conflict interaction. These do not and may never, become expressed openly or formally and could be tapped only through the grapevine or some informal networks of communication. The major reason for latent conflict is the absence of power to openly express grievances, fear of the consequences of open expression or a weak group cohesion and plan of action. The result of latent conflict could be as dangerous as that for manifest conflict, for example, a poor work attitude that could affect productivity, or create a heightened rumour mill that distracts from organisational goals, etc.

We shall attempt now to describe some types (and levels) of conflict interaction in organisations, knowing that conflicts are really dynamic in structure and function.

c.           Intra-Personal Conflict

This deals with crises emanating from inside the human personality. These matters are concerned with how the individual takes in, processes, and produces communications. It should be clear here that intra-personal conflict could be a big and dangerous problem where those affected do not acknowledge the existence of these problems. Since intra-personal communication is the first level of communication and governs the other levels, any form of imbalance, especially latent imbalance, could be particularly problematic. When an individual losses control of his intra-personal processes, there is a sure danger of conflict interaction. Some symptoms of this (certainly not all the time) include aggression, shouting, avoidance, excessive thinking, short temper, poor mode of dressing, insubordination and even substance abuse. These are all likely to be predictive of conflict within the organisation.

d.           Inter-personal Conflict

Organisations are made up of several individuals, with various background training, frames of reference, ethnic and religious affiliation, gender and above all, their unique idiosyncrasies. The fact that members of this largely interrogeneous group have to work together in pursuit of similar organisational goals makes conflict inevitable. Friction arises from contact and the most frequent contact in any organisation is interpersonal.

This would include non face-to-face contact such as telephone conversations, memos, letters, etc.

e.           Intra-unit/Section / Departmental Conflict

This is conflict interaction that involves members of a unit, section or department in an organisation and that is restricted to those designated places. This may arise as a result of workload problems, incentive spread, lack of trust among member of the group, insubordination or high handedness, differences in socio-cultural orientation etc. It could occur among unit/section/department members and between members and supervisors or heads of unit.

f.           Inter-Unit / Section / Departmental Conflict

This conflict interaction that involves groups that work together within organisations. In this case, one group (or unit, section or department) has a problem relating or work with another group.

These problems could be the result of disagreement or misunderstanding in the work process and is often a betrayal of the inter-relationship and interdependence that exists in groups within the organisation. In some cases, the problem spirals from personality problems between heads of the affected groups.

The attendant sympathetic alignment of unit staff with their heads is often called solidarity. In rare cases, the conflict could occur between units with unequal power or influence or even between units and management.

g.           Industrial and Labour Conflict

This is a very common feature of organisational function. It is also the best example in the description of manifest conflict. It is caused by several factors, including work conditions, failed promises, threat to job security, breakdown in collective bargaining, measures and policies perceived as unfavourable or other unexpected events. It is severe conflict because it could paralyse activities in an organisation. Some of its unique features include the fact that it almost always formally begins after a build-up of warning signals or indicators, it is championed by an organized interest group and it is almost always formally resolved.

h.           Inter Organisational Conflict

This refers to the conflict interaction that an organisation may have with another organisation, several factors could cause this, and they include the competition that arises from producing and marketing competing brands in the same product category, failed collaboration or the breakdown of a working agreement adversarial advertising strategies, etc.

i.             Community-Related Conflict

This is a conflict interaction between an organisation and its host community. It could involve a section of the community interest groups in the community (youths, women, fishermen, cattle rearers, the sick, etc) or the entire community. Factors abound that precipitate this type of conflict interaction. They include the unmet expectations of the community on job placement for members of the community, environmental problems created in the community as a result of the organisation’s activities. These could include noise, emission of effluents and dangerous gases (gas flaring) degradation of the ecological system, etc. Conflict could also arise as a result of the host community’s perception of marginalisation and neglect by the organisation, and organisation’s insensitivity to corporate social responsibility or a violation of socio-cultural values.

In Nigeria, oil producing companies and big manufacturing companies including Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, have had to contend with community-related conflicts of dangerous dimensions.

5.0    INDICATORS OF CONFLICT

There is a general agreement that conflict is usually the result of a long process of agitation, disharmony, insensitivity to demands and neglect of warning signals that are either manifest or latent. An organisation that has put machinery in place to monitor disaffection and displeasure of all levels is likely to quickly locate possible predisposing factors to conflict and nip them in the bud. Every organisation has a unique presence of conflict indicators and thus should devise ways of noting these threatening signals. The indicators are discussed as follows:

a.           Road Blocks to Communication

The road blocks to communication is a listing of conflict-inducing expressions such as: you must, you have to, you had better or else…, you are lazy, you are a truant, you are just trying to get attention, why should you do that? You are wrong, etc.

b.           Organisational Climate

The climate is the habitat of operation within organisations. Like all habitats, the climate may be favourable or unfavourable. It could prevent conflict interaction or facilitate it remarkably. It is the environment, which would invariably influence measures of action and reaction. It may determine direction content and quality of relations within the organisation. In conflict interaction, climate may determine whether it would prove useful to the organisation or it would present features of destructiveness.

Climate is created by the sum of relationship among all elements and stakeholders in organisations. While management has a strong role to play in determining the nature of climate an organisation may have, other stakeholders could affect the texture of the atmosphere and predispose the group to good organisational weather or bad organisational weather. Bad organisational weather is, naturally, the breeding ground for conflict. Climate can be influenced by policies on welfare, organisational structure, communication networks and profile, management style, organisational politics, etc.

c.           Communication Profile

Communication is the most central factor in organisational dynamics. With communication, problems may still arise but without communication, problems are bound to arise, and that very often. Four questions may be pertinent to its subtopic. First, what structures exist for communication in an organisation? Often, there are formal structures, including the telephone, notice board, memo, newsletters and word of mouth. There are informal routes too including lunch time chats, lateral interaction and of course, the grapevine. Where an organisation has not created room for definite structures, it is a strong indicator of the imminence of conflict.

Second, how much communication takes place within an organisation? It is erroneous to think that productivity is enhanced when people are left to mind their business. That would not be a complete story because people do not need to be told things (direction, for example, or even assurances of management’s interest in staff welfare), as they too need to express themselves often.

Third, how easy is it to communicate? Industrial and labour harmony is often tied to easy flow of communication at all levels of an organisation. When a manager does not attend to communication of subordinate staff as a result of being “on the phone” always or simply being too “busy”, conflict is definitely brewing. Communication should be accessible, easy and unimpeded in an organisation.

Finally, an organisation has to do periodic reviews of its communication machinery to ensure that it is functional. This should relate to both internal and external publics so that conflict could at least be minimized. A neglect of communication or poor profile of it is a strong indicator of the imminence of conflict.

6.0    RESOLVING CONFLICTS

Conflicts are better prevented than cured – it is much easier to prevent a conflict (and even begin one) than to resolve it. The options being discussed in this section are, therefore, fallback options when, sadly, conflict does arise. Four distinct ways are popular in conflict resolution and these are presented as follows:

a.           Collaboration

This involves the institution of constructive dialogue by the parties involved in a conflict as a means of finding a solution to the problem. Interests of both parties are tabled and there is an effort to satisfy all interest inequitably.

The goal is to ensure that everyone is satisfied takes home again and the relationship is strengthened. This is often at the interpersonal level in organisations.

b.           Negotiation

This is a common and useful method in resolving conflicts in organisations. It involves a bargaining process in which each p arty in a conflict situation presses for the absolute satisfaction of its interest. The unique feature here is that each party aims to satisfy its interest and not concede anything without a strong agreement. There is often extreme power play sometimes threats and no party wants to lose face. Each party advances its own points and downplays those of others and every point raise is to the advantage of who raised it. Damaging information is presented only if it affects the other party. This form of resolution is common in inter-unit/section and departmental conflicts, as well as in community-related conflicts. It is also popular in handling industrial and labour crises within and outside organisations. The main advantage is that the eventual agreement acts as documents that govern cooperation and relationship.

c.           Mediation

Mediation is generally defined as the intervention in a negotiation or conflict of an acceptable third party who has limited or no authoritative decision-making power but who assists the involved parties in voluntarily reaching a mutual acceptable settlement of issues in disputes.

As the definition states, a third party, who is neutral, is invited by parties in a conflict to facilitate reconciliation and peace. Options left to the parties are weak when compared with mediation. Such options include:

-                     Ignoring the conflict

-                     Allowing the conflict to escalate with grave consequences

-                     Negotiation

-                     Going to court

Compared to these options, mediators can be chosen from within or outside the organisation, depending largely on the perception of the neutrality of the mediator by parties in the conflict. A mediator must win the confidence and respect of disputants.

The task of the mediator is to facilitate a process of negotiation that helps disputants to merge their differences. This will help parties to appreciate their common and respective needs that are at stake.

d.           Arbitration

This is a last resort, short of going to court, in the resolution of conflict. Here, parties agree to submit their arguments and positions to a neutral party who is empowered to act like a judge, pronounce judgment and the parties are bound to abide by that decision. The major disadvantage here is that a party may win, while the other loses. The natural fallout is that the continuity of existing relationships may not be guaranteed.

The real last resort, which is often discouraged in conflict management, is litigation that is going to court. It is expensive, time consuming and often embittering.

7.0    CONCLUSION

As we stated at the beginning, conflicts in organisations involve: Power, Value, Status and Scarce resource.

It should be restated that they are normal and it is possible to monitor them and attempt viable solutions to them.

Conflicts in the organisations are useful as they reduce stagnation, potential conflicts. New issues are brought to the fore, individual or group grievances are redressed, organisational focus or goals are adjusted and often better positioned. There is room for dialoguing and engagement. There are other minor gains such as emotional release and expression of personal or group opinion. However, where conflicts are ignored, they could affect the health and continued existence of the organisation.