Conflict is an essential part of management '. Discuss.

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

‘Conflict is an essential part of management ‘. Discuss.

The main purpose of this essay is to define conflict. I will also describe the sources of conflict and explain the positive and negative factors of conflict. At the end of my essay I am going to describe the methods for managing conflict and discuss whether conflict is an essential part of management.

First of all, I would like to define the meaning of conflict. Conflict is a process that begins when one party observes that another party has negatively affected, or is about to negatively affect something the first party cares about. Conflict is inevitable because people will always have different viewpoints, ideas, and opinions. The question is how can we deal with or relate to these differences. It is unfortunate that negative connotations are often associated with conflict, because if we manage conflict properly, it is highly constructive and essential to cross-cultural interactions.

Conflict is a state of mind. It has to be perceived by the parties involved. If two or more parties are not aware of a conflict, then no conflict exists. This broad definition encompasses conflicts at different levels within an organisation. Conflicts are based upon differences in interest and values, when the interests of one party come up against the different interest of another. Parties may include shareholders, managers, departments, professionals and groups; while conflict issues can include dividends, control and wage levels.

I am now going to examine the reasons that conflict can occur in management. It can occur in businesses when the stakeholders’ objectives are different. Stakeholders are groups of people who has an interest in business activity. Each type of stakeholder is likely to have a set of goals that they want to achieve. For instance, shareholders want regular, secure and high returns and a say in the goals of the business; managers want responsibility, high rewards and a lack of interference in their actions; employees want high earnings, an interesting job and secure employment; customers want quality products at low prices and a good service; suppliers want secure, regular and profitable orders; government wants to achieve a large number of goals including growth in the economy and low inflation; the local community wants thriving local businesses which do not cause problems. All of these stakeholders have different objectives therefore they have different actions to fulfil their aims. When they are making decisions for their businesses, conflicts can exist between many different groups of stakeholder since they have varied goals.

There are some reasons that lead to conflicts between the employees and the owners of a business, such as levels of pay, working condition and changing practices. It is common for employees and owners to disagree on new wage levels. This is because workers generally want more than the owners are prepared to pay. Conflict may also arise if workers are not satisfied with their working environment. The consequences are that employees have no motivation to work and hence less output will be produced. It leads to lower level of revenue and profit.

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Conflicts are always occurring between owners and managers. It is because in some businesses the management team may become powerful and influential. When this happens they may seek their own interests rather than those of the owners. This might involve paying themselves high salaries or organising their time to suit their own needs, whilst achieving satisfactory levels of profit rather than high levels of profit. This would go against the interests of the owners who would benefit more from higher profits. Such conflict may result in some owners selling their shares. This is often referred to as a divorce ...

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As I have explained above, if there is very high levels of conflict it may cause problems. It could lead to anxiety and tension in the workforce which are counter-productive. There are some reasons to suggest that conflict always happens between groups. It is because groups are often in competition with each other over resources. One example might be where the sports and leisure department in a local council needs funds for a swimming pool, but this may result in another group such as the social services department having less. In addition, there may be conflict between groups at different levels in the business organisation. When there is a divorce of ownership, the control managers may attempt to satisfy their own aims, such as market leadership by a series of price cuts. At the same time they would attempt to make a satisfactory profit for shareholders, who may have wanted the business to maximise profits.

Apart from the sources of conflict above there are some other reasons that can cause conflict in management. Paul Lawrence and Jay Lorsch’s (1967) study found that people’s perceptions of the importance accorded to different items depended on the time frame that supervised their work and their goal orientations. Groups with different perceptions would find it difficult to co-ordinate their activities, and this would result in greater intergroup conflict. This is partly because their time frames are different. These different goals are often hindering communication, incompatible and encouraging conflict. Similarly, scarce resources might cause conflict to arise in management. Once a task is allocated to an individual, group or department, they are also allocated resources to achieve it. Due to the fact that resources are finite, conflict can arise with respect to how personnel, money, space or equipment are shared out. Workers are more likely to complain or be dissatisfied when managers have decided to cut budget and reduce promotion opportunities.

From everything that I have mentioned previously, we can see that there are many sources of conflict. I would say that there are many negative consequences when conflict occurs in management, an example would be when both parties are unwilling to compromise which would lead to bad relationships within the workplace. This can enhance any future minor conflicts between the parties and cause them to work inefficiently therefore reducing their quality and quantity of output.

Although negative results are likely to occur from conflict there are still many positive consequences that can emerge. Referring to what I have said in the beginning, conflict is a natural process, a normal part of all relationships, it is healthy for relationships and organisations because it reveals areas that need work and adjustments. Therefore adjustments can be made in order to produce an improved piece of work.

In the final part of my essay I would like to analyse the methods which can be used to manage conflict correctly. One significant point is that when accessing conflict research findings or prescriptions for managing conflict, it is important to ascertain where they came from and to whom they might apply. Managers may judge the existing co-ordination devices to be inadequate, thereby causing conflict. They will therefore manage the situation by implementing conflict resolution approaches to reduce immediate conflict, before adjusting the co-ordination mechanism to prevent it occurring in the first place. On the other hand, they may consider that the co-ordination devices are working too well, thereby causing complacency and apathy. In this case, they can use conflict stimulation approaches to increase the level of conflict that exists within the company. Therefore conflict can be managed through a combination of both conflict resolution and conflict stimulation approaches.

Conflict resolution is referred to as the process which has the objective of ending the conflict between the disagreeing parties. Kenneth Thomas’ (1976) five conflict resolution approaches are avoidance, accommodation, compromise, collaborative and competition/forcing. I will explain the objectives and likely outcomes caused by these five approaches.

Competing/forcing approach is when the manager thinks that his/her idea is completely correct and does not want anybody to question his/her judgement or authority. Its likely outcome is that managers feel vindicated, but other party feels defeated and possibly humiliated. The avoiding approach has the objective of avoiding having to deal with conflict. It may mean that interpersonal problems do not get resolved, causing long term frustration manifested in a variety of ways. However, compromising has the aim of reach an agreement quickly, it helps making decisions easier in the short term but it might not produce an effective final solution. The accommodating approach is not to upset the other person in the workplace, the outcome is that one party is likely to take advantage. The final approach is collaborative; its objective is that all parties solve the problem together. It is the best approach because each position is important though not necessarily equally valid. Emphasis should be placed on the quality of the outcome and the fairness of the decision-making process. By using this approach problem is most likely to be resolved. Also, both parties are committed to the solution and satisfied that they have been treated fairly.

The other resolution of conflict is applying conflict stimulation. It is referred to as the process of engendering conflict between parties where none existed before, or escalating the current conflict level if it is too low. There are some conditions in management that needs more conflict but not less of it. There are various methods that can be used to stimulate conflict where none existed before in order to encourage different opinions and engender new thinking and problem solving.

Managers can withhold information to keep them guessing or send large amount of inconsistent information such as ‘we’re expanding’ or ‘we’re going bust’ to get people arguing. They might send ambiguous or threatening messages.

We can also introduce dialectic methods of exploring opposite positions called ‘thesis’ and ‘antithesis’. The outcome of the debate between the two is the ‘synthesis’, which in turn becomes the new thesis to be opened up for debate. Before deciding on a takeover, a company may introduce two or more groups of workers, allowing them to access the same information and give them the task of arguing for and against the acquisition decision. The conflict of ideas throws up alternatives, which can be synthesized into a superior final decision.

Furthermore, companies can bring in outsiders to help make decisions. Adding individuals to a group whose backgrounds, attitudes and management styles that are different from those existing staff can bring some new ideas and opinions into companies and hence making a better and more attractive decision.

Finally, I would state that conflict resolution should be used when conflict is dysfunctional, that is, does not achieve organisational goals, waste time, de-motivates staff, wastes resources and generally lowers individual and hence organisational performance. Alternatively conflict stimulation is necessary if employees enter ‘comfort zone’, are reluctant to think in new ways and make new style decisions. In rapidly changing organizational environments such behaviour not only reduces organizational success but may endanger its very existence.

I have pointed out that conflict occurring between employers and employees constantly. Conflict between these two groups may result from a number of factors, such as rates of pay, flexible working and work conditions. The conflict between them may lead to serious consequences, for example, workers not satisfied with their working condition will have no motivation to work or not working efficiently and hence lower levels of output and poorer services to customers. Companies are at risk of losing profit and customers because of the bad quality of their goods and services. For this reason, I will draw attention to the method which can solve the conflict between employers and employees.

Collective bargaining is one way of minimising conflict in the workplace. It involves determining conditions of work and terms of employment through negotiations between employees and employers representatives, such as trade unions. The representative body has more strength and influence and can negotiate for its membership. Without such a bargaining process, employers and managers would be able to set wages and conditions without taking into account employees’ interests. The result of collective bargaining is a collective agreement. These agreements are usually written and are signed by the parties and will be binding. Agreements include pay, work conditions, fringe benefits and also redundancy, dismissal and promotion procedures. The advantages are that it may encourage worker to work more effectively as they think that their opinions might be accepted. Also it helps to improve the relationship between owners and employees because they do not have to argue independently. The representative body can help them to solve the problems together.

In this essay I have defined conflict, identified sources of conflict and discussed the positive and negative aspects caused by conflict. Additionally, I have explained how it can contribute to individual and group problem solving.

To make my conclusion for the essay, I would say that I strongly agree that conflict is an essential part of management. It may result in both positive and negative consequences. I would state that conflict was neither good nor bad. In my opinion, I do think that the positive effects caused by conflict are more important than the negative outcomes. If viewed as a natural process, conflict is the opportunity to explore and resolve differences in a constructive manner. The most significant point is that conflict is constructive when individuals or group members have a new understanding of the functions of healthy conflict and avoid destructive negative forces. Conflict is an essential part of management, it cannot be avoided and ignored, it may result in negative consequences, and however, it also enables the manager to create a more efficient workforce, bring in new ideas and constructive suggestions to the business.