Organisation Conflict

Conflict can be described as a disagreement between two individual or parties. Different things can cause conflict between individuals or an organisation, these include issues such as difference in perception, and how people see things, individual conflict such as personality clashes. This can cause conflict because difference in opinions and ways to dealing with thing. Another thing that can cause conflict is environmental change, such as increased competition and new technology. This is because big changes become really hard to get use to therefore adjusting can lead to conflict.

In 6^th form, I participated in young enterprise were my role was as a marketing manager. In my group, we had individuals with big personalities that clashed quite a few times. For example, for valentine’s day, we had a task to open up a fair trade in Uxbridge town centre and we had to plan and decide how we was going to plan it, who was going to do what and what ideas are going to be used. While making these decisions, members from my team got into different arguments with each other because some people wanted to do themed fair trade where as others wanted it to be unique and not themed or related to Valentine’s Day. To sort this out, we had to do get votes from each member of the team and whoever had the most votes would get to use their idea for the fair trade. This was really hectic however, everyone compromised and overcome this.

Organisations can use five different strategies to overcome conflict at work. These strategies are:

Ø  Clarification of goals and objectives

Ø  Resource distribution

Ø  Human resource management policies and procedures

Ø  Non-monetary rewards

Ø  Development of interpersonal/group process skills

Ø  Group activities

Ø  Leadership and management

Ø  Organisational process

Ø  Socio-technical approach

Organisations can use clarification of goals and objectives to overcome conflict at work as this will help avoid misunderstanding and confusion. Organisations use human resource management policies and procedures to reduce conflict as this helps them decide punishments, responsible work, flexible hours and grievance and disciplinary procedure and this will keep employees on a warning and they will be aware of their actions. Leadership and management can be used to avoid conflict in an organisation this shows respect, encourages personal development and creates a friendly working environment for employees to get along.

French and Raven have identified that there are different “source of power” within an organization. These sources are explained below:

Reward Power:

Reward power means having the ability to give rewards through things such as promotion, favors, recognition and other resources. An example of reward power would T mobile and offering upgrades to their customers. They reward the customer or customers by offering them a better deal as they committed to that company for a certain period of time and show their appreciation by rewarding them with a better deal.

Coercive Power:

Coercive power means where the company can punish the employees or customers through dismissals, demotions and reprimands. Also the removal of privileges can also be put into coercive power. Example of this can be customers being removed from Fitness First gym for breaking the rules or regulations of the gym and therefore the authority of that organisation can apply coercive power through dismissal or demotion from their gym.

Legitimate Power:

Legitimate power is having the authority to exert power over others. An example of this can be the manager of a retail shop firing or hiring employers. The manager of Morrison’s would have the power to fire an employee if it is for a legitimate reason.

Referent Power:

Referent power means having influence over others and this can be acquired from being well liked or gaining respect. An example of this could be a sale assistant in Topman working hard to be like the manager due to the manager gaining the respect of his worker and having a major influence to his job role.

Expert Power:

Expert power means having the ability to influence someone in making a decision or course of action through experience or having the specific knowledge. Also a person may be given the power to make decisions for others due to their expertise in that specific field. Example of exert power could be a Sir Alex Ferguson, the manager of Manchester United,  influencing a young player to play in a certain way due to his superior knowledge of the game and experience. The manager would also have the power to make decisions for the players in terms of tactics and field play as he is the expert in this regard. 

Information Power:

Information power means someone who has the required information or can get access to information that it important to them or the company in a certain situation or time. An example of this could be the manager of river island having the information on a delivery that will come through that know one else knows about or if the manager does not know himself he will have the ability to get hold of the information.

Connection Power:

Connection power means having good sources and connections with influential and important people to help them. An example of this would be Tesco organising a charity event. Due to their stature and renowned brand they would have plenty of connections to help them organise this event.   

In conclusion, this section of conflict shows that organisations use all different types of techniques to maintain their organisation and to keep them up to good standards and also have a good reputation. Organisation need to be able to avoid conflict because this can effect the growth of the business and could end up having a really bad reputation.

Reference:

• Mullins, L J. ( 2007) Management And Organisational Behaviour. 8th Ed. Pearsons Education Limited: Essex