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1.0 INTRODUCTION TO ORGANISATIONAL CONFLICTS

According to Gareth et al, organizational conflict is the discord that arises when the "goals,

interests or values of different individuals or groups are incompatible and those individuals or

groups block or thwart one another's attempts to achieve their objective. It is often the result

of a disagreement between two or more individuals in a company. Other than that, conflict

can also exist outside of the organization and this usually involves one or more companies in

the business environment.

Conflicts have both positive and negative outcomes to the individual employees and

the organization at large. There is no single source of conflict which occurs in organizations at

all level of management and conflicts that arises needs to be resolved by management for the

sake of the organizational growth, survival and performance. Conflict can occur within groups

(intra-group conflict), or among groups (inter-group conflict). However, conflicts are often

complicated and not easily resolved. To a certain extent, most conflicts are managed, as

individuals work out differences (Barker et al., 1987).

2.0 IMPACT OF ORGANISATIONAL CONFLICTS ON PERFORMANCE

There are three basic types of conflicts such as task conflict, interpersonal conflict and

procedural conflict. Task conflict is regarded as disagreement about the substance of the

discussion. Task conflict can be productive by improving the quality of the decisions and

critical thinking processes. Another potential area for conflict is the interpersonal

relationships with the organization. The term interpersonal is used to indicate the

disagreement that most people call personality clash that may be in the form of antagonistic

remarks that relate to the personal characteristics of a group member or disregard any

organizational goals to antagonize a particular group member. Interpersonal conflict may be

inevitable and must be managed for optimal group co-existence. Next, procedural conflict

exists when group members disagree about the procedures to be followed in accomplishing

the group goal. New procedures may be formulated and new agenda suggested. Even the

group goal may be modified. Procedural conflict, like task conflict, may be productive at

times according to Barker et al., 1987.

Affective conflicts are generally caused by the negative reactions of organisational

members such as personal attacks on group members, sexual harassment and racial

disharmony. This type of conflicts would impede group performance. It affects group

performance by limiting information- processing ability and cognitive functioning of group

members and antagonistic attributions of group members’ behaviour. Affective conflict

diminishes groups loyalty, work group commitment and satisfaction. These result from higher

level of stress, anxiety and conflict escalation

Substantive conflicts are related to disagreements about tasks, policies and other

business issues. A study by Jehn (1995) suggests that a moderate level of substantive conflict

is beneficial, as it stimulates debate and discussion, which help groups to attain higher levels

of performance. Groups that experience this conflict are able to make better decisions. This

conflict can improve group performance through better understanding of various viewpoints

and alternative solutions. Beneficial effects of substantive conflicts on performance were

found only in groups performing non routine tasks but not on groups performing standardised

tasks.

Conflict improves decision making outcomes, especially on task-related conflict and

group productivity by increasing the quality through constructive criticism and individuals

adopting a devil’s advocate role. Research has also found out that task related conflict is

beneficial to the organization since it allows the exchange of ideas and assist better
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performance amongst the group members (Jehn, 1995). Conflict can be seen as a productive

force that is able to stimulate members of the organization to increase their knowledge and

skills and contribute to organization innovation and productivity. Other benefits include

improved group learning and accuracy in situation assessment, promoted the development of

new ideas and approaches, and achieved high quality decisions since individuals confront

problems.

Conflict can create negative impact to as well as leading to positive effects depending

on the nature of the conflict as mentioned above. The positive effects of conflicts would

improve the quality of decisions, stimulating participation in the discussion and building

group cohesion. However, conflicts also will be potentially destructive in groups especially

when it consumes individual members’ energies instead of concentrating on other productive

activities of the organisation. They can interfere with group process and create so much

interpersonal hostility that group members may become unwilling or unable to work with

others. Unsolved conflicts tends to grow into bigger conflicts, and thus bringing bigger

problems such as lack of cooperation, poor communication, wasted and contagious conflict.

The effects of unresolved conflicts which leads to poor performance are as shown in figure

below:

Time Wasted

Weak Poor
Unsolved Conflicts Bigger Problems Contagious Conflict
Communication Performance

Poor
Cooperation

Source: Adapted from Knippen and Green (1999)

Management should resolve conflicts properly so that organizational performance can

be increased in terms of utilizing the scarce resources and achieving the organizational

objectives. The result of resolving conflicts in an organization are as shown in the figure

below:

Good Communication,
Resolved Ways/Strategies to Rise in Organisational
Few Conflict Time Management and
Conflicts Solve Conflicts Performance
Good Cooperation

Source: Adapted from Knippen and Green (1999)

Robinson et al. (1974) advocate that managing conflict towards constructive action is

the best approach in resolving conflict in organization. When conflict arises, we need to be

able to manage them properly, so that it becomes a positive force. Parker (1974) argued that if

conflicts arise and they are not managed properly, it will lead to delays of work, disinterest

and lack of action and in extreme cases it might lead to complete breakdown of the group.

3.0 CONCLUSION

The major cause of organisational conflicts is sharing of limited resources. Employees always

compete for the scarce resources. Therefore, it is the prime responsibility of the management

to ensure that the available scarce resources are utilized properly for the benefit of the

organisation and other stakeholders. This approach to a certain degree will minimize chances

of conflicts arising in organisation. Although conflicts have both negative and positive effects,

the management and the employees should work towards achieving the positive effects rather

than the negative. According to Adomi and Anie (2005), managers should develop

appropriate strategies to resolve conflicts as they arise in their organisations

4.0 REFERENCES

Adomi, E.E., & Anie, S.O. 2005. Organisational Conflict and its Effect on Organisational
Performance. University of Botswana. 2009 Academic Journal Inc.

G. N. William. 2008. Understanding Business. 8th Edition. United States. Mc Graw Hills

Jehn, K., 1995. A multi-method examination of the benefits and detriment of intr-group
conflict. Administr. Sci. Q., 40 (1): 256-282.

J.L. Hocker. 1995. Interpersonal Conflict. 4th Edition. United States. McGraw-Hill.

J.T. Knippen. 1999. Handling conflicts. J.Workplace Learning, 11(1): 27-32.

L.L. Barker. 1987. Groups in process: An Introduction to Small Group Communication 3rd
Edition. United States. Prentice Hall

Graham, M.A. and M.J.LeBron, 1994. The Horizontal Revolution: Reengineering Your

Organisation Through Teams. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.

M. Afzalur Rahim. 2001. Managing Conflict in Organizations. 3rd Edition. United Kingdom:
Quorum Books.

R.D. Agarwal. 1983 .Organization and management. 1st Edition. United States. Mc Graw
Hills

Robinson, J., W.J.Roy and R.A.Clifford, 1974. Conflict Management in Community Groups.
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, North-Central Regional Extension Publication
No. 36-45.

Wikipedia. 2010. Organizational conflict. Electronic source.

Robert Bacals. 2009. Organizational Conflict - The Good, Bad & Ugly. Electronic source.

http://work911.com/articles/orgconflict.htm [20th September 2010]