What is conflict?
Conflict is a process which begins when one party perceives that another has frustrated, or is about to frustrate some concern of the former
What is conflict management?
The practice of being able to identify and handle conflicts sensibly, fairly and efficiently
What are the two forms of conflict?
- functional or constructive conflict
- dysfunctional conflict
Why is constructive conflict good for the organisation?
- it provides higher quality decision-making due to differences in opinion
- it introduces different solutions to a problem by encouraging creativity and brainstorming activity
What is dysfunctional conflict?
it is unhealthy behaviour within an organization to hurt other decision-makers during interaction and create obstacles to impede the decision-making process.
What are the effects of dysfunctional conflict?
- Decision-making suffers due to the emotional aspects of the conflict.
- it limits the processing of information and gives rise to hostile attributions concerning each other’s behaviours.
- Decreases willingness to tolerate opposition and disturbs effective communication and cooperation at work.
What are some behaviors that lead to destructive conflict?
- Restricting Information: knowing the answer to a problem but refusing to provide it.
- Lying: deliberate distortion of the facts.
- Parring: breaking into groups rather than solving the conflict as a group.
- Put-downs of others or of self: put-downs of others through verbal aggression.
- Fight: win-lose conflicts: insisting that you are right makes it difficult to resolve conflict.
What are some sources of conflict?
- Unfair allocation of resources
- Disagreements about work
- Changes in work affecting the status
- Mistrust among employees
- Change in departmental operations
- Lack of clear understanding of objectives and goals
What is intrapersonal conflict?
Conflict that occurs within an individual
What is interpersonal conflict?
It refers to two or more individuals who perceive that their attitudes, behaviours or preferred goals are in opposition e.g. role conflict
What is intragroup conflict?
It refers to clashes among some or all of a group’s members, which often affect the group’s processes and effectiveness
What is inter group conflict?
Intergroup conflict refers to opposition and clashes between groups or teams
What are the two forms of inter group conflicts?
- vertical conflict
- horizontal conflict
What is vertical conflict?
This is when superiors attempt to control subordinates too tightly and the subordinate resists
what is horizontal conflict
It occurs when each department or team strives only for its own goals, disregarding the goals of other departments and teams, especially if those goals are incompatible
What are the consequences of dysfunctional conflict?
- Conflict have been found to increase the level of stress, anxiety and hostility (Ayoko, 2016).
- People in conflicts have greater probability to be dissatisfied with work
- Conflict can reduce creativity, innovation, quality, and performance of employees and organizations.
- Relationship conflict negatively affects team performance and produces tension between team members.
