The major causes of the chosen conflict

Introduction:

Conflicts are the inevitable situations in organization, between

nation, community and even personal life. It is a process in which the
idea or interests of one party are being opposed by the another
party1.

For some people conflicts will be a negative situation, which should

be avoided at any cost. For others conflicts are phenomenon, which
necessitates innovation in management. Same time few people
consider conflict as an better opportunity to use it to their best
advantage.

The concept of conflict theory is one of the significant concept to be

understood by the person who is in the role of the administrator. The
conflicts can arise from fields such as business, sociology, psychology,
etc.

According to Coser at all , conflicts are struggle over values and

claims to scarce power, resource and status in which the idea of the
opponents are to injure, neutralize or eliminate2.

There are many issues that arise in community or organization;

hence conflict will be a part of ones life. These Conflicts can occur
between committee members, volunteers, clients, employees,
community or ordinary members.

According to Deetz and Stevenson, there are three assumptions that

will indicate that conflicts can also be positive in nature3.

Their assumptions are as follows:

1. conflicts are natural;
2. conflicts are necessary and good
3. Most of the conflicts are also based on real differences.

The founder of modern conflict theory is C.Wright Mills.

In his view, because of conflict between people with differing
interests and resources have created social structures. The “unequal
distribution of power and resources in the society” has influence on
the individual and organizational structures.
The Forms/Classification Of Conflict:

A. Relationship Conflict:

These types of conflict happen because of interpersonal

incompatibilities between the group members which also includes
tension annoyance and clashes.

B. Task Conflicts:
These conflicts are due to disagreements about the work goals and
content of a task, such as interpretation of facts, distribution of
resources and procedures. It also include differences in idea, opinion
and view points.

C. Process Conflicts:
These are because of disagreement on delegation, individual
responsibility and how a task should be accomplished. For example
the group employee may disagree about whose responsibility it is to
complete a particular duty.

There are four types of Intra-Organizational Conflict:

A. Vertical
B. Horizontal
C. Line-staff conflict
D. Role conflict.

A. Vertical Conflict:
This refers to conflict between the levels in an organization; For
example : The conflicts between superior authority and subordinate.

B. Horizontal Conflict:
The conflict between the employees of same hierarchical level in an
organization is referred as horizontal conflict.

C. Line-Staff Conflict:
The conflict between the staff who are appointed to assist the line
departments.

D. Role Conflict
This is one of the most common type of conflict. Where individual
expects other employee to perform the role, which are not assigned
in particular way.

There are two sources of Conflict:

A. Internal Sources:
These are inherent within the structure or framework of an
organization. The major prime factor are opposing interests /
divergent interests, which causes the conflicts between the two
parties in organizations.

B. The External Sources:

This occur when the third party intervene into the industrial dispute
becomes biased or one sided. They occur outside the walls of an
organization.

Structural or personal factors are the major causes of Conflict:

A. Structural Factors
1. Specialization:

When employees are specialists in a particular job but also get a

general knowledge of other many tasks leads to conflicts because
they will also have little knowledge of each other’s job
responsibilities.

For example, a receptionist at a hospital desk can say that a MRI scan
can be completed in an hour, even though some scans take more tha
hour. Since the receptionist does not know much about the
technician’s job she should not give an unrealistic deadline when the
scan will be completed.

2. Common Resources:

In some situations employees may we have to share the limited

resources available in the organization. The limited resources may
include computers, printers, money, supplies, people or information.
The scarcer the resource in any organization, there will be greater
the chance for a conflict situation.

3. Goal Differences:
When the individual in organization have different goals or
incompatible goals there will be substantially increase in chances of
conflict.

For instance, the goal of a salesperson is to sell many medical

equipment’s as fast as possible. However the manufacturing facility
may or unable to meet the sales person’s promises.

4. Interdependence:
Increase in the level of task interdependence will inturn increase the
possibility of conflict.

For example: When a person is depend on others to complete task,

there will be high chances of blaming a co-worker when something
goes wrong or delayed.

5. Authority Relationships.
As most of the people do not like being told what they have to be
doing so there will be constant underlying tension between the
managers and employees in the organization.

Generally the very strict managers often have conflicts with their
employees. Some people may even try to engage in conflict, so that
they can increase their power or status in an organization.

6. Roles and Expectations:

When the roles of the each subordinates are not clearly determined
or mentioned, there will be frequent misunderstandings and conflicts
between manager and subordinates towards there rules.

7. Jurisdictional Ambiguities:
When there are uncertain lines of responsibility in an organization
jurisdictional ambiguities starts to appear. When responsibilities are
not clearly stated, employees tend to pass on the responsibility to
other person.

B. Personal factors:

1. Misunderstandings:
Misunderstandings about the aims objectivists and nature of job.
Difference in expectation how work has to be done.
The difference in responsibilities of employees and management
Differences in needs, beliefs values and priorities

2. Poor communication:
The unclear communication between the staff and staff to clients
results in conflict hence clear communication and complete messages
are important.

3. Lack of planning:
The organization with lack of direction and disorganisation can
create a lot of problems and can also be stressful to the employees.

4. Poor staff selection:

When there are poor criteria is in selecting the employees, there will
be ill-feeling in staff that may increasing dismissal of the staff
members ideas.

5. Frustration, stress and burnout

When employees become stress burnout or frustrated the will be

more irritable. It is important walk of administrator to recognise the
signs of stress in employees in order to prevent conflicts.