Facilitator:
Background of the study
The existence of companies and the business world provide a chance for people to interact in different capacities especially as workers, and general employees thus the role of the people becomes distinct. Management conflicts arise in situations where the management stands on one side trying to push a certain policy through yet the employees do not want to follow the directives. A conflict may arise in the organization when the management changes the working hours for the employees, mainly increasing the hours of work yet the employees oppose it. The employees raise their concerns through aggressive reactions that lead to complacency in the organization hence advanced conflict situations. The paper presents a proposal for addressing a conflict realize between the management and employees following the management’s decision of increasing the working hours.
Project Objectives and Study Questions
The project’s main objective includes analysing a conflict experienced due to the introduction of changes on culture of the organization with the intention of proposing effective strategies that could provide that could address this conflict comprehensively. Auxiliary objectives include analysing the concerns presented by all parties and explore effective models that managers can utilize to impose change in the organizations without arousing conflicts. In order to address these objectives, the study will account for the subsequent questions. What are the principal concerns presented by each side and what are their boundaries? Which options or strategies are available for the organization, which are capable of containing the conflict? What is the implication of assuming either of the available options? This will lead to the formulation of effective recommendations that have the high potential of addressing the identified conflict.
Theoretical Framework
Scholars have identified various effective strategies for addressing conflicts in the workplace. Frederick Taylor underlines the fact that organizations composed of human elements in active interactions and the chances that they would often disagree with each other. He developed the principles of management to resolve some of the managerial conflicts and other problems facing managers in their daily activities (Morden, 2004). Furthermore, Marx Weber developed the bureaucracy theory that provides management with a bureaucratic approach of resolving conflicts in the organization. Weber stated various axioms that form the ground for adoption of the bureaucratic solutions in conflict management (Stevahn, Johnson, Johnson & Schultz, 2002). These concepts may be important in formulating effective recommendations for addressing the identified conflict.
Recommendations
Studies indicate that two major types of conflicts that include functional and dysfunctional occur in organizations. Functional conflict involves individuals who are genuinely interested in addressing a problem to improve the performance of the organization while dysfunctional conflicts characterize disagreements that affect the organization’s performance (Stevahn et al., 2002). The conflict identified in this case falls under the dysfunctional category since its involving disagreements between the employees and management that are capable of affective the organization’s activities. Strategic approaches for addressing dysfunctional conflicts include obliging, integrating, dominating and compromising (Morden, 2004).
This project recommends the adoption of the integrating approach in addressing the identified conflict. Jørn & Vidar (2010) accounts that integration presents a strategy of searching information regarding facts and interests with the intention of establishing a mutually satisfactory agreement. In this context, the project encourages both the employees and management to face the concern and jointly identify the challenges, create alternative solutions and endorse the most appropriate solution. Parties are encouraged to value the need of adjusting their terms and embrace tolerance in order to establish a fair ground that is sensitive to the concerns presented by each side. Effective adoption of this strategy will address the conflict comprehensively.
References
Morden, T. (2004). Principles of management. Aldershot [u.a.: Ashgate.
Stevahn, L., Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Schultz, R. (2002). Effects of conflict resolution training integrated into a high school social studies curriculum. The Journal of Social Psychology, 142(3), 305-31. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/199828072?accountid=45049
