The human resources manager is the line manager responsible for the management of human resources. The duties of the human resources manager include selection, training, and compensation of the personnel. Also, it is the responsibility of the human resource office to manage the divergent perspectives, expectations, and goals of the different cadre of staff. Due to the variety of expectations and perspectives, conflict is invariably a key and inevitable issue. Thus, the satisfactory management of interpersonal conflict is paramount in any organization (Borkowski, 2016; de Reuver, 2006). The approach used in conflict resolution has far-reaching implications for organizational effectiveness and employee welfare. Besides interpersonal conflict, personal conflict in organizations is common. This includes person-role, inter-gender, and inter-role conflict. Intergroup, inter-organizational, and international conflict involves groups, organizations and nations respectively (Wall Jr & Callister, 1995).
Definition of Conflicts
Conflicts can be described as the awareness of the existence of a clash, contestation, or opposition of expectations, goals, values or perspectives ( Chaudhry and Asif, 2015; Tjosvold et al., 2014; de Reuver, 2006). Wall Jr & Callister, (1995) define conflict as the perception by one party of opposition to its interests by another party. These interests can be described variously as aims, goals, values, concerns, or even activities. Once either party takes action in dealing with the situation, as a matter of course, the other party will react. At this point, the conflict is dynamic and ought to be handled (Borkowski, 2016). An integrative action is indicated and beneficial for both parties. However, often, the protagonists will dwell on their interests allowing the competitive behavior to subsume, with manipulations aimed at skewing advantage, threats to deter, and unreasonable demands predominating (de Reuver, 2006).
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The progression of conflict is a function of the power dynamics involved which are used in a conflict situation to establish an advantage. Thus, the more asymmetrical the power base of either party to a conflict is, the higher the probability of escalation. The typology of the causes of conflict includes individual characteristics and interpersonal factors such as personality, values, goals, stress, anger, perception, communication, behavior, structure and previous interaction ( Berman-Kishony and Shvarts, 2015). The effects of conflict vary with the level in question. At the personal level, conflicts result in anger, hostility, tension, anxiety, stress, negative emotions that may turn to frustration and low job satisfaction. They may also lead to feelings of guilt, embarrassment, turnover (quitting or getting fired), demotivation and deterioration in communication. Other repercussions include behavioral change, structural shift, resolutions, residue and poor performance (Wall Jr & Callister, 1995). For instance, in the case study in question, when Jones is confronted in a meeting with allegations that caught him off guard, some of the resultant negative residues include mutual distrust, frustration, betrayal, and demoralization amongst both parties as well as other colleagues.
Conflict Handling
Conflict handling refers to the action taken by a party in dealing with a conflict situation or experience. This action undoubtedly elicits a reaction from other parties, giving the conflict a dynamic character (de Reuver, 2006). Human resource managers can employ various approaches to resolve conflicts. These include dominance, compromise, collaboration, avoidance or smoothing while balancing the interests of employees and those of the organization (Chaudhry & Asif, 2015; de Reuver, 2006; Wall Jr & Calister, 1995 ). A three-factor model approach considering six conflict styles can be employed in conflict resolution (de Reuver, 2006). In this method, the three dimensions of dominance, submissiveness, and integration are considered. Within this approach, the conflict styles of direct fighting, indirect fighting, collaborating, negotiating, yielding and avoiding are distinguished.
Dominance includes ‘direct’ and ‘indirect in-fighting.’ This involves active straightforward control and masked process control respectively. Submissiveness is the reserved passive behavior characterized by ‘yielding’ and ‘avoiding’ styles. Yielding is playing down of differences, toning down feelings or smoothing over, while avoidance refers to withdrawal from the conflict typified by not having ongoing activities directed at conflict resolution. Integration exemplifies cooperation and encompasses collaboration and negotiation. Collaboration consists of confronting the conflict situation by examining reasons and evaluating the bipartisan solutions available. Negotiating, on the other hand, reflects flexibility, give and take or compromise kind of behavior (de Reuver, 2006). Progression of a conflict depends on power dynamics. Asymmetrical power catalyzes the conflict leading to its escalation. Majority of conflicts tend to de-escalate with a tendency toward finding common ground and a solution.
Conflict Management for The ‘Case Study’ Dispute
The conflict described in the case study could have been managed through the disputants or third parties. The disputants should aim at either changing the opponent's behavior, the circumstances of the conflict or their behavior. However, they tend to lean toward violence and competitive use of force, defeat, totalism, deterrence, and forcing avoidance ( Tjosvold et al., 2014).
Disputants Engagement Method
Regarding the case study, this method would have involved allowing the disputants to come together with the aim of helping them to identify causes and consequences of the conflict as well as its alternatives. This is in line with the theory of cooperation and competition (Tjosvold et al., 2014). This would have been followed by guiding the disputants to confront the conflict at hand through distinguishing interests and positions, listening, and speaking clearly. The aim of this would have been to enable them to deal with causes, the conflict itself, as well as its effects. The primary tactics aimed at include creation of awareness of conflicts, describing alternatives, encouraging disputants to deal with contentions, improving mood, encouraging reasonable expression and ensuring that actions are linked to positive intent. Others include fostering open-mindedness, establishing cooperative behavior, initiating open discussions, encouraging compromise, problem-solving and encouraging disputants to view dispute from each other's perspective. Also, several issues would be limited. These include violence and competitive use of force, defeat, totalism, deterrence, and avoidance.
Manager’s Conflict Management Approach
The manager’s approach involves the use of a leadership style that serves this goal. Normally, this involves addressing the nature and causes of the conflict, beginning with an initial diagnosis of the conflict (Overton & Lowry, 2013; Wall Jr & Calister, 1995). This might also involve the participation of disputants in order to solve the problem and build interpersonal relationships (Overton & Lowry, 2013). In this approach, the manager or a delegated officer identifies the conflict, followed by determination of roles, followed by improvement of communication amongst disputants. This is done while discouraging the use of negative strategies and encouraging joint responsibility for conflict management. Further, it entails maintaining a momentum for change and pursuit for a solution. The other strategies involve, where necessary, encouragement of negotiation, arbitration, mediation, enforcing a truce and offering incentives. Further, other strategies may consist of ensuring interaction and communication where necessary.
The conflict could also have been dealt with by altering the structure. This would have been achieved by transferring a disputant, creating buffer positions, setting up formalized appeal systems, establishing rules such as a channel for processing disputes, and establishing mandatory joint sessions for both disputants. The other approaches include redirecting behavior of disputants, reallocating resources to eliminate reason from the dispute, reframing perspectives and realigning the underlying forces. Examples of specific interventions may include fractionating issues, creating new alternatives and altering communications. The manager could, when reallocating human resources, expand resources or call upon third parties who might be of assistance. In addition, the manager may revise formal rules, negotiate standards for appropriate behavior or revise stereotypes.
Future Considerations for Mitigation
The other considerations for mitigation and prevention of recurrence might include forestalling the conflict and preventing its promotion and escalation, paying attention to its causes and addressing them before the conflict can arise. Others include addressing the negative effects of conflicts that may have arisen earlier, identification of issues and working out a compromise. Further, there would be a need to adopt a structural response rather than heaping blame on people as well as aiming for fair and procedural justice when resolving conflicts. Finally, dispute resolution is time-consuming. Hence, there is the need for delegation and cascading to lower levels of the dispute handling mechanisms through training. This would be aimed at enabling early recognition and resolution of conflicts.
References
Berman-Kishony, T., & Shvarts, S. (2015). Universal versus tailored solutions for alleviating disruptive behavior in hospitals. Israel journal of health policy research , 4 (1), 26.
Borkowski, N. (2016). Organizational behavior in health care (3 rd ed.) Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlet Learning.
Chaudhry, A. M., & Asif, R. (2015). Organizational Conflict and Conflict Management: a synthesis of literature. Journal of Business and Management Research , 9 , 238-244.
de Reuver, R. (2006). The influence of organizational power on conflict dynamics. Personnel Review , 35 (5), 589-603. doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/00483480610682307
Overton, A. R., & Lowry, A. C. (2013). Conflict management: difficult conversations with difficult people. Clinics in colon and rectal surgery , 26 (4), 259.
Tjosvold, D., Wong, A. S., & Feng Chen, N. Y. (2014). Constructively managing conflicts in organizations. Annu. Rev. Organ. Psychol. Organ. Behav. , 1 (1), 545-568.
Wall Jr, J. A., & Callister, R. R. (1995). Conflict and its management. Journal of management , 21 (3), 515-558.
