Conflict Management in the Workplace

Conflict is a component of interpersonal interactions, and therefore natural in the workplace. While neither inevitable nor intrinsically bad, conflict is commonplace. Conflicts may arise in different forms, exist between and among different levels of the organizational hierarchy, and involve supervisors, peers, or subordinates, as well as customers, clients, suppliers, and other stakeholders. The central idea of conflict management is that organizations can improve in the way conflict is managed by accepting conflict as part of organizational dynamics and by learning to deal with it effectively and efficiently. Given the ubiquity of conflict, it is perhaps unsurprising that the study of its management and resolution has become a popular topic in the last decades, particularly in the fields of management, human resources, and psychology. The aim of this article is to cover current topics in the area of conflict management in the workplace. To do so, the article is divided into different sections. In the different sections of the article, the reader will find academic sources on conflict and conflict behavior, types of conflict in the workplace at different levels, such as interpersonal, team, and intergroup, and a variety of resolution strategies, particularly negotiation and mediation, covering interventions by supervisors, colleagues, and (internal and external) third parties. Further, studies on the link between diversity, culture, and conflict, mistreatment in the workplace, and conflict in specific contexts, such as family business or start-ups, are presented. This article concludes with a collection of works on conflict management systems and tools to measure and evaluate conflict behavior in organizations. The sections included were chosen given the relevance from an academic point of view as well as from a practitioner perspective, where these aspects all are inevitable parts of the understanding of organizational conflict at different levels of complexity, and from understanding these conflicts and the conflict behavior to third parties. Complexity also adds in specific types, as harassment and bullying, often related to diversity and inclusion in organizations, and in specific contexts, as start-ups or family businesses, both rapidly growing fields of academic interest and of high importance to the global economy. Conflict management should also be understood as a system, as the alignment of different possible actors and interventions is essential for effective prevention and intervention. The article ends giving a closer look at validated instruments of use in research and practice to assess conflict behaviors. Regarding the methodology, a systematic approach was followed to select the works appearing in this bibliography. The following keywords were included in the search: “conflict resolution,” “conflict management,” “workplace conflict,” “conflict resolution,” “relationship conflict,” “leader conflict,” “conflict process,” “interpersonal conflict,” “conflict dynamic,” “negotiation,” and “mediation.” Articles were gathered from the academic databases Scopus and Web of Science, and their titles and abstracts were reviewed against the authors’ selection criteria.

Role of a Strategic Management Team in Conflict Resolution: A Case Study of IKEA

The thesis looked into and investigated the topic at hand as a case study of IKEA's strategic management team in dispute resolution. Organizational operations changes have a cascade effect on marketing and human resource management, undermining efforts at standardization and localization. Workplace disagreement can jeopardise organizational goals, leading to dysfunction and excessive competition. Workplace conflict must be addressed before it has a detrimental impact on team productivity and leads businesses to lose money. However, workplace disagreements can lead to the formation of positive relationships, peer learning, enhanced communication, new ideas, and increased motivation. We used transformational leadership theory to look at how senior account managers deal with conflict at work for this study. The thesis looked at IKEA's marketing techniques for forming a strategic management team to handle conflicts, and it was based on extensive research and accurate data.

Workplace conflict and employees’ job performance in Agro-services Corporation, Ogun State, Nigeria

The study determined the effects of workplace conflict on employees’ job performance in Ogun State Agro-service Corporation (OGASC). Multistage sampling technique was used to select 77 respondents. Data were collected through the administration of questionnaires and were analysed using frequency, percentage, and mean. The presence of functional staff union to minimize conflict (x̅ = 2.99) ranked as the first indication of reduced conflict, followed by existence of favouritism (x̅ = 2.51) which was ranked highest as an indication of conflict escalating factor by the respondents. Job performance of the respondents was not adversely affected by the workplace conflict they experienced. Therefore, the management of OGASC should ensure improvement in the deployment of the used resolution strategies to drastically reduce conflict for better performance of the employees.

Management's knowledge filter: entrepreneurship theory and the historic conceptual evolution of opportunism in management studies

PurposeThis study aims to argue that opportunism is central to management thought and illustrate its evolution into a central element of the entrepreneurship theory. The authors show that many criticisms of opportunism tend to conflate the concept with other theoretic traditions.Design/methodology/approachThe authors trace foundational works by Taylor, Mayo, Fayol, Barnard, Follett and Simon to limit opportunism under the guise of promoting cooperation in organizations.FindingsOpportunism is conceptualized in transaction cost economics as one of the most controversial concepts in management. While modern management is based on handling opportunism, it is bad for practice, as it ignores innovation, and damages trust and goodwill among organizational members. These interventions serve as a knowledge filter, damaging organizational entrepreneurship.Originality/valueBy tracing the roots of opportunism in early management thought, the authors clarify ethical and entrepreneurial issues of mutual obligations in organizations. The authors also place workplace conflict to be a more coherent framework that better reflects the core concept of opportunism.

Do you hear my accent? How nonnative English speakers experience conflictual conversations in the workplace

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the experiences of nonnative speakers in conflictual situations with native speakers in the workplace. In three studies, the authors examine whether nonnative speakers experience stereotype threat in workplace conflict situations with native speakers, whether stereotype threat is associated with certain conflict managing behaviors (e.g. yielding and avoiding) and the relationship between stereotype threat, satisfaction with conflict outcomes and processes, and objective conflict outcomes. Design/methodology/approach Studies 1 and 2 use critical incident recall methodology to examine nonnative speakers’ conflict behaviors and satisfaction with conflict outcomes. In Study 3, data were collected from a face-to-face simulation with a random-assignment design. Findings Findings suggest that nonnative speakers indeed experience heightened stereotype threat when interacting with native speakers in conflict situations and the experience of stereotype threat leads to less satisfaction with conflict outcomes, perceptions of goal attainment, as well as worse objective conflict outcomes. Originality/value The current study is one of the first studies to document the effects of accent stereotype threat on conflict behaviors and outcomes. More broadly, it contributes to the conflict studies literature by offering new insight into the effects and implications of stereotype threat on workplace conflict behaviors and outcomes.

TOWARDS UNDERSTANDING OF WORKPLACE CONFLICT: AN EXAMINATION INTO CAUSES AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES

Workplace conflict is regarded as a naturally and unavoidably occurring phenomenon in today's organisations. To identify the causes of workplace conflict it is critically important to determine appropriate conflict management strategies and effectively manage conflict. The purpose of this study was to explore causes of interpersonal conflicts between managers and employees and the conflict management styles used to handle these conflicts. A qualitative approach including thematic analysis and content analysis was employed. The thematic analysis was carried out to explore the themes concerning causes of conflicts between managers and employees. The content analysis was used to identify the conflict management styles. The data for both analyses included 47 individual written assignments describing conflict situations between managers and employees. Four general themes including poor management, manager personality, poor communication and differences in views emerged from the thematic analysis. Each theme also encompassed a number of subthemes. The findings of the content analysis showed that fight was the most adopted style used by both male and female managers. The findings also revealed that three styles emerge as the most frequently adopted by employees including avoidance, adaptation, and collaboration. The practical implications and limitations of this study are discussed. Keywords: causes of conflict, conflict management styles, gender, qualitative analysis, workplace conflict