Developing Conflict Management Skills in Municipal Employees: a Sociological Study

The article introduces a sociological survey that featured the development of conflict management skills in municipal employees of the Belgorod region. The methods involved a questionnaire survey and a semi-structured interview of Belgorod municipal authorities, teaching staff of the Higher School of Management of the Belgorod State University, and employees of the Institute of Regional Personnel Policy of Belgorod. The reasons behind the conflicts were divided into those caused by the specifics of the municipal service, the peculiarities of team relations, and the individual characteristics of a municipal employee. The results of the study can improve the practical work of municipal personnel departments or be used in teaching sociological disciplines. Further study is required to develop diagnostic methods to identify the conflict management skills in municipal officials, collect information, define conditions and patterns of development, draft resolution procedures, etc.

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.

Interpersonal Competences and Attitude to Online Collaborative Learning (OCL) among Future Pedagogues and Educators—A Polish and Portuguese Perspective

Interpersonal competences in relationship building, collaboration and teamwork are essential both in F2F education and in distance or hybrid styles of education. In the face of the COVID-19 crisis, as well as previous trends, some or all of the higher education didactics were transferred to the online environment. In this context, the Online Collaborative Learning (OCL) model, now known as collaborativism, is gaining importance. This research aims to diagnose and compare the level of interpersonal competences and attitude in the OCL model among students preparing for the profession of an educator, pedagogue or teacher in the autonomous region of Madeira and in Poland. Quantitative studies were conducted using the Interpersonal Competence Questionnaire by D. Buhrmester, W. Furman, M.T. Wittenberg and H.T. Reis—as adapted by Poland and Portugal. In addition, the respondents expressed their views on OCL in the self-written questionnaire. According to the research findings, the highest level of competence in the Portuguese group was achieved by the respondents in terms of: Emotional Support (EW), Conflict Management and Resolution (RK) and Negative Assertion—Asserting Influence (AO). In the Polish group, EW was the lowest. The highest level of interpersonal competences was observed for Conflict Management and Resolution (RK), Disclosure (US) and Initiation (IR). The largest group of the surveyed students in both countries expressed a positive attitude towards implementing OCL in their courses of study and declared their willingness to be a member of a group that learns online together.

Manajemen Konflik Pemerintah Kota Bogor Antara Forum Muslim Bogor Dengan Masyarakat Tionghoa (Studi Kasus: Perayaan Cap Go Meh 2019)

This study describes the conflict management carried out by the Bogor City Government over the conflicts that occurred between the Forum Muslim Bogor and the Chinese Community. In this conflict, it was found that there was intolerance that occurred in the people of Bogor City ahead of the Cap Go Meh celebration in 2019. Where the case of intolerance was carried out by issuing a circular issued by the Forum Muslim Bogor through social media. The letter was circulated very widely which contained an appeal to the Bogor City Government not to facilitate the Cap Go Meh/Bogor Street Festival celebration and called for the Muslim community not to participate in the event because it was considered to damage the faith. In this study, the focus will be on conflict resolution efforts carried out by the Bogor City Government using the theory of Conflict Management and Critical System Heuristics. The research method used is descriptive qualitative research method. Therefore, this study will look at how the conflict resolution carried out by the Bogor City Government towards the conflict. Keywords: conflict resolution, bogor city government, cap go meh. Abstrak Penelitian ini menjelaskan mengenai manajemen konflik yang dilakukan oleh Pemerintah Kota Bogor atas konflik yang terjadi antara Forum Muslim Bogor dengan Masyarakat Tionghoa. Dalam konflik ini ditemukan adanya intoleransi yang terjadi dimasyarakat Kota Bogor menjelang perayaan Cap Go Meh tahun 2019. Dimana kasus intoleransi tersebut dilakukan dengan cara mengeluarkan surat edaran yang dilakukan oleh Forum Muslim Bogor melalui media sosial. Surat tersebut beredar sangat luas yang mana berisikan mengenai seruan kepada Pemerintah Kota Bogor agar tidak memfasilitasi Perayaan Cap Go Meh/Bogor Street Festival dan menyerukan agar masyarakat muslim tidak berpartisipasi dalam acara tersebut karena dinilai dapat merusak akidah. Dalam penelitian ini akan lebih fokus terhadap upaya resolusi konflik yang dilakukan oleh Pemeritah Kota Bogor dengan menggunakan teori Manajemen Konflik dan Critical System Heuristic. Adapun metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah metode penelitian deskriptif kualitatif. Penelitian ini akan melihat bagaimana resolusi konflik yang dilakukan Pemerintah Kota Bogor terhadap konflik tersebut. Kata Kunci: resolusi konflik, pemerintah kota bogor, cap go meh.