Paper No. 8: Cross Cultural Psychology - Organizational Conflict PDF

____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Subject Psychology Paper No and Title Paper no. 8: Cross Cultural Psychology Module No and Title Module no. 24: Organizational Conflict...

____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Subject Psychology Paper No and Title Paper no. 8: Cross Cultural Psychology Module No and Title Module no. 24: Organizational Conflict Module Tag PSY_P8_M24 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Learning Outcomes 2. Introduction 3. Nature and type of conflict 3.1 Task conflict 3.2 Relationship conflict 3.3 Process conflict 4. The process of conflict 4.1 Stage I: Incompatibility 4.1.1 Communication 4.1.2 Structure 4.1.3 Personality variables 4.2 Stage II: Cognition and Personalization 4.3 Stage III: Conflict management strategies 4.3.1 Competing PSYCHOLOGY PAPER No.8: Cross Cultural Psychology MODULE No.24: Organizational Conflict ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 4.3.2 Avoidance 4.3.3 Collaborating 4.3.4 Accommodating 4.3.5 Compromising 4.4 Stage IV: Behavior 4.5 Stage V: Outcome 4.5.1 Lose-Lose 4.5.2 Lose-Win 4.5.3 Win-Lose 4.5.4 Win-Win 5. Levels of conflict 5.1 Intra-individual conflict 5.1.1 Conflict due to frustration 5.1.2 Role conflict 5.1.3 Goal conflict 5.2 Interpersonal conflict 5.2.1 Personal differences 5.2.2 Individual differences 5.2.3 Role incompatibility 5.2.4 Environmental stress 5.3 Intergroup behavior conflict 5.3.1 Task interdependence 5.3.2 Jurisdiction ambiguity 5.3.3 Competition for resources 5.3.4 Status struggle 6. Causes of conflict 6.1 Perceptual distortion 6.2 Grudges 6.3 Distrust 6.4 Competition over scarce resources 6.5 Destructive criticism 7. Consequences of conflict 7.1 Negative consequences of conflict 7.2 Positive consequences of conflict 8. Coping with conflict 8.1 Coping strategies for intra-individual conflict 8.2 Coping strategies for interpersonal conflict 8.3 Coping strategies for intergroup conflict 9. Summary PSYCHOLOGY PAPER No.8: Cross Cultural Psychology MODULE No.24: Organizational Conflict ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1. Learning Outcomes After studying this module, you shall be able to:  Define the prevalence of the conflict in organization.  Describe conflicts due to frustration, goals and roles.  Identify interpersonal and organizational conflicts.  Know inter-group behaviour and dimensions of organizational conflict.  Apply conflict handling skills for more effective management. 2. Introduction Conflict has both positive and negative aspects. This chapter provides a guide to help you to understand and define conflict cycle, and discuss the consequences and sources of conflict in the workplace. Also in the last section of this chapter we will discuss procedures for resolving conflict and third party resolutions. The existence of conflict depends on the perception of the two parties. If no one is aware of the conflict, then it is generally agreed that no conflict exists. Thus, conflict is a process in which one party perceives that its interests are being opposed or negatively affected by another party. This definition is stressing on opposition, incompatibility and some form of interaction. It is focusing on a wide range of conflicts that people face in organization due to incompatibility between goals, interest, beliefs, value systems, and differences over interpretation of facts, disagreements based on behavioral expectations and the like. Conflict can range from overt and violent acts to subtle form of disagreement. The traditional approach to conflict views it as bad, destructive, violent and irrational. They consider conflict as dysfunction and harmful hence, it must be completely avoided at the workplace. The traditional view was consistent with the attitudes that prevailed about group behavior in the 1930s and 1940s. Conflict was seen as the negative outcome resulted from poor communication, lack of openness and trust between people, and the failure of managers to be responsive to the needs and aspiration of their employees. It is a simple approach toward organizational conflict where they use various strategies for avoiding the dysfunctional effects of conflict. The human relations approach dominated the conflict theory from the late 1940s through the mid- 1970s. According to them conflict is a natural occurrence where two or more people interact, with each other in all groups and organization. They accepted the presence of conflict and viewed it as benefiting and even improving the group as well as organizational performance. They are the people who accepted the human relation approach and moved beyond that. In the sense they have not only accepted the conflict but encourage conflict and provide grounds for discussion, criticism and creativity. According to integrationist approach in the absence of conflict group becomes static and apathetic and non-responsive towards change and innovation. Thus a minimum level of conflict is necessary to keep the group viable, motivated and innovative. PSYCHOLOGY PAPER No.8: Cross Cultural Psychology MODULE No.24: Organizational Conflict ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3. Nature and Type of Conflict All conflicts are not good. Functional conflicts are those, which support groups in goal accomplishment and improve its performance. Such conflicts are constructive in nature. Whereas conflicts that do not facilitate the goal accomplishment, group activities and organizational performance are dysfunctional in nature. There are three major types of conflicts. Task conflict, relationship conflict and process conflict; differentiate functional conflicts from dysfunctional conflicts. 3. 1 Task Conflict Task conflict is related to the content and goals of the work. A low-moderate level of task conflict is functional in nature, because it encourages discussion, brainstorming, innovative ideas and creativity, which help company to change for the better. 3.2 Relationship conflict Relationship conflict is about interpersonal relationships. It is always dysfunctional in nature. The clashes among people due to different types of personality, distinct value and belief system and different backgrounds make them hostile towards each other. It can further lead to decreased mutual understanding, thereby obstructing the completion of organizational goals. 3. 3 Process conflict It relates to how work should be done. The low level of process conflict is functional in nature. Intense arguments about who should do what becomes dysfunctional in nature. Intense arguments are usually dysfunctional in nature because they create uncertainty about the task roles, increase the time to complete tasks, and leads to members working at cross-purpose. 4. The process of conflict The process of conflict can be understood by the following diagram which shows the five stages of conflict: Figure: 1 Stages of conflict PSYCHOLOGY PAPER No.8: Cross Cultural Psychology MODULE No.24: Organizational Conflict ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 4.1 Stage I: Incompatibility It is the stage of potential opposition; it requires certain antecedent condition to give rise to conflict. The antecedent conditions can be condensed into communication, structure and personal variables. 4.1.1 Communication Effective communication is a great source of compatibility. But semantic difficulties, misunderstanding and the noise in the communication channel put certain barriers in the way of communication. A review of the research suggests that differing words, connotation, jargon, insufficient exchange of information, and noise in the communication add potential antecedent conditions to conflict. The potential for conflict increases when either too little or too much communication takes place. The channel selected for communication produce significant effect on stimulating opposition. 4.1.2 Structure Sometimes the requirement of the jobs raises a conflict among people working on different jobs in the same organization. Here, term structure refers to the variable such as size, degree of specialization in the task assigned to group members, jurisdictional clarity, member goal compatibility, leadership styles, rewards system, and the degree of dependence between the groups. It is found from various researches that size and specialization stimulate conflict. The probability of conflict tends to be greatest when group members are younger and when turnover is high. If the antecedent conditions discussed in stage I negatively affects something that one party cares about than the potential for incompatibility or opposition felt in the second stage discussed earlier. 4.1.3 Personality variables The individual value system that person holds and the personality characteristics that accounts for individual differences are the potential source of conflict, constitute personality variables. Differences in values result into a higher degree of social conflict. Prejudice, disagreements over one’s contribution in the group, the rewards one deserve and assessment of one’s results, are examples of social conflict. 4.2 Stage II Cognition and Personalization Conflict depends on the perception, when one party perceives the negative effects of another party than conflict arises. Our emotions play a major role in shaping perceptions, such as negative emotions produce over simplification of issues, reduction in trust, and negative interpretations of the other party’s behavior. Whereas, favorable emotions increases the tendency to see the positive relationship among the elements of a problem, in order to take the broader view of the situation, and to develop more innovative solutions. However, because a conflict is perceived does not mean that it is personalized. And it is found to be at a felt level, when individuals become emotionally involved, parties experience anxiety, tension, frustration or hostility. PSYCHOLOGY PAPER No.8: Cross Cultural Psychology MODULE No.24: Organizational Conflict ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 4.3 Stage III Conflict management strategies Conflicts will occur in any organization. In the 1970s, Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann recognized that when management understands the reasons behind a conflict and how serious the conflict is, a more positive outcome results. The two identified five levels or styles of dealing with conflict and called these the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument. Understanding your personal level of conflict management allows for better conflict resolution. Knowing which level to use in a situation helps management bring an end to serious organizational conflict. There are five interpersonal styles of approaching the other party in a conflict situation. As shown in figure each approach can be placed in two-dimensional grid reflecting the person’s motivation to satisfy his or her own interest called assertiveness and to satisfy the other party’s interest called cooperativeness. We should learn different conflict management styles. Figure: 2 Interpersonal Conflict Management Styles 4.3.1 Competing When one person seeks to satisfy his or her own interests, regardless of the impact on the other parties, he or she is competing. This style has the strongest win-lose orientation because it has the highest level of non-cooperativeness. The people adopting this style convince others that what they are doing is correct and try to project the blame on someone else for the problem. 4.3.2 Avoidance Avoidance is trying to smooth over or avoid conflict situation altogether. A person when recognizes the conflict try to withdraw from it or suppress it. 4.3.3 Collaborating PSYCHOLOGY PAPER No.8: Cross Cultural Psychology MODULE No.24: Organizational Conflict ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ In collaboration, the intention of the parties is to solve the problem by clarifying differences rather than by accommodating various points of new. They attempt to find a win - win solution that allows both parties. Thus, in collaboration they find a mutually beneficial solution for both parties through problem solving. They believe in information sharing so that both parties can identify and find common grounds and potential solutions that satisfy both of them. 4.3.4 Accommodating Accommodating refers to giving in completely to the other’s wishes, or at least cooperating with little or no attention to one’s own interests. Examples are a willingness to sacrifice one’s goal, so the other party’s goal can be attained, supporting someone else’s opinion despite one’s reservations about it, and forgiving someone for an altercation and allowing subsequent ones. 4.3.5 Compromising It is trying to reach a middle ground with the other party. In other words each party in the conflict seeks to give up a little, share something, resulting in a compromised outcome. In compromising there is no clear winner or loser. Rather there is a willingness to restrict the object of conflict and accept a solution that provides complete satisfaction to both concerned parties. All these strategies provide general guidelines for parties in a conflict. People have predispositions for handling conflicts in certain ways. These five conflict-handling strategies are relatively fixed rather than as a set of options from which individuals choose to fit in an appropriate situation. It is found that when confronting a conflict situation, some people want to win it all at any cost. Some wants to find an optimum solution, some wants to run away, others want to be obliging and still others want to “split the difference”. 4.4 Stage IV: Behavior At stage four conflicts become visible. The behavioral stage includes the statements, actions and reactions made by the conflicting parties. Conflict is characterized by subtle, indirect, and highly controlled form of tension. It is the stage when the two parties engage in behavior which evokes response from each other. The most obvious of these responses are open aggression, apathy, sabotage, withdrawal and perfect obedience to rules. Except for prison riots, political revolutions and extreme labor unrest, violence as a form of manifest conflict is rare. The motives towards violence may remain they tend to be expressed in less violent forms. 4.5 Stage V: Outcome Conflict is an interpersonal process, thus perception, expectation, values and intention plays vital role behind the way people behave. Intentions intervene between people’s perceptions and emotions and their overt behavior. Intentions lie behind each and every act of an individual. One party attributing the wrong intentions to the other party escalates lots of conflicts. Usually people enter in a conflict with either win-win approach or win-lose approach. Win–win orientation is the perception that the parties involved will find a mutually beneficial solution to their disagreement. They believe that the resources at stake are expandable rather than fixed if the parties’ work together to find a creative solution. The people with win-lose approach belief that parties are drawing from a fixed resource, so the more one party receives, the more the other party forfeits. PSYCHOLOGY PAPER No.8: Cross Cultural Psychology MODULE No.24: Organizational Conflict ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Win-Lose Win-Win Lose Win Lose-Lose Lose-Win Lose Win 4.5.1 Lose-Lose The first quadrant shows the lose-lose situation, it occurs in a situation in which the conflict deteriorate to the extent that both parties get negative outcomes, e.g., the boss fires the most effective executives, here the organization lose his effective workforce and employee at the same time employee lose the brand name associated with him due to the organization. 4.5.2 Lose-Win The second quadrant shows the lose-win relationship between the two parties in conflict. In this situation party ‘A’ (organization) is defeated by party ‘B’ (employee). E.g. when highly qualified, responsible and sincere employee leaves the organization because they get more benefits from somewhere else party A loses and B-gains. 4.5.3 Win-Lose The third quadrant depicts a situation in which a party ‘A’ wins and party ‘B’ loses. E.g. organizations firing the inefficient employees, employees tend to lose because they lost their jobs and organizations gains as they can recruit more efficient replacement. 4.5.4 Win-Win In the win-win situation both parties perceive that now they are in much better position as compared to the time when they began with the conflict. For example, in order to prevent or slow down the rate of turnover of its good employee’s organization adds some more benefits in their salary package. It is benefiting to both employees because they in any case don’t feel comfortable switching over and in the same job they have got better perks now. Similarly organization also doesn’t want to spend its time, energy and money in finding out the replacement and it retain the potentially good employees. PSYCHOLOGY PAPER No.8: Cross Cultural Psychology MODULE No.24: Organizational Conflict ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 5. Levels of conflict 5.1 Intra-individual conflict Intra-individual conflicts arise within a person and are of psychological nature. Many times, the individual remains conflict-ridden, but he fails to perceive it. However, they may be latent or overt. Such conflicts are generally related to the goals a person wants to achieve or roles in the manner he wants to achieve. Hence, intra-individual conflicts are of three types: conflict due to frustration, role conflict, goal conflict. 5.1.1 Conflict due to frustration Conflict is an important aspect of organizational behavior. It may occur anywhere where two or more people interact with each other. Conflict arises due to incompatibility between goals, interest, beliefs and values. Dissimilarity between the ways of working can also produce conflict. Thus in organizations conflict occurs at various levels as shown in figure: - 5.1.2 Role conflict The ambiguity about one’s roles and responsibility regarding job leads to conflict. Jurisdiction ambiguities increase intergroup fighting for control of resources and territory. Throughout our life we all play different roles such as son or daughter, students, spouse, parent, boss, subordinates, colleagues etc. Role conflict is the conflict between the person and the role. The conflict arises because of the person’s personality and the expectation of the role.eg, a new employee who is employed as a team manager has an introvert personality, he doesn’t want to mix or interact with other people. But, because of the demand of the job he has to interact as has to motivate the team. Second type of role conflict is intra-role conflict created by contradictory expectations about how a role should be given. Inter-role conflict is another category of conflict that results from the differing requirement of two or more roles that must be played at the same time. It usually happens because of clashes between the work and non-work roles, e.g., long working hours interfere with the time which person might want to spend with his family. It will disturb his family life. In spite of getting good salary the job creates conflict in the mind of the individual. 5.1.3 Goal conflict Various forms of goal conflicts exist in the modern organizations. Sometimes individual goals and organizational goals move in the same line but they can be conflicting when individuals own goals clash with the organization’s goals. Three separate types of goal conflict are generally identified.  Approach –Approach conflict, where the individual is motivated to approach two or more positive but mutually exclusive goals.  Approach-Avoidance conflict, where the individual is motivated to approach a goal and at the same time is motivated to avoid it. The single goal contains both positive and negative characteristic for the individual.  Avoidance –avoidance conflict, where the individual is motivated to avoid two or more negative but mutually exclusive goals. PSYCHOLOGY PAPER No.8: Cross Cultural Psychology MODULE No.24: Organizational Conflict ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Approach-avoidance conflict, result from organizational goals having both positive and negative aspects for organizational participants. Here the positive aspects of a given organizational goal are stronger than the negative aspects. On the other hand, as a person gets nearer to the goal, the negative aspect becomes more pronounced and at the same point the individual may hesitate or fail to progress any further, at that point approach equals avoidance. For example, manager develops a long-term plan for the future growth of the organization, but he finds lot many difficulties in implementing it. The negative consequences now seem to appear much greater than they did in the developing stage. At this point he may feel the approach avoidance conflict. The top-level managers who are the decision makers and own the responsibility for the growth and development of the company usually face such type of conflict. 5.2 Interpersonal conflict Interpersonal conflict usually arises between two individuals having competition for achieving scarce things, such as status, power, position, promotion or resources or they may pick up conflict due to their divergent opinions, attitudes or values. Disagreement among individuals in an organization may arise for variety of reasons: 5.2.1 Personal differences Personality is not something just developed by the individual, family, culture, values, education, beliefs etc form personality. Therefore whole background works behind the personality of an individual. That explains why we all have different personalities. When two persons having different personalities work together, the conflict is pretty obvious. Disagreement stems from the differences about who is correct or who is morally right induces conflict. Such type of conflict is usually emotionally charged, because they are about the values, beliefs and personality of each other. 5.2.2 Information deficiencies This source of misinformation results from communication breakdown in the organization. This source of information is less emotionally charged. Here two people in conflict are using different information or that one or both have misinformation. 5.2.3Role incompatibilities In today’s organization, functions and tasks of the managers are highly interdependent. At the same time individual roles of these managers are not quite compatible with the roles they carry out. The conflicts hence raised due to role incompatibility needs to be resolved by higher-level management. 5.2.4 Environmental stress Environmental stressors amplify the individual, interpersonal and inter group conflict. The environment factors such as scarce or shrinking resources, downsizing, competitive pressures and high degree of uncertainty produce conflict. 5.3 Intergroup behavior conflict Intergroup behavior conflict occurs whenever individuals belonging to one group interact, collectively, with another group or its members in terms of their reference group identification. There is much antecedent conditions behind inter group conflict. PSYCHOLOGY PAPER No.8: Cross Cultural Psychology MODULE No.24: Organizational Conflict ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 5.3.1 Task interdependence The conflict arises when two, three or more departments are dependent on each other for the accomplishment of one task. Because one task cannot get finished by a single department at the same time each department has its own objectives and priority it will amplify intergroup conflict. 5.3.2 Jurisdiction Ambiguities This type of conflict occur when one group attempts to assume more control or take credit for desirable activities, or refuse to share blame or responsibility for the undesirable activities. 5.3.3Competition for resources Most organization today has very limited resources. They have constraints in the areas of budgetary funds; space, supplies and support services and it can be a cause of conflict. 5.3.4 Status struggle In the status hierarchy, this conflict occurs when one group attempts to improve its status and another group views, this as a threat to its place in the status hierarchy. It happen when one group gets more rewards, better job assignments, good working conditions, privileges or status symbols; e.g., finance department is considered the most privileged department of an organization. 6. Causes of conflict Conflict may be defined as a process in which one party perceives that another party has taken or will take actions that are incompatible with their interests. Conflicts are stemming out from variety of causes; it includes the interaction with people and organization. Some of the major causes of conflict are: - 6.1 Perceptual distortion Perceptual distortion is the bias in the way one perceives the situations as being favorable to them. People in conflict with others tend to misperceive the differences between themselves in ways that tend to make that conflict worse. Some of the perceptual errors are: 1) Naïve realism-This is a perceptual error where people in a conflicting situation perceive their own views as objective and assume others’ views as more biased. It magnifies the differences between them. 2) Incompatibility error-Incompatibility errors arise when parties assumes their interests as adversely incompatible. They expect that there is no possibility of mutual agreement on issues. 3) Fixed sum error-Both parties assume that the other party is also paying equal importance to every issue. However, it may be possible that issues that are most important for one may not be that important to the other. But, this faulty perception can increase the conflict between them. 4) Transparency overestimation-Each party assumes that all their expectations and interests are apparent to the other party, which is different from the reality and hence increases the conflict. PSYCHOLOGY PAPER No.8: Cross Cultural Psychology MODULE No.24: Organizational Conflict ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 6.2 Grudges A conflict arises when people find themselves enable to influence a situation and they attempt to prepare an even situation with person, whereas internally they were planning to take some revenge. 6.3 Distrust The more strongly people suspect other individual or group is out to get them, the more likely they are to have a relationship with that person or a group that is riddled with conflict. Highly reputed companies try their best to maintain trust among the employees. 6.4 Competition over scarce resources Scarcity and excess of resources both tend to create problems, because the conflict will arise over the distribution of resources such as space, money, equipment or personnel. People usually have self-serving tendency and perceive or overestimate their own contributions to the organizations. Therefore, they feel more deserving of resources than others. 6.5 Destructive criticism Communicating negative feedback in organization arouses unnecessary conflict. Instead of handling the situations with positive remarks people often give destructive criticism. This negative feedback hampers the job of the client instead of driving him towards better performance and hence evokes conflict between the boss and employee. Therefore constructive feedback is always suggested for effective management. 7. Consequences of conflict People usually perceive the term conflict as negative and associate it with aggression and confrontation. But this is not the only truth, conflict is also positive; they will lead to the better results. 7.1 Negative consequences of conflict Conflicts usually tend to produce negative emotions or begin a chain of negative or harmful effects in organizations. Conflicts increase the stress level of the people and divert their attention from work to conflict resolution or in handling the negative emotions and stress arising out of conflict. A boss who usually scold his employees in front of others and always criticize them with negative feedback, the employees’ would dislike such bosses and become inattentive for the important aspects of the job. Organizational conflicts have costly effects on organizational performance (Bragg, T, 1999, October) Ten ways to deal with conflict IIE solutions, pp 36-37.) Table.1 Constructive Versus Destructive Criticism: A comparison The factors listed here distinguish constructive (negative feedback that may be accepted by the recipient to improve his or her performance) from destructive criticism (negative feedback likely to be rejected by the recipient and unlikely to improve his or her performance). Constructive Criticism Destructive Criticism PSYCHOLOGY PAPER No.8: Cross Cultural Psychology MODULE No.24: Organizational Conflict ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Considerate-Protects the recipient’s self- Inconsiderate-harsh, sarcastic, biting. esteem. Does not contain threats Contain threats. Timely-Occurs as soon as after the substandard Not timely- Occurs after an inappropriate performance. delay. Does not attribute poor performance to internal Attributes poor performance to internal causes causes. (e.g. lack of effort, motivation, ability.) Specific-Focuses on aspects of performance, General –A sweeping condemnation of which were inadequate. performance. Focuses on performance, not in the recipient Focuses on the recipient-his or her personal characteristics (esp. limitations). Motivated by desire to help the recipients Motivated by anger, desire to assert dominance improve. over the recipient, desire for revenge. Offer concrete suggestions for improvement. Offer no concrete suggestions for improvement. 7.2 Positive consequences of conflict Suppose a situation where boss is discussing some project with his team and few team members disagree on some important aspect of the project. They all are involved in discussing the project and coming up with constructive ideas and generate productive situations that build the project in a much better way. Positive conflicts are always encouraged in organizations as it enhances performance. The benefits gained out of organizational conflicts are: 1 Conflict may improve the quality of organizational decisions. 2 Conflict brings those problems into the focus otherwise which were ignored. 3 It motivated people do appreciate the achievement or recognize the contributions of each other. 4 Conflict encourage the creative and innovative solutions to the problems that facilitate organizational changes. 8. Coping with Conflict How to manage conflict effectively is a big question. To answer it we need to address both individual and organizational conflicts separately. 8.1 Coping strategies to deal with individual conflict Little bit of anxiety is beneficial for the employee. But too much of stress, anxiety, anger are not good for both individual as well as organization. Therefore people should take responsibility for their own wellness. 1. Exercise plays an important role in fitness of a person. Therefore employees should include some exercises in their daily routine activities. PSYCHOLOGY PAPER No.8: Cross Cultural Psychology MODULE No.24: Organizational Conflict ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. A person can make use of relaxation techniques such as biofeedback or meditation to manage a prolonged conflicting situation effectively. Meditation is, when people slowly repeat a peaceful phrase or chants or concentrates on mental pictures in a quite location. It produces a desirable physical and mental impact on people. It relaxes the body and mind. 3. People themselves can control their behavior by deliberately managing the antecedents and the consequences of their own behavior known as behavioral self control techniques. It will help them in controlling the speed and direction of conflict. This could manage the consequences by rewarding themselves with an extra break when they remain calm and poised after confrontations with the opposing party. 4. The presence of people who supports you in a crisis, enable you to gain confidence in your own self and reduces the negative impact of conflict within the person and about the situation. 8.2 Coping strategies to deal with interpersonal conflict Managers can use following strategies to deal with destructive disputes effectively at workplace:-  Model the attitudes and behaviors you want your employees to emulate.  Identify the sources of conflict, structural or interpersonal.  Focus on task, not personalities  Address conflict in a timely way  Learn from conflict 8.3 Coping strategies to deal with intergroup conflict Following strategies can be used to reduce intergroup conflict:- Avoidance: This type of strategy attempts to keep the conflict from surfacing at all. Examples would be to simply ignore the conflict or impose a solution. Diffusion: Under this strategy, an attempt is made to deactivate the conflict and cool off the emotions and hostilities of the group involved. Example would involve trying to “smooth things over” by placing down the importance and magnitude of the conflict or of established super ordinate goals that need the cooperation of the conflicting group in order to accomplish. Containment: Under this strategy some conflict is allowed to surface, but it is carefully contained by spelling out which issues are to be discussed and how and how they are to be resolved. Confrontation: This strategy is at the other end of the continuum from avoidance, all the issues are brought into the open, and the conflicting groups directly confront the issue and each other in an attempt to reach a mutually satisfactory solution. Conflict has benefits and costs, the key task facing organizations, and then is to manage that conflict so as to minimize those costs and maximize those benefits. Typically, this involves finding a solution that is acceptable to all the parties involved. This process is known as bargaining (or negotiation). It is a process by which two or more parties in dispute with one another exchange offers, counteroffers, and concessions in an attempt to find a mutually acceptable agreement. PSYCHOLOGY PAPER No.8: Cross Cultural Psychology MODULE No.24: Organizational Conflict ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ 9. Summary  Conflict is caused by wide variety of factors, including grudges, malevolent attributions, destructive criticism, distrust, and competition over scarce resources.  Conflict can be not only a source of negative emotions, but it can lead to a lack of co- ordination, which can make performance suffer in organizations.  Conflicts also have beneficial effects. These include bringing out into the open problems that have been previously ignored, motivating people to appreciate each others’ position more fully and encouraging people to consider new ideas.  Conflicts can be managed effectively by encouraging the conflicting parties to negotiate win-win solutions between them. PSYCHOLOGY PAPER No.8: Cross Cultural Psychology MODULE No.24: Organizational Conflict