Define dysfunctional conflict. Discus Pond’s Model of Organisational conflict.
Dysfunctional conflict is conflict that has destructive consequences or undesirable effects.
It is unfavourable because it has the following consequences:
It tends to increase labour turnover emanating from dissatisfaction.
POND’S MODEL OF ORGANISATIONAL CONFLICT
Pondy’s views conflict as a process that consists of five sequential episodes or stages, as summarized below.
STAGE 1: LATENT CONFLICT
No outright conflict exists, however the potential for conflict to arise is present due to interdependence of functional activities. According to Pondy, all organizational conflict arises because vertical and horizontal differentiation leads to the establishment of different organizational units with different perceptions of how best to realise those goals.
An organisation’s vision and mission are central to all departments; however how to realize these visions and missions may cause problems as each individual department may have its own unique insight.
Other potential causes of conflict
As organisations differentiate, each sub unit develops a desire for autonomy and begins to pursue goals and interests that it values over the goals of other subunits or organisation as a whole. Because the activities of these sub units are interdependent, sub unit’s desire for autonomy leads to conflict between groups. In this regard, each sub unit’s desire for autonomy comes into conflict with the organisation’s desire for coordination.
Differences in goals and Priorities
Differences in departmental orientation affect the way each function or division views the world and cause each unit to pursue different goals that are often inconsistent or incompatible. Once goals become incompatible, the potential for conflict arises because the goals of one subunit may thwart the ability of another to achieve its goals.
Bureaucratic factors
The way in which task relationships develop in organisations can also be a potential source of conflict. Overtime conflict can occur due because of status inconsistencies between different groups in the organisation’s bureaucracy for example conflict between line and staff functions.
Line function: is directly involved in the production of the organisation’s outputs.
Staff Function: advice and support the line function and include functions as personnel, accounting and marketing amongst many others.
Incompatible Performance Criteria
An organisation’s way of monitoring, evaluating and rewarding different departments can bring them into conflict. For example, production and sales can come into conflict, when, to achieve a goal of increased sales, the sales department asks manufacturing to respond quickly to customer – orders- an action that raises manufacturing costs. If the organisation’s reward system benefits sales department (who get higher bonuses because of increased sales) but penalizes manufacturing or high costs, conflict will arise.
Competition for scarce resources
When resources are scarce, strict choices about resource allocation have to be made, and functions have to compete for their share. To increase access to resources, functions promote their interest and importance often at one another’s expense.
Other causes of conflict are
- Individual differences
- Structural relationships (emanating from organisational structure – hierarchy).
- Communication
- Task
STAGE 2 PERCEIVED CONFLICT
Perceived conflict begins when a subunit or stakeholder group perceives that its goals are being thwarted by the actions of another group. Each group also begins to define why the conflict is emerging and to analyse the events that have led up to it. Stakeholders begin to battle over the cause of the problem.
STAGE 3 FELT CONFLICT
At the felt conflict stage, subunits in conflict develop an emotional response toward each other. Each department closes ranks and develops a polarized us versus them mentality that puts the blame for the conflict squarely on the other subunit. As conflict escalates, cooperation between subunits falls and so does organizational effectiveness. For example, it’s difficult to reduce new product’s time to market if Research and department, Procurement and Manufacturing are fighting over quality and final product specifications.
STAGE 4 MANIFEST CONFLICT
At this stage one department gets back at another department by attempting to thwart its goals. Manifest conflict can take many forms including open aggression between people and groups is common for example on in the case of Parliamentary fighting that occur in South Korea on 22/07/09 over a media Bill or what happened between Patrick Chinamasa and Roy Bennett. A very effective form of conflict is passive aggression frustrating the goals of the opposition by doing nothing. Once conflict is manifest, organizational effectiveness suffers because coordination and integration between managers and departments breakdown.
STAGE 5 CONFLICT AFTERMATH
Conflict aftermath affects the way both parties to the conflict perceive and react to future conflict episodes. If a conflict is resolved before it gets to the manifest stage then the aftermath will promote good future working relationships. If conflict is not resolved until late into the process, or is not resolved at all, the aftermath will sour future working relationships, and the organizational culture will be poisoned by permanently uncooperative relationships.
Managerial Implications
- Analyse the organizational structure to identify potential sources of conflict
- Change or redesign the structure to eliminate the potential for conflict whenever possible
- If conflict cannot be eliminated, be prepared to intervene quickly and early in the conflict to find a solution
- Choose a way of managing the conflict that matches the source of the conflict
- Always try to achieve conflict aftermath so that cooperative attitudes can be maintained in the organisation over time
