Organisational Behaviour Report

Categories: Human Nature Negotiation Organization Organizational Behavior

Report, Pages 5 (1245 words)

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Conflict is not confined at the individual level alone but is manifesting itself more and more in organizations. Employees have become more vociferous in their demands for a better deal. Various departments in an organization face a situation full of conflicts due to a number of reasons like goal diversity, scarcity of resources or task interdependence etc. Conflict Dysfunctional Conflict can take an interpersonal form. Conflict between individuals takes place owing to several factors, but most common are personal dislikes or personality differences.

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When there are only differences of opinion between individuals about task-related matters, it can be construed as technical conflict rather than interpersonal conflict. Technical and interpersonal conflicts may influence each other due to role-related pressures. One may put the blame for low sales volume on the production manager not meeting his production schedule and may start disliking the production manager as an incompetent person. It is often very difficult to establish whether a conflict between two parties is due to manifest rational factors, or it emanates from hidden personal factors.

Conflict Functional These types of intragroup conflicts arise frequently due to an individual’s inability to conform to the group norms . Most groups have an idea of a “fair day’s work” and may pressurize an individual if he exceeds or falls short of the group’s productivity norms. If the individual resents any such pressure or punishment, he could come into conflict with other group members. Usually, it is very difficult for an individual to remain a group-member and at the same time, substantially deviate from the group norm.

So, in most cases, either he conforms to the group norm or is rejected by the group.

Of course, before taking any such extreme step, he or the other group members try to influence each other through several mechanisms leading to different episodes of conflict. Analysis A lot of conflict is generated within organizations because various groups within the organization hold ‘conflicting’ values and perceive situations in a narrow, individualistic manner. An example that comes readily to mind is that of the managment-labour conflict. Labor feels that management is exploiting it because in spite of making a profit, management does nothing for the economic welfare of labor.

On the other hand, management feels that the profits should go to cash reserves so as to make the company an attractive proposition for investors. Another example is the conflict between engineering and manufacturing. Engineering lays stress on technological sophistication and precision and is accused by manufacturing of designing products that will last for many years but that the customers cannot afford. It is maintained that since an organization is composed of individual and they had different perceptions of goals and dithering values, conflict is bound to arise in the organization.

Managers of various departments have separate priorities and conflicting ideas about resource allocation. Hence conflict is the unavoidable outcome. Subordinates may clash with the manager over whether the work can be accomplished in the given period of time or not. They might even argue with subordinates at their own level over the best possible way to do a given job. Thus conflict is an unavoidable outcome but at the same time it is assumed that conflict need not always be detrimental. Under some circumstances it could focus on problems and instigate a search for better and more innovative solutions to problems.

Though conflict can lead to more creativity in problem solving and be beneficial to organization under certain conditions, yet it is perceived that conflict as harmful— something to be resolved once it arise. The views about human nature are that people are essentially good; trust, cooperation and goodness are given in human nature. Accordingly, the major antecedent conditions which induce aggressiveness and conflict in people are the faulty policies and structure resulting in distortion and breakdown in communication.

Hence the manager’s role in resolving conflict is to restore understanding, trust and openness between parties. It is not easy to build a strong corporate culture in any organization. A strong culture is based on strong ethics. This is very important for the success of the organization in the long-run. It is very easy to adopt short-cut methods to reach the top but the downfall also comes at the same rate. Ethics ensure that the organization does not adopt short-cut methods to achieve success; instead it stresses on the concept of sustained success.

Every organization has its own code of ethics and standards in a written form. The code of ethics normally contains the following points: • Honesty • Fairness in practices of the company—Disclosing the inside information; • Acquiring and using outside information—Disclosure of outside activities by the employer to the employee; Each organization has its own set of code of ethics. Making negotiations has been identified as one of the primary responsibilities of any manager. Negotiations may involve allocating resources, investing capital or introducing new products.

If resources like men, money, machines, materials, time and space were abundant, clearly any planning would be unnecessary. But, typically, resources are scarce and so there is a need for planning. Negotiation making is at the core of all planned activities. We can ill afford to waste scarce resources by making too many wrong negotiations or by remaining indecisive for too long a time, Negotiation making under risk: A negotiation is made under conditions of risk when a single action may result in more than one potential outcome, but the relative probability of each outcome is known.

Negotiations under conditions of risk are perhaps the most common. In such situations, alternatives are recognized, but their resulting consequences are probabilistic and doubtful. While the alternatives are clear, the consequence is probabilistic and doubtful. Thus, a condition of risk may be said to exist. In practice, managers assess the likelihood of various outcomes occurring based on past experience, research, and other information. A quality control inspector, for example, might determine the probability of number of ‘rejects’ per production run.

Likewise, a safety engineer might determine the probability of number of accidents occurring, or a personnel manager might determine the probability of a certain turnover or absenteeism rate. Negotiation making under uncertainty: A negotiation is made under conditions of uncertainty when a single action may result in more than one potential outcome but the relative probability of each outcome is unknown. Negotiations under conditions of uncertainty are unquestionably the most difficult. In such situations a manager has no knowledge whatsoever on which to estimate the likely occurrence of various alternatives.

Negotiations under uncertainty generally occur in cases where no historical data are available from which to infer probabilities or in instances which are so novel and complex that it is impossible to make comparative judgments. Negotiations under complete uncertainty are as difficult to cite as example of decisions under absolute certainty. Given even limited experience and the ability to generalize from past situations, most managers should be able to make at least some estimate of the probability of occurrence of various outcome.

Nevertheless, there are undoubtedly times when managers feel they are dealing with complete uncertainty. The number of factors to be considered and the large number of uncontrollable variables vital to the success of such a venture can be mind-boggling On a personal level, the selection of a job from among alternatives is a career decision that incorporates a great deal of uncertainty. The number of factors to be weighed and evaluated, often without comparable standards, can be overwhelming.