Even when people recognize the importance of working together, the nature of any given job often combines contradictory elements that create various kinds of conflict.
Morgan, G. Images of Organization, 1997, Sage
Some writers suggest that various forms of “conflict” in organizations are not only inevitable but desirable. My experiences, observations and theories in groups and organizations. Do these experiences support or contradict the literature?
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Conflict – a process which begins when one party perceives that another party has negatively affected, or is about to negatively affect, something the first party cares about.
Buchanan, D. and Huczynski, A. Organizational Behaviour An Introductory Text(2004)
By preparing for marketing group presentation with other five unfamiliar people I understood that conflict is not only inevitable but also desirable. Group work caused lots of disagreements already in beginning. Even though conflicts took lots of nerves I am glad that we had them, because that’s the reason why we did such a good work.
In essence, an open disagreement between two opposite groups or individuals (conflict), in my opinion, is a change, which is mandatory in such a diverse society or within company, since everything is changing; nothing stays still. The reason why conflict sometimes has such a “bad fame” might be because then people need to adapt to new things which is not always easy. Keeping in mind that human beings from their nature can be very lazy and not willing to accept the change because it might bring some difficulties, arguments and stress – all blended together named as a conflict!
There are lots of definitions of conflict and theories about conflict and it can be good or bad. Conflict situation depends much on expectations, experiences, beliefs, goals of an organisation (or group), motivation, social, psychological factors, cultural differences, gender, educational background and lot more.
“Differences in attitudes, values and belief cause conflict” (Pettinger, R. (1996) p.324)
