3 ARALIK

Topic of the week: Organizational conflict and organizational politics

conflict occurs if one party perceives that another party has taken or will take
actions incompatible with one's own interests –these interests might be about
goals, values, opinions and expectations–

some major types of conflict

● substantive conflict
arises when people have different opinions regarding a decision.
● affective conflict
results from the clashes of personalities. due to the differences in their
personalities people may experience conflict in the workplace or interpersonal
tension. affective conflict is usually more subjective because it arises out of
the personalities whereas in substantive conflict there might be more factual
basis.
● process conflict
emerges due to the controversies about how work groups are going to
operate, how various duties and resources will be allocated and who will have
which responsibility. Process conflict is more about the structural elements of
the organization.

positive and negative consequences of conflict for organizations

Positive: substantive conflict has positive outcomes but the others are more
difficult to resolve and lead to positive outcomes. For substantive conflict
involving differences of opinions we might expect that conflict might improve
the quality of decisions because people will be sharing their opinions and they
are sharing different perspectives that were not considered before. And we
might also explore problems that were ignored previously. on the positive side,
you want conflict to make people really express themselves and criticize
things.
Conflict might also motivate people to appreciate each other's positions more
fully so you can have a better understanding of the other person, for example,
and you might also consider new ideas and this might also lead to facilitating
change in the organization, innovation and creativity.
negative: when conflict occurs, especially if it is a comprehensive one, then
people need to stop and discuss and try to reach a common point. sometimes
conflicts are not able to be resolved so there might also be some cases where
more formal conflict resolution mechanisms need to be employed and this
obviously takes time. So it might cause excessive time consumption.

Conflict involves people and there are significant aspects of conflict affecting
people for example how they perceive themselves, the interrelations, and
especially thinking about teamwork, for example. Let's say you have a conflict
with your teammate. So this really affects the whole team.

Conflict might be a source of stress and discomfort for individuals. So you

tend to feel unpleasant and negative emotions when you are in conflict with
others. It might be distracting. It might divert people's attention from the task at
hand and it might interfere with communication. For example, if you are
experiencing conflict with a co-worker, you would tend to reduce your level of
communication in the workplace

It might also damage long-term relations and organizational performance.

Ways to manage conflict in the workplace

every organization needs to deal with this at the formal level. There is also an
area called conflict management in organizational theory. organizations need
to have some policies to manage conflict and to prevent conflict from
occurring. So it might not be always feasible to prevent it, but at least
organizations might have some actions to be taken beforehand. They can
inform the employees that if you experience conflict, these will be the steps
that they will follow. So having these processes for addressing conflict before
conflict occurs is important.

For process conflict which is about the distribution of responsibilities,

organizations might think about clarifying the responsibilities in the
organization, setting goals, clearly dividing the work explicitly and letting all
know their rights and responsibilities are important.

Acknowledging the emotional reactions to conflict is also effective. we all know

that conflict might affect people negatively and they might start to engage in
some behaviours, for example not talking to each other, avoiding work, hiding
information – some behavioural consequences of conflict – from the
organisations management perspective or leadership perspective, we need to
be aware of such emotions and their behavioural outcomes.

Whenever a manager recognizes that people are getting distorted emotionally,

they need to take action immediately and really address the conflictual
situation instead of just delaying or ignoring it.

It is also important to have a positive approach regarding conflict. instead of

blaming people and asking why did this happen, who did this, etc.
organizations need to have this positive attitude by saying, how can we make
things better? How can we improve things together?

It is important to discuss misunderstandings in detail because sometimes

conflictual situations just arise out of misunderstandings. it is important to
create an environment where people can really discuss and criticize each
other and understand each other well. In order to do that, organizations might
train their employees about these kinds of issues in the workplace. For
example, how they can understand each other better, communicate with each
other better, etc.

Especially in cases where conflict cannot be resolved just by the initiative of

the managers or initiative of the individuals themselves, formal techniques for
resolving conflict are required and this is called dispute resolution.
3 formal techniques for dispute resolution:
● bargaining or negotiation
involves exchanging offers, counter offers, in an attempt to find a mutually
acceptable agreement.
● mediation
a case of conflict where a neutral party works together with both sides to
reach a settlement. So this mediator sets the stage for finding a resolution. In
other words, he or she mediates the communication between the two sides,
listens to each other and collects their arguments and makes sure that there is
no misunderstanding between the two parties. But the mediator person
actually does not interfere with the final product. In other words, there is no
formal power of the mediator to impose any agreement. The mediator does
not interfere with the agreement process.
● arbitration
similar to mediation with one difference. In arbitration, once the third party is
identified, that person has the power to impose or at least to recommend
terms of the agreement between the two sides. Recommendation needs to be
accepted by the two parties so that the conflict is resolved as soon as
possible.

Organizational politics
organizational politics is an area where organizational conflict might occur. In
organizational politics there are some informal relations which might also lead
to conflictual situations in the organization. Or people might also engage in
organizational politics to avoid conflict or to resolve conflict. But it might not be
good from the perspective of organizational outcomes.

OP is about actions by individuals that are directed toward the goal of

furthering their own interest without regard for the well-being of others and
organizations. People who engage in organizational politics behavior tend to
perform actions that can maximize their own interests at the expense of others
and organizational goals. So, organizational politics is a typical behavior for
Machiavellian people. these individuals really focus on their own interests at
the expense of others and their organizations and they just want to enhance
their power in the organizations.

actions these people might take when they engage in organizational

politics:
● Gaining control over and selectively using information.
For example, let's say you are in a position and you are able to get critical
information regarding a project and you do not share that information with your
co-worker because you know that holding that information to yourself is an
asset, it makes you more valuable for the organization. Also, that information
might also be something that makes you look bad in the eyes of people. For
example, it might be information related to your performance. So you hide that
information from your co-workers or from your boss. Because you know that
it's a weakness for yourself and you don't want others to know about it but it
does not mean that you need to violate your privacy. It's just for those cases
where that information is critical for the organization but you are purposefully
hiding this info from the others. Example is image building Let's say you are a
team member and you behave like you are doing everything although you are
not. So cultivating a favorable impression, image building, associating yourself
with the successful accomplishments of others.

● building powerful coalitions to gain the support of others within

the organization.
You might lobby for your ideas before you present to the rest of the team so
you get support for your ideas before you officially present them and try to get
closer with influential people in the organization. People who engage in
organizational politics also tend to blame and attack others when bad things
happen. they don't really take responsibility, they tend to blame others for any
low performance. And they also may do little favors for others in the
organization and they might expect big favors in return. for people engaging in
organizational politics, these kinds of behaviors (helping someone for
example) are deliberately done with an expectation of a return. So you are
helping others because you expect them to help you more in the future
because of their position. organizational politics is an issue that might really
distort the smooth functioning of an organization, because it also negatively
affects power balances and organizational justice, fairness etc.

Why do you think people engage in such behaviors in organizations?

Personality is one factor affecting likelihood of engaging in OP. Sometimes
organizational politics occurs because people feel like they don't have any
other option. So they want to get around things because and relying on merit
would not be enough for this individual to get promoted.

individual factors and organization related factors to organizational

politics:
individual factors: personality and skills related to Machiavellianist people. For
example, they tend to be intelligent and self-confident and highly popular,
extroverted, aggressive.
organizational factors: research shows that ambiguous goals, roles, and
scarce resources might motivate people to engage in such behaviors. So
when goals/roles/responsibilities are ambiguous, there is more opportunity for
people to engage in organizational politics type of behaviors because there
are no restrictions, no rules, regulations governing such behaviors.

So it's important to have formal structures in place so that people cannot

engage in organizational politics. And research also shows that when
procedural justice is low, employees may turn to their political skills to navigate
this ambiguity. Unlike conflict, organizational politics always leads to negative
outcomes such as lower job satisfaction, lower organizational commitment,
lower work motivation, and lower likelihood to stay in this job.