Conflict Management

Introduction

The central concept being studied in this report is ÐŽ§Conflict feeds on communicationЎЁ. It indicates that more communication will make the conflict gets even worse. Conflict is destructive to an organization. In other words, when conflict exists, communication is destructive to an organization. Apparently, conflict is destructive to an organization. However, the degree of destruction remains unknown. The discovery of factors affecting the degree of destruction will definitely be helpful for managing conflict effectively. Therefore, the research topic, ÐŽ§How destructive can conflict be?ЎЁ, is worth studying. Through this topic, we would like to investigate which areas conflict can affect, such as productivity and working relationships, and the factors influencing the degree of impact of conflict.

In other words, the three aspects of the purpose of the research is to discover the area that conflict has impact on an organization, degree of destruction, and how to manage conflict.

The host organization is the Sales Department of Fortress. Fortress is a Hong Kong Electricity Group tariff collection and promotion centre for the use of electricity and the sale of a basic range of electrical products. It has become the leading retailer of electrical appliances in Hong Kong.

Since the performance of a salesman can be easily measured through the sales volume made by a salesman, it would be easy to observe how much conflict has affected the performance of staff. Therefore, the Sales Department of Fortress is a good choice to investigate the research question, ÐŽ§How destructive can conflict be?ЎЁ

On the other hand, a friend of ours has worked there during last summer vacation. Then we could access to the organization much easier.

Critical Literature Review

To investigate how destructive conflict can be, we first need to define a number of communication concepts.

ÐŽ§ConflictЎЁ is the central concept from our research. Below is the definition of conflict stated in the textbook:

ÐŽ§Conflict can be defined as difference of opinion between persons accompanied by feelings of dislike for the other people.ЎЁ

Virginia P. Richmod, James C. McCroskey & Linda L. McCroskey, 1949-Organizational Communication for Survival(3rd ed). Pearson. P177

Besides, in the coming parts, the term ÐŽ§orientationЎЁ is introduced. In fact, ÐŽ§task-oriented workersЎЁ refers to workers that have strong need for work satisfaction. They will only concentrate on work rather relationship at workplace. In the opposite, ÐŽ§relationship-oriented workersЎЁ refers to workers that have strong need for social relationships. They will not just concentrate on work but also building up friendships at workplace.

Research Methodology

Data was collected by means of a survey and interviews. All these means are done with the Sales Department of Fortress.

We decided to interview both the subordinates and manager because the two groups of people have different considerations and degree of authority or flexibility when managing conflict. Since the subordinates are much closer to the operation of organization, they are able to provide a fuller picture of the impact of conflict on the operation of the organization. Having these interviewees, we trust that we were able to obtain a comprehensive perspective on the conflict management; interpret how destructive conflict can be; its destructive influence on the organization; how conflict can be really managed effectively in real life situations

Profiles of the interviews are as follows:

Sex: Age: Position: Responsibility:

Interviewee 1 Male 21 Salesman To introduce products to customer and

Interviewee 2 Male 20 Salesman encourage them to buy.

Interviewee 3 Female 19 Saleslady

Interviewee 4 Male Manager To manage the Sales Department

(Please see Appendix 1 for the photos of the interviewees.)

In order to study the research question from different perspective, we had prepared two sets of questions. The first and second sets are for the subordinates and the manager respectively.

In the first set of questions, we had first asked the subordinates whether they had ever been in conflict with anybody in the workplace. We also asked those who admitted that they had been in conflict with their colleagues in the workplace three more questions in order to find out how conflict affected their performance. We have asked if they felt discouraged and frustrated when working with the people who were in conflict with them, whether the operation of the task was smooth and effective and if they were able to accomplish the task successfully while working with the people they were in conflict with. We have asked them why if they said they failed to accomplish the task. For more information, we also asked them to state the methods they had used to deal with conflict and the final outcome. Furthermore, we have asked if they had attempted to manage other workmatesÐŽ¦ conflicts.

In the second set of questions, to discover the impact of conflict has on the general productivity of the organization and the ways manager used to manage conflict, we invited him to state us some examples if he had. We have also asked how the conflicts had affected the performance of individual worker and that of the whole organization, how he could manage those serious conflicts and why he had chosen that method. (Please see Appendix 1 for two complete lists of the two sets of questions.)

Besides, we had conducted survey with 60 staff within Fortress. 60% of the sample is male and 40% of the sample is female. They were randomly chosen. And the survey question is, ÐŽ§Have you ever resolved any conflicts?ЎЁ

Findings

„« Interview with the Subordinates

All the interviewees admitted they had conflict with their colleagues and illustrated examples to us. Interviewee 1 said that he disagreed with the version of his colleague informing the customer about the conditions of the sales contract. So he confronted the customer and told him his