THE CRIMSON PRESS CURRICULUM CENTER THE CRIMSON GROUP, INC.
Note on Conflict Management
President Franklin D. Roosevelt . . . attempted to generate information by recruiting strong personalities and structuring their work so that clashes would be certain. His favorite technique was to keep grants of authority incomplete, jurisdictions uncertain, and charters overlapping. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.1
It is a well-known fact of organizational life that sales people think differently from manufac- turing people. Similarly, doctors think differently from nurses, R&D engineers think differently from product line managers, professors think differently from deans, and basic researchers think differently from applied researchers. In part, these
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Young. It is intended to assist with case analyses, and not to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of administrative situations.
Copyright © 2013 by The Crimson Group, Inc. To order copies or request permission to reproduce this document, contact Harvard Business Publications (http://hbsp.harvard.edu/). Under provisions of United States and interna- tional copyright laws, no part of this document may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from The Crimson Group (www.thecrimsongroup.org) gine and home appliance divisions at General Electric (which resulted from regular meetings to explore, discuss, and decide upon what GE called “cross-business synergies”). Left unmanaged, or poorly managed, however, conflict can create organizational havoc.
CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND
In 1967, Paul Lawrence and Jay Lorsch, both professors at the Harvard Business School, published a landmark book on conflict and conflict management, entitled Organization and Environment.3 The book made the then-novel point that organizational conflict arises because different functional specialists face different technical, economic, and geographic “environments.” As a result, these individuals have different “cognitive and emotional” orientations, which Lawrence and Lorsch (L&L)
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Thesis Statement: During Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency, his administration helped and tried to solve the problems of the Great Depression. He caused the government to play a very important role in society and from their help many people responded with their opinion of what they felt about it.
David C. Shaw prepared this case solely to provide material for class discussion. The author does not intend to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a managerial situation. The author may have disguised certain names and other identifying information to protect confidentiality. Ivey Management Services prohibits any form of reproduction, storage or transmittal without its written permission. Reproduction of this material is not covered under authorization by any reproduction rights organization. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, contact Ivey Publishing, Ivey Management Services, c/o Richard Ivey School of Business, The
This case was prepared by Associate Professor Marc L. Lipson. It was written as a basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Copyright 2010 by the University of Virginia Darden School Foundation, Charlottesville, VA. All rights reserved. To order copies, send an e-mail to sales@dardenbusinesspublishing.com. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of the Darden School Foundation.
This case was prepared as a basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Copyright © 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical,
than to illustrate effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Copyright 2010 by the University
Conflict is a fact of life - for individuals, organizations, and societies. The costs of conflict are well-documented - high turnover, grievances and lawsuits, absenteeism, divorce, dysfunctional families, prejudice, fear. What many people don't realize is that well-managed conflict can actually be a force for positive change.
Conflict or disagreement over the range of issues has become inherent aspect of modern organisational life. People from different cultural and education background work in an organisation. People working in an organisation may possess different goal and interest. People working in organisation may tend to different over a range of issues including organisational politics, organisational procedure, personal preference or political preference. It is also argued that conflict is essential characteristics of organisational life. Role of manager is paramount with regard to negotiating the conflict that arises in organisational life (http://www.sagepub.com/). Often lack of
The authors do not intend to iIIustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a managerial situation. The authors may have
Alper, S., Tjosvold, D., & Law, K. S. (2000). Conflict management, efficacy, and performance in organizational teams. Personnel Psychology, 53(3), 625-642. This study looked at the management of conflict and linked it empirically with organizational team and efficacy research. There were sixty-one teams with nearly 500 employees studied, all belonging to a leading manufacturer of electronic products. A structural equation analysis was used to show that a cooperative approach to conflict is more effective than a competitive approach to same. Making use of autonomy can also make a person or a team more productive.
545-7685, write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to www.hbsp.harvard.edu/educators. This publication may not be
This case was prepared by Professor Mark E. Haskins, Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, and has benefited from collaborations with various colleagues over the years on earlier versions. It was written as a basis for discussion rather than to illustrate effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Copyright 2012 by the University of Virginia Darden School Foundation, Charlottesville, VA. All rights reserved. To order copies, send an e-mail to sales@dardenbusinesspublishing.com. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of the Darden School Foundation. ◊
reproduce materials, call (800) 545-7685 or write the Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163. No
Conflict is an occurrence in virtually any organization, regardless of how large or small it may be. It is exceedingly difficult to get people to agree with one another about everything all the time, especially when they are competing for the same resources (Tsang, 2012, p. 84). This difficult is naturally exacerbated when there are stratifications between people, which frequently occurs in organizations. Organizations may have different categories of employers such as those in sale, marketing, finance, human resources, etc. The three main views of conflict which also play a significant part in the resolving of conflict are the traditional, the human relations, and interactionist views. There are points of similarities and differences between all of these views.