Functional and Dysfunctional Conflicts
Every organisation faces conflict with their employees or among the employees. The first part of the report talks about the functional and dysfunctional conflicts, which is necessary to manage in the organisation. A manager always wants to promote functional conflict in the organisation because it is beneficial for the organisation and promote healthy competition that leads to an increase in organisational efficiency and work performance of employees. A manager always wants to remove dysfunctional conflict in the organisation because it is harmful. A manager can use various tools such as games, activity, promote competition, and other activities to promote functional conflicts, but those people who create dysfunctional conflicts should be punished by the manager for rising dysfunctional conflicts in the future.
The second part of the report includes different types of negotiation and negotiation strategies. Negotiation strategies are essential for removing the issues of conflicts. A good manager always focuses on win-win negotiation strategy and care about the interest of other parties after securing their own organisational goals. Integrative negotiation is a type of negotiation where both the parties feel happy with the outcome of the negotiation. Therefore, a good manager always considers the interest and strategies of other parties during the negotiation process.
The third part of the report includes cross-cultural collaboration in the organisation. It includes how different types of training program helps in improving the team performance of a cross-cultural team. The nature of training helps in improving the relationship among the team members and they can understand each other in a better way. The understanding among employees and people in the organisation always creates a good coordination among the members of a cross-cultural team. Training also helps in improving the communication in the organisation and people learn to respect the culture and ethical value of other people.
Functional and Dysfunctional Conflicts
Conflict is useful for an organisation when it improves the work efficiency and performance of employees, strengthening communication, helps in taking a quality decision, and increase competition among the employees. But those conflicts which lead to the decline in communication and quality performance causes a loss for the organisation and create high rate off employees turnover by reducing group cohesiveness and causes destruction from organisational goals and objectives (Bobot 2011, p. 51).
Theories of Conflict
According to the theory, ‘Owen’s on Conflicts’ there are two types of conflicts in every organisation; functional conflicts and dysfunctional conflicts. Functional conflicts have a positive impact on the organisational performance where dysfunctional conflicts have negative effects on the performance and working environment. Therefore, an organisation generally tries to promote functional conflicts and reduce dysfunctional conflicts. The Karl Marx theory of conflict also describe that the growth and development occur through the conflict between opposing parties, cooperation is also a source of a strong and healthy growth. According to the Marx, the property is upheld by the state, and creating new property is struggles into political struggles between owners and workers in a factory, owners, and renters in a building etc. The conflicts theorists would contend that all groups in our society are created from conflict (Singleton, et al. 2011, p. 157).
Theories of Conflict
Conflict in IBM
To achieve the organisational goals and objective, it is essential for a manager to manage these conflicts, which arises within or outside of the organisation. A few years back, IBM was facing the same problem where the diversity of its employees was involved in functional conflicts and that was helpful in improving the performance of IBM (Christopher 2016, p. 2588). Then, IBM focuses on using their experience, skills, thinking, perspective, ideas, interests, and information to accelerate the innovation process in the organisation. The IBM employees had shown here their wide diversity experience and perspectives by participating in overseas project and company’s assignment in new emerging markets.
Conflict in Target Corporation
In Target Corporation, there was a conflict between the company and retailers to change the business strategy to enhance the company performance and boost the returns of shareholders. William Ackman tried to resolve the conflict by offering shareholders to elect new members to the board who bring innovative and new ideas for exploring business to its board of members. After a very slow process and long battle when Target group consume millions of dollars in resolving this conflict, the shareholders voted for keep the current board members, without appointing new members in the company (Kingser & Schmidt 2012, p. 28). Ackman losing the battle and this was the cause of a dysfunctional conflict and company losses millions of dollars in it.
To resolve this type of dysfunctional conflicts in an organisation a manager should focus on the intention behind the conflict and know why this situation arises. It is essential to resolve the dysfunctional conflict is to know about the intention behind the dispute (Aula, & Siira 2010, p. 138).
A conflict handler should negotiate to manage the conflict and talk to those people who involve in it. If then they denied negotiating or not obeying the order of top management then it is necessary to punish them and to create such type of conflicts that affect the organisational performance and badly affect the work environment in the organisation. In the above case, Ackman should talk with the shareholders and know about their intention that causes a loss for both the company and Ackman as well as a result of this conflict that he losses the battle. This poor management of conflict also causes a heavy financial loss for the company.
Negotiation Strategy
A negotiation is an effective tool of managing conflict where two or more parties or persons ready to exchange goods or services after an agreement on the rate of exchange where both parties feel the win-win situation or feeling win-lose situation (Baarslag, Hindriks & Jonker 2013, p. 236). According to the Henry Kissinger, negotiation is a “process of combining, conflicting positions into a common position, under a decision rule of unanimity” (Thompson, Wang & Gunia 2010, p. 499). Generally, there are two types of negotiation: Distributive negotiation and integrative negotiation. Distributive negotiation focuses on a win-lose situation where one win of one party causes loss of other parties. While in integrative negotiation both party in a comfortable situation and create a win-win solution where both party happy with the win-win with the outcome of the negotiation.
Conflict in IBM
Example of UAW vs. Ford
UAW (United Auto Workers) officials and Ford Motor Company officials shake hands in 2011 after a conflict arises where more than 163000 members of UAW struck the Ford Motor Company at midnight and shutting down 102 plants (Cutcher?Gershenfeld 2011, p. 128). Then after a long negotiation process they ready to boost competitiveness in the market and committed to integrative negotiation in finding to create a win-win situation in the industry. They negotiate with each other to boost the competition with other automakers in the US auto market and worldwide (Weiss 2014, p. 27).
To settle this conflicts the top leaders of the company initiate with each other about to resolve the issues arise between company and UAW. The negotiation will be done after a well strategic planning and preparation. The top leaders of the companies approach for these following steps for the negotiation Preparation strategy:
- Both leaders prepare a strong strategy and analyse the need of each other than what they want from each other. They will analyse the nature of the conflict.
- The leaders of the company do their planning and development strategy and defining with the other party the ground rules and procedures of the negotiation itself (Lang & Fink 2012, p. 197).
- The CEO of Ford motor and the top leader of UAW start negotiate with each other and initiate the negotiation in consideration with the interest of UAW workers and their interests (Stoll 2015).
- Both the party explains their clarification and justification regarding their demand and interest.
- Party involves in compromising with their own individual interest and reach in the win-win situation in the negotiation process by bargaining and problem-solving strategy which helps to reach a stage where both parties happy with the outcome of the negotiation.
Generally, both parties before negotiation well analyse the need of each other and what are the consequence is when they negotiate in certain conditions. Ford and UAW involved in a contract or integrative negotiation strategy that helped them to analyse the situation and care about each other’s interest that lead to a successful negotiation at the end and it helped both the parties by increasing the competition in the auto industry with other auto companies in the USA and abroad.
Cross-cultural Collaboration
Learning to work in an organisation with people who belong to other cultures in order to collaborate productively and efficiently is a key skill in today’s business environment. According to Li & Roloff (2012), cultural diversity plays an important role in the way people innovate and interact in the organisation, and here collaboration plays a crucial role, which is affected by intercultural relationships and intercultural trust (Li & Roloff 2012, p. 2475). The good collaboration between cultures in an organisation creates opportunities for innovation that helps in the overall development of the organisation.
Some expert thinks that creativity is about the integration or recombination of existing ideas and combining ideas that are never connected before and are from different culture or region creates the potential to produce something innovative, new, and useful for an organisation. It is essential for an organisational leader to manage the cross-cultural diversity in the organisation (Mor, Morris & Joh 2013, p. 458). A manager of an organisation can conduct several training programs for improving collaboration and the team works in the cross-cultural organisation.
- Training for managing the international relationship with clients: A manager should focus on providing better skills and knowledge of other culture to its existing employees. It helps not only in building a strong relationship among employees rather it also helps in managing a better relationship with international clients, that helps in doing better international meetings, decision-making and proper execution of decisions (Schieman 2018).
- Training program for improving communication: It is essential for every organisation to train its employees in such a manner that they will be comfortable in any country, any culture, and in many types of people. Communication plays a vital role in building a strong collaboration in a cross-cultural team. If they understand each other, they will support each other and that leads to the better performance of the organisation (Wilken, Jacob & Prime 2013, p. 746).
- Training program for building confidence to discuss and resolve differences with other people having different culture and value system: A manager should initiate about those activities and plays during the training session that boosts the confidence of people in the organisation having a different culture from other people in the organisation (Zemliansky 2012, p. 281). This type of training sessions normally avoids cultural differences among employees and helps in improving the personal relationship as well as the professional relationship among people.
There are numbers of companies including Microsoft, Google, Apple, and IBM etc. where cross-cultural collaboration is so strong. In these types of large organisations, there are a large number of people working together having different culture and languages. Still, they are the best organisation in the world because they manage their cultural diversity in the organisation so well. Their training programs are skill and knowledge oriented programs that help the organisation in building a strong collaboration in cross-cultural teams (Ribbink & Grimm 2014, p. 119). Therefore, these companies are role model for other companies that how these companies manage their large diverse workforce in such a manner that leads to the organisation towards success and building a brand image in all over the world among their customers.
Conflict in Target Corporation
Conclusion
In the end, it can be concluded that managing conflict is an art in the organisation that can be handled through a well strategic negotiation process and preparation. Not every conflict is harmful for an organisation. It is essential for a manager to understand the nature of conflict and take a corrective action to reduce it if it is a dysfunctional conflict, but if it is functional conflict, promote it towards the innovation and work efficiency.
A negotiation is a tactical tool for avoiding such conflict, which is harmful for the organisation, so it will be necessary to understand and care of interest and needs of other parties, which involves in the negotiation process. The conflicts are arises because of the number of causes but cultural and behavioural differences are the major causes behind this. Therefore, it is essential for an organisation to conduct several training programs in the organisation that improve the relationship between people who belongs to different nation and culture. The training program should be goal oriented and conducted in such ways that build confidence among employees in order to improve team performance in the organisation to achieve an organisational objective.
References
Aula, P, & Siira, K 2010, ‘Organizational communication and conflict management systems’, Nordicom Review, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 125-141.
Baarslag, T, Hindriks, K, & Jonker, C 2013, ‘A tit for tat negotiation strategy for real-time bilateral negotiations’, In Complex Automated Negotiations: Theories, Models, and Software Competitions, vol. 5, no. 10, pp. 229-238.
Bobot, L 2011, ‘Functional and dysfunctional conflicts in retailer-supplier relationships’, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 25-50.
Christopher, BP 2016, ‘Exploring Framework on Synchronising Behavioural Values to Achieve Functional Outcome in a Conflicting Environment’, International Business Management, 10(13), pp. 2585-2590.
Cutcher?Gershenfeld, J 2011, ‘Bargaining when the future of an industry is at stake: Lessons from UAW–Ford collective bargaining negotiations’, Negotiation Journal, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 115-145.
Kingser, T. & Schmidt, P 2012, Business in the Bulls-Eye? Target Corp. and the Limits of Campaign Finance Disclosure. Election Law Journal, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 21-35.
Lang, F, & Fink, A 2012, ‘Negotiating in dynamic environments: time-efficient automated negotiations by means of combinatorial auctions’, Evolving Systems, vol. 30, no. 6, pp. 189-201.
Li, S, & Roloff, ME 2012, ‘Strategic emotion in negotiation: Cognition, emotion, and culture’, From Communication to Presence. Cognition, Emotions and Culture Towards the Ultimate Communicative Experience-Festschrift in honour of Luigi Anolli, vol. 54, no. 6, pp. 2458-2486.
Mor, S, Morris, MW, & Joh, J 2013, ‘Identifying and training adaptive cross-cultural management skills: The crucial role of cultural metacognition’, Academy of Management Learning & Education, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 453-475.
Ribbink, D, & Grimm, CM 2014, ‘The impact of cultural differences on buyer–supplier negotiations: An experimental study’, Journal of Operations Management, vol. 32. No. 3, pp. 114-126.
Schieman, J 2018, ‘Establishing an Effective Cross-Cultural Training Program and Measuring the Benefits, Viewed 20/08/2018.
Singleton, R, Toombs, LA, Taneja, S, Larkin, C, & Pryor, MG 2011, ‘Workplace conflict: A strategic leadership imperative’, International Journal of Business & Public Administration, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 149-163.
Stoll, J. 2015, ‘Timeline of the ‘Handshake’: How Auto Makers and Union Workers Negotiate, Viewed 20/08/2018, viewed 20/08/2018
Thompson, LL, Wang, J, & Gunia, BC 2010, ‘Negotiation’, Annual review of psychology, vol. 61, no. 9, pp. 491-515.
Weiss, RP 2014, ‘Corporate security at ford motor company: From the great war to the cold war’, In Corporate Security in the 21st Century, vol. 54, no. 6, pp. 17-38.
Wilken, R, Jacob, F, & Prime, N 2013, ‘The ambiguous role of cultural moderators in intercultural business negotiations’, International Business Review, vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 736-753.
Zemliansky, P 2012, ‘Achieving experiential cross-cultural training through a virtual teams project’, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, vol. 55, no. 3, pp. 275-286.
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
