DIFFERENT VIEWS ABOUT CONFLICT

Can you avoid all conflicts or are they inevitable? Is it at all good to have any conflict? Who is primarily responsible in allowing a conflict to take place?' What should be the role of a manager once it arises? These are very important questions which people tend to answer in one way or the other depending upon the views they hold about conflict. The views about conflict itself are "conflicting". Let us examine different views and their impact on management practices.

The Traditional View

1. Prevalent in the 1930-1940s, 
2. Regarded all conflicts as harmful and evil. Conflict was viewed negatively and was associated with violence, turbulence, agitation, destruction and irrationality.
3. It was believed that conflict indicated a malfunctioning within the organization and that the appearance of conflict was the consequence of the management's failure to bind the employees and the organization together and failure to communicate to them the commonality between the individual and organization interests.Had the management corrected those lapses, according to the traditionalists, there would have been no conflict.
4. Since all conflict is bad and is to be avoided, then we need merely isolate the factors that cause conflict and eliminate them. 

Research studies have provided evidence to dispute this viewpoint, yet many of us continue to believe that conflict is unnecessary and is to be always avoided

The Behavioural View

1. Prevalent during 1940-1970s
2. Conflict was the unavoidable outcome, however it need not always be detrimental.
3. Conceded that conflict could lead to more creativity in problem solving and could be beneficial to organization under certain conditions, yet they perceived conflict as harmful something to be resolved once it arose.
4. The major antecedent/pre-cursor conditions which induce conflict in people are the faulty policies and structure resulting in distortion and breakdown in communication.
5. Manager’s role in resolving conflict is to restore understanding, trust and openness between parties.

The interactionist View

1. Interactionist view not only accept conflict but also encourage it.
2. Conflict must be regulated so that it does not get out of control producing dysfunctional consequences.
3. The inevitability of conflict results from the interaction between organizationally imposed struggle for limited rewards (e.g., status, responsibility or power) and innate aggressive and competitive instincts in people.
4. To shake the group out of its complacency and to make it viable, self-critical and creative, an ongoing minimum level of conflict must be maintained.
5. A manager's task is not to eliminate or reduce conflict but to manage it in such a manner so that its beneficial effects are maximized and its negative or harmful aspects are minimized. 
6. Such conflict management may even include stimulation of conflict where absence of conflict may hamper an organization’s innovation and creativity and thus prevent it from reaching an optimal level of performance.