OBJECTIVES


As a management consultant who specializes in organizational conflict, the author has always brought up to his superiors the viability of strategy formation regarding handling organizational conflict and at times fail to understand the reasons or logic behind certain strategic implementations imposed on it.


By delving into this project paper, the author intends to have better insights into how organizational conflict management is thought up, formulated and then imparted down. The author hopes to have an in-depth understanding as to how the management of organizational conflict enables companies and organizations to compete effectively and profitably in this era of internationalization where competition is extremely intense.


In order to reinforce the learning objectives, two key focal issues were focussed upon i.e. innovation and diversity. Innovation was discussed with regard to organizational conflict management where it was renowned for its developmental capabilities to constantly innovate. Diversity came under strategic thinking and formation as the author considered the diverse culture, political climate, economic surroundings, social environment, technological settings, government policies and legal systems in order to better understand the issues.


 


 


EXECUTIVE BRIEF


This essay utilized Personal Investments Pty Ltd as the model organization to review its present organizational conflict management and how they dealt with critical situations. From the analysis, key trends in the organizational conflict management were identified, how it worked and its effectiveness in dealing with critical situations was ascertained. The paper then moved on to assess these organizational conflict management strategies of Personal Investments Pty Ltd with regard to its suitability to critical situations, during which the internal capabilities of these organizational conflict management in relation to the strategy being followed was determined also. An overall analysis of the performance and effectiveness of the organizational conflict management of Personal Investments Pty Ltd was also conducted to assess and compare the capabilities of these organizational conflict management strategies with those of others. Gaps in the organizational conflict management capabilities and environment of Personal Investments Pty Ltd were then identified.


Finally, several choices of strategies to improve the organizational conflict management of Personal Investments Pty Ltd as effective means in critical situations were recommended and evaluated in terms of appropriateness to the issues reviewed, feasibility in carrying out the options and acceptability within the key stakeholders and decision makers. Several key implementation issues related to managing strategic change was also addressed as well.


 


INTRODUCTION


Organizational conflict management can be defined as the efficient and effective implementation of the policies and tasks necessary to resolve the ongoing problems and issues within a company or organization, leading to the satisfaction of the firm’s customers, employees, and management. Organizational conflict management focuses on the careful management of the processes involved in the problem solving and decision-making.


More often than not, small companies and organizations don’t really have the capabilities to implement organizational conflict management. Instead, these companies and organizations engage in activities that various schools of management typically associate with organizational conflict management. These activities include the identification of problems as well as performance evaluation of employees and management.


However, organizational conflict management deals with all operations done within companies and organizations. Activities such as the management of organizational behavior, change management, logistics and performance evaluations are often related with organizational conflict management. A great deal of emphasis lies on the efficiency and effectiveness of processes. Therefore, organizational conflict management includes the analysis and management of internal processes.


 


ANALYSIS


The aftermath of most recent hiring cases among organizations and companies often leads to the implementation of a somewhat autocratic type of leadership and management. In the case of Personal Investments Pty Ltd, because of the adjustments that the senior employees and officers would have to endure upon the entry of Tabitha into the scene, it was not surprising that at first the senior employees held so much power and decision-making authority to the point that Tabitha and her fellow younger employees felt suffocated and deprived of their freedom to express their ideas. It was also not surprising that  and the management of Personal Investments Pty Ltd paid more attention to the advice of their senior employees especially in making crucial decisions as against Tabitha’s suggestions. This was after all a precautionary measure, since in crucial times for the company they would have to be a perfectionist. The new reporting system would have to remain consistently efficient. The motivation environment will be characterized through the establishment of a new structured set of rewards and punishments.


However, as time goes by the senior employees and the new employees like Tabitha would get to jive with each other. Along with this is the changing of leadership type from autocratic to a democratic type. This way, the participation of all key stakeholders especially the new employees will be more encouraged. If they feel something is right or wrong, or if they want to tell something important to the management, they can now be free do so without any worries. Also, a democratic leadership approach allows the management to have a feedback regarding the policies and regulations being implemented. They will immediately know if there is any tension going on between or among the stakeholders involved. Thus, immediate action can be planned and implemented by the management to keep matters from getting worse.


It is also normal that when the new employees start to assume their posts, the senior management will have to implement stricter rights and privileges for them. This is the simple fact that Tabitha just can’t seem to understand. She overreacted to the pint that the once strong and transparent relationship that existed between the management and employees prior to her arrival at Personal Investments Pty Ltd was replaced by frustration and hatred. And we all know that when this happens, the performance of the new workforce will surely be severely affected and their efficiency will decline. This is because of concentrating on their work, they will now be more concerned about the ongoing problems within their organization. These worries and anxieties will pave the way for them to inhibit frustration and anger towards their supervisors, their co-workers and the management as a whole, feeling they are already taken for granted.


It is a well known fact that human resources play a crucial role towards differentiation and a potent source of competitiveness for any organization or company ( 2001). Therefore, any organization must take care and constantly invest in human resource development especially during these periods of adjustment to a new management and environment. However, the determination of the extent to which an organization can invest in terms of human resources development depends on the financial capabilities of the company or organization. The rights and privileges of the workers must be carefully studied under the change management program of the company, because it should jive with the basic policies of an organization’s human resource development strategy.


Common Organizational Behaviour Concerns


1)     Formation of the divisional-corporate authority relationship – the problem here is in making the decision as to how much authority would be needed to centralize at the corporate level and how much authority would be also needed to decentralize at the divisional level (2001).


2)     Information Distortion – if the corporate centre will pressure the divisions too much, then the divisions might be encouraged to radically change the information they normally supply to their corporate managers.


3)     Competition of Resources – since corporate divisions are normally evaluated on return of investment (ROI) criteria, this might cause them to start competing for resources (2003).


4)     Transfer Pricing problem – when corporate divisions engage in competition, it would become extremely difficult to set fair prices for trading resources between them (2002). This is because each division will try to set the highest price it can to maximize its own ROI. However, these efforts can undoubtedly alter the corporate performance and ROI.


5)     Short-term focus on research and development – if the corporate divisions will be evaluated on the basis ROI target, this might put pressure on research to improve their financial performance (2003).


RECOMMENDATIONS


Cultural Change Planning


Cultural change planning is a necessary function within companies and organizations undergoing conflicts. In most companies and organizations this process is often very difficult because of the fast rate of cultural change and the occurrences of unplanned events. Therefore, companies and organizations must use several methodologies to prevent further unnecessary resistance to change by the workforce, particularly the entry of new employees. Nevertheless, the objectives of the organization for cultural change planning do not change: efficiency and effectiveness in the long run.


Cultural Change Planning within Personal Investments Pty Ltd


Cultural change planning must be implemented by Personal Investments Pty Ltd in order for their workforces to re-establish once again the healthy working relationship that was tarnished by Tabitha and be able to do their activities and resources in time. However, Dan Richardson would have to let go of Tabitha, the source of the problems within the organization. This will enable the company to achieve its goals with minimal resource utilization while providing opportunities for the new and old employees to bond together as a new workforce. Cultural change planning will also enable Personal Investments Pty Ltd to monitor the progress of their plans at regular intervals and maintain their control over operations. Cultural change planning within Personal Investments Pty Ltd must involve four elements: cultural change scheduling, labor planning, and cultural change cost planning.



  • Cultural change scheduling involves the specification of the beginning, the length or the duration, and end of the planned cultural change activities.

  • Labor planning involves allocating the necessary personnel and delegation of responsibilities and resources during the process of cultural change, especially the responsibilities that will be left by Tabitha.

  • Cultural change cost planning involves determining the costs and the possibility of their occurrence during the process of cultural change.


B. Cultural Research Analysis


The occurrence of cultural research within Personal Investments Pty Ltd will reflect the growing difficulty of its management to effectively use their valuable resources, especially their people like Tabitha. This is the reason why cultural research analysis must be done by Personal Investments Pty Ltd in order to determine the most effective ways to coordinate their newly acquired human resources through the application of analytical methods derived from fields of studies such as mathematics, science, and engineering. This will prevent them from mishandling another precious employee like Tabitha.


Through this process, culture-related problems among the old and new employees are solved in different ways and alternative solutions are then relayed to the company’s management. The management then selects the appropriate course of action in line with their goals. More often than not, cultural research analysis is concerned with complicated issues such as top-level strategy and human resource allocation.


Culture research analysis actually may vary according to the structures and philosophy of the company. But normally, most companies centralize cultural research analysis in one department at a time. Cultural research analysis may also have the possibility of working closely with top level managers in order to identify and solve a variety of culture-related problems.


No matter what the type or structure of the company is, culture research analysis operates under similar sets of methodologies in order to carry out the analysis to support the company’s goal to improve the overall performance of their newly established workforce. The process is started by the description of the symptoms of a culture-related problem, followed by the formal definition of the problem. For example, a culture research analyst for an organization might be questioned regarding the most effective bonding activity for every department. Also, the analyst might be asked to determine the optimal number of employees needed to be kept in a department while taking into consideration the differences of the cultures of the people involved ( 2001).


 


CONCLUSION

The results of the analysis carried out on the organizational conflict management of Personal Investments Pty Ltd. indicated very significant effects, even amidst the threats of unrest. Therefore, we could conclude that the organizational conflict management of Personal Investments Pty Ltd. could still be expected to improve faster than average.


The review of the Personal Investments Pty Ltd.’s organizational conflict management capabilities and resources revealed very little inconsistencies regarding their strategies. This is coherent with their traditional inside-out approach. However, the need to reconcile both the inside-out and outside-in approaches becomes imperative now for Personal Investments Pty Ltd.


The analysis among the environment as well as the organizational conflict management and capabilities of Personal Investments Pty Ltd. revealed certain gaps, most of which are biased towards the environment. However, these gaps paved the way towards determining a number of recommended strategic options to secure the competitiveness of the company.


Also, Personal Investments Pty Ltd. has to find a balance between adherence to internal forces within the management and to the changing forces of the environment in order to implement such strategic options.


 


 



Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com


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