How Conflict Management Enhances Employee Performance In Organizations

Analysis of Articles

Question:

Discuss About The Resource To Promote Employee Performance?

Organisation behaviour directly influences employee performance and there are many factors which influence performance. These must be carefully analysed to determine the most important towards enhancing team performance (French, 2011). To assist identify these factors three articles will be reviewed which will help determine common trends interlinking each of them. These can then be utilized to report findings and propose a suitable approach towards managing human resource to promote employee performance. The main purpose of this report would be analysing Conflict management and its influences to organizations behaviour. This will help identify both the positive and negative aspects linked to team conflict of interest and how they can be used to encourage performance (Doherty & Guyler, 2008). The report shall review three articles related to this domain and report on each one’s findings and later an independent analysis of the findings shall be reported. Team conflict management has become an important stream in business today and as more businesses expand, grow and diversity. If utilized correctly, team conflict can help boost an organizations performance, development and growth.

The report shall be analysing three articles and shall be reporting on each of the article’s findings to determine common trends which can be used to help develop a positive organizational behaviour management plan.

This article is a publication of the journal of applied psychology 2016, vol 101, no 7, pp. 1045-1055. It comprises of two studies which are aimed towards identifying the effects of Skewed task Conflict and its effects on team performance (Sinha & Janadhanan, 2016). In this article the theory on how skewed task conflicts affects team performance and how it is a configure property towards group is closely analysed.  Theories are also developed on how skewed perceptions of task conflicts relate to team performance

This article has been published by the Elsevier journal 2013, vol 122, pp. 177-189.  It also comprises of two studies and focuses on the identification of how Disagreement stimulates critical thinking and can improve group decision making processes (Wit et al., 2013). The main theory related to this article is how task related disagreement stimulated critical thinking among the affected stake holders of any organisation. This makes it important to stimulate disagreement to certain degree so as to encourage critical thinking which has a direct effect on individual performance.

The article has been published by the journal of organizational behaviour, 2009, vol 30, pp.  359-378, the article focused on exploring the dynamics of conflict management within teams and examines how task structure is related to conflict management styles and team performance (Somech et al., 2009). This article focuses on explaining how social learning theory is instigated team conflict and helps pinpoint important theories which may be considered to help boost learning through conflict.

Benefits of Team Conflict and Competition

The articles comprise of findings from the comparison of two studies which analyse skewed task conflict and team performance. The skewed task conflict explains the variances in team performance and reports on how they can be used to promote positive team outcomes (Salas et al., 2017). The articles also emphasize the importance of controlling team conflict so as to contribute beneficially towards the team and organizations performance. Uncontrolled and unmonitored team conflict can easily turn to the loss for the organization making it important for the management to monitor team conflict to identify and encourage positive traits which can be used to enhance performance.

This study composed of 571 post graduates split into 120 teams who competed towards making different business decisions. The study also required for each team to analyse and report on negative aspects of other competitor team decisions which would help generate conflict among the teams competing. The results helped determine the types of conflict and how they needed to be controlled to harness a positive effect or organization performance.

This study was a performance to determine the link between task conflict skewness and team performance through financial management. It also involved the study of teams with regard to financial corporation towards the team and department finance allocation. This would see team enter into conflict regarding their superior viability which would see then argue for more funding. The aim of the study was to determine how teams would review each other as part of a single organization and therefore need to dedicate equal financial allocation towards each team to benefit overall organization growth and expansion.Task Conflict, Information Processing, and Decision Making

This article focuses on highlighting how disagreement helps stimulate critical thinking and improved group decision making (Brush et al., 2010). It also investigates two meta-analyses which show that task conflict can have both positive and negative effects on the decision-making process and its effects on organizations performance.

This study focuses on measuring the level of perceived relationship between team members during task conflict. This study helps determine different levels of stress experienced by team members and teams as a whole with regard to different forms of stress imposed on them while working. The study reveals some forms of stress help encourage and boost performance while others have a negative effect on the team’s performance.

The second study was focused towards analysing the effects of rigidity on individual and team performance. The study would reveal that increased group/ team member rigidity influenced performance negatively and led to prior decision making despite the individual is capable of making the right decision. This is due to external factors which influence and place pressure on individuals to make a decision based on their external sources perception leading to poor decision making.

Similarities and Differences Among Articles

This article explored the dynamics of conflict management and examines how task structures are related to conflict management style and moderating factors toward the relationship. The study comprises of 77 teams from high tech companies who help reveal that corporative styles of team management help determine to encourage the team to identify and task interdependence (Salas et al., 2008). These then reflect on organisation behaviour in a positive manner thus allowing the organisation register higher levels of performance the study also help to identify a crucial negative impact of conflict management towards Team efficiency but the study also reveals the high energy from team corporative styles helped overcome the negative aspects to re align the teams objectives towards high performance.

Similarities	Differences
·         All articles are focused towards identifying important factors linked to team conflict	·         Each article focuses on a different aspect of organisation behaviour namely Skewed Task Conflict, Decision making process and team conflict management
·         Content and findings on all articles has been found after conducting extensive research on studies involving a large number of participants.	·         Participants utilized for each of the studies have come from a different back ground. Ø  Art 1 – graduate Students Ø  Art 2 – 82 participants – (50 women; 32 Men) Ø  77 mix gender teams of working professionals
·         Article 1 and 2 have reported findings from 2 studies  each focusing on different factors influencing organisation behaviour and performance

Analysis of the three articles helps identify important points related to organizational behaviour which helps encourage development and growth when the conflict is carefully monitored and managed (Chiocchio et al., 2015). 5 benefits that can be harnessed from team conflict and competition include:

Team conflict is generally instigated by competition among team members or different teams or departments. When managed correctly the conflict or differences can be used to help reveal important new ideas which can be used to benefit the organization.  This is achieved by encouraging teams to compete for each other on a uniform platform which helps each team develop new ideas to gain the advantage of the competition. This also benefits the organization as it helps reveal new ideas which can be adapted and used by other teams thus helping improve the overall team’s performance.

Positive team conflict and competitions also help encourage team communication whereby teams will confront and debate each other regarding their ideas and approaches. It is important to encourage a certain level of rivalry between the teams which helps with encouraging teams to monitor other team’s performance and processes. This is important as it helps encourage inter-monitoring which helps reduce the work pressure on higher managerial official freeing them to focus on other aspects of the organization’s development.

Team conflict and competitiveness have also been identified to encourage team member flexibility with regard to their way of thinking and analysis. This is due to the conflicting teams and colleague pointing out areas where the other may have fallen short thus allowing these areas to be improved. It helps encouraging flexible thinking and adoption of new approaches which helps improve performance and growth. Initially, this form of conflict causes stress between teams and colleagues but over time team members learn to view this as feedback and an area to improve their performance as a whole.

Team Conflict also helps encouraging keep observations and screening of individuals and teams surroundings. This is instigated by the fact that other teams and colleagues may be observing or monitoring an individual or teams performance thus instigating the team to be always alert.  This helps self-management of employees and teams due to them always being on the alert that others may be observing their actions and likely to highlight any area one may fall short. It also helps encourage observation among all members who place more effort towards their work which automatically helps encourage performance.

Team conflict is also an important tool which can be used towards identifying solutions to problems an individual or team may be facing. This is due to there being a large number of stake holders involved which helps gather more minds towards the problem from which solutions are easier identified. Besides brain storming team conflict instigators tend to have superior knowledge in the area they have highlighted and escalated regarding. This results in them pointing out the fault and proposing a solution which can be adopted to resolve the problem. This information and knowledge can then be adopted by the affected individual to improve their performance in future.

Team conflict also helps identify individual team member behaviour and reactions towards negative comments made against them or their performance. This allows for team leads and managers to register and individuals reaction towards the conflict or negative comment thus allowing them to develop a suitable human resource management plan for the individual. This is also important as it allows the team leads and managers to advise other team members and management on suitable approaches to handle each individual to avoid instigating negative behaviour or withdrawal of interest towards their duties.

Conclusion

Conflict between teams, departments and colleagues is a very important tool towards encouraging performance and growth but requires proper management to avoid attracting negativity towards the individuals or teams performance. Team conflict must, therefore, be carefully choreographed and monitored closely and intervention took immediately to prevent the conflict spiralling out of control. Team conflict, when managed correctly, will deliver immense benefits to an organization and individuals performance thus making it a fundamental requirement to be practiced and used in all businesses

Careful analysis of the three articles clearly demonstrates the important of controlled conflict within an organisation. Team and task related conflicts allow stake holders to focus their attention more towards their responsibility. This is due to every team member being placed responsibility for monitoring their colleagues due to the entire organisation depending on each other to function efficiently. Authorizing every organisation employee and stake holder to remain vigil and report on discrepancies triggers every individual to taking more responsibility of their duties. Conflict between teams, tasks and departments may have a negative effect at the initial stages of implementation but they are sure to deliver long term benefits as the stake holders realize it’s an organisation process every member must follow. This instigates each member to gradually take responsibility and ensure they are performing their task effectively due to there also being others observing the individuals performance.

References:

Brush, C.G., Kolvereid, L., Widding, L.O. & Sorheim, R., 2010. The Life Cycle of New Ventures: Emergence, Newness and Growth. Glos: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Chiocchio, F., Kelloway, E.K. & Hobbs, B., 2015. The Psychology and Management of Project Teams. New York: Oxford University Press.

Doherty, N. & Guyler, M., 2008. The Essential Guide to Workplace Mediation & Conflict Resolution: Rebuilding Working Relationships. Philedelia: Kogan Page Publishers.

French, R., 2011. Organizational Behaviour. 2nd ed. New Delhi: John Wiley & Sons.

Salas, E., Goodwin, G.F. & Burke, C.S., 2008. Team Effectiveness In Complex Organizations: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives and Approaches. New York: Routledge.

Salas, E., Rico, R. & Passmore, J., 2017. The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of the Psychology of Team Working and Collaborative Processes. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons.

Sinha, R. & Janadhanan, N.S., 2016. Skewed Task Conflict in Teams: What Happens When A Few Members See More Conflict than the Rest. journal of applied psychology , vol 101,(no 7, pp.), pp.1045-55.

Somech, A., desililya, H.S. & Lidogosker, H., 2009. Team Conflict Management and Team Effectiveness: The Effects of Task Interdependence and Team Identification. journal of organizational behaviour, 30, pp.359-78.

Wit, F., Jern, K. & Scheepers, D., 2013. Task Conflict, information processing, and Decision making: the damaging effects of relationship conflict. Elsevier journal 2013, vol 122, pp. , 122, pp.177-89.