Your objective is to gain an appreciation of the conflict process and to understand the difficulties involved in managing conflict successfully. The class divides into groups of from three to five people, and each group appoints one member as spokesperson to report on the group’s findings to the whole class. Here is the scenario. You are a group of top managers been charged with resolving an escalating conflict between manufacturing and sales managers in a large company that manufactures office furniture. The company’s furniture can be customized to the needs of individual customers, and it is crucial that sales provides manufacturing with accurate information about each customer’s specific requirements. Over the last few months, however, manufacturing has been complaining that sales provide this information too late for it to make the most efficient use of its resources, that sales are increasingly making errors in describing each customer’s special needs, and that sales demand unreasonably quick turnaround for its customers. For its part, sales are complaining about sloppy workmanship in the final product, which has led to an increased level of customer complaints, about increasing delays in delivery of the furniture, and about manufacturing’s unwillingness to respond flexibly to unexpected last-minute customer requests. Problems are increasing, and in the last meeting between senior manufacturing and sales managers, harsh words were spoken during a bitter exchange of charges and counter charges.
1. As a group, use the concepts discussed in this chapter (particularly Pondy’s model) to analyze the nature of the conflict between manufacturing and sales. Try to identify the sources of the conflict and ascertain how far the conflict has gone.
2. Devise a detailed action plan for resolving the conflict. Pay particular attention to the need to create a good conflict aftermath. In devising your plan, be sure to analyze

(a) the obstacles to resolving the conflict,

(b) the appropriate conflict management techniques to use, and

(c) ways to design a new control and reward system to help eliminate such conflict in the future.
When asked by your instructor, the spokesperson will describe your group’s analysis of this conflict between functions and the action plan for resolving it.