MBA 736 Managing Conflict in Organizations

This assignment asks you to analyze conflict and conflict management of your current organization or unit. The discuss a plan to implement changes to improve conflict and conflict management in your organization or unit. Finally, you will provide your assessment of the ideas in terms of expectations of success, risks, and benefits of changes. Guidelines for this are taken from various sources, but will follow Rahim's Process of Managing Conflict (Figure 4, p222) (Rahim, 2002). However, please draw from other resources as you see fit. One suggestion is to review \"Conflict in Organizations by W. Warner Burke. (Burke, 2006). There are some aspects that will require your best estimate because direct measurement is not possible in this short assignment. Thus, you will have to rely on your personal experiences. You do not need to cite all sources, but if you use content (paraphrase, quotes, ideas) not your own, please provide references as foot notes. Use of ChatGPT or other LLMs to craft answers is not permitted. Please provide answers under each section as it appears below. This assignment should be completed within the context of your organization as you understand it. That requires more nuance about what you believe would \"work\" and what would not, given your experience. Meaning, just saying \"teach a class about conflict\" will not suffice. Answers should be mindful of the limits, history and structure of your organizatione.g., what intervention would be feasible and actually have the greatest probability of success in your organization or unit? For this assignment, you are only going to be considering diagnosis/analysis and intervention. 1. Diagnosis/Analysis a. Describe your experience of substantive and/or affective conflict in your | organization, team, and/or unit. i. How often does each conflict occur? (Constantly, daily, weekly, etc.). Please provide some description, not just a one-word answer. ii. What, if any, conflict handling style(s) are uses within the organization, team, or unit? Please be specific. iii. What or who are the source(s) of conflicts (Is it a person, a team, group?) Does it occur within particular areas of the organization, or between particular people or groups? iv. How does the type and source of conflict and/or conflict handling style impact organizational (team or unit) learning and effectiveness? Provide some details about the connections between conflict, conflict handling, sources, and effects on learning and effectiveness within your organization. 2. Intervention a. Process (see Rahim p226-227) i. Describe a realistic plan that you would suggest for the organization to reduce affective conflict and manage substantive conflict: 1. 2. 3. Describe how the organization can teach conflict handling styles and how to better match conflict types with conflict handling styles Describe specific leadership roles or behaviors (that are currently missing) needed to affect positive change concerning conflict and conflict handling What kind of organizational culture changes will be important to develop in order to implement effective, lasting changes? What is currently missing from the culture that will need to be developed? b. Structure (see Rahim pp227-228) i. Describe a realistic plan which focuses on organizational or unit structure to reduce affective conflict and manage substantive conflict: 3. Scenarno building 1. What changes, if any would you suggest for the overall reporting and/or hierarchy within the unit? What other kinds of structural changes would you suggest? This can also include how units or teams are organized. Explain, briefly, why these changes would be beneficial. b. In 1-2 paragraphs, share why (or why not) your suggested changes and interventions in your organization or unit would be successful conflict management strategies. . Include risks you see in implementing these ideassuch as resistance to change, or other factors you believe are important to consider. d. Finally describe the benefits to the organization, unit, and you personally if these changes were realized. References Burke, W_W_2006. Conflict in organizations. The handbook of conflict resolution: Theory and practice: 781-804. Rahim, M. A_2002. Toward a theory of managing organizational conflict. International journal of conflict management, 13(3) 206-235