Power and Conflict

For this blog, I have to identify a group I have been part of that has not been able to achieve its purpose, I have to explain what were the  conflicts within the group, and what strategies were used to deal with conflict, then I have to go onto describing French and Raven’s different ‘sources of power’, and illustrate each one with an example and lastly I will have to identify an article from the recent new stories on work related stress and review and comment on the article and link it back to some of the issues covered in the lecture.

                                

                                     Source: Google Images, conflict at work

What is conflict?

Conflict in simple terms could be defined as a disagreement where an individual may well feel threatened for example organisational conflict could be working long hours, unmanageable work load etc. Mullins (2008) states the sources of organisational conflicts are as follows:

•  Differences in perception: the way we see things in different perceptions. This is the way individuals visualise things and make judgements.
• Limited resources:  organisations have limited resources and therefore could result in individuals fighting to get their share.
• Role conflict: not knowing what the job description is and doing something that is irrelevant to  job role.
• Environmental change: moving to a different workplace environment, or being transferred to a different department within the workplace.
•   Inequitable treatment: where an individual is being treated differently to others.
•  Violation of territory: where there is a deprived working area and conditions are unacceptable.

 

Example of conflict at work:

Time where I felt I had conflict at work was when I had limited resources available which meant I could not do my job as effectively and efficiently as I could have done. Simply not having a computer to process customer orders, checking reserve and collects and stock levels meant that there were dissatisfied customers also limited resources meant that employees on the customer service desk would fight to use the resources and this meant that I had to wait. To resolve the conflict at work I had to speak to my line manager and explain the problems I am having due to the lack of resources available to undertake my job, if unresolved would result in further problems arising. This meant that I felt inadequate and frustrated as I had angry customers in front of me and I could not provide them with an efficient service which they would expect from B&Q. The strategies used to deal with the conflict was that I told my manager he needed to get departments to work together to resolve problems and help customers and the limited resources e.g. computer where departments have their own computer but this is still a problem that the company has to resolve.

French and Raven (1959) came up with five different ‘sources of power:

• Reward power – is based on rewards giving people what they want, in return to doing a good job for example a company that does this is B&Q as they provide employees with promotion, pay rise, praise and recognition for doing a good job. 
• Coercive power- is based on the leader having full control and bringing disagreeable outcomes for those who do not comply with orders a good example is Alan Sugar as he can send home the weakest candidate who fails the task and makes a loss. 
• Legitimate power- is based on the leader having the right to influence legitimate power based on authority for example managers have the power to make any decisions and the employees have to follow, a company that follows this is Tesco.
• Referent power: is based on the leader being influenced by personal characteristics. An example of this is student rep as they are voted as a rep by fellow students as they are sociable and easy to talk to if there are problems relating to university life.
• Expert power:  is based on a person who can influence the behaviour of others by having expert knowledge or skills relating to work. For example an accountant who can influence trainee accountant how to do the tasks set.

Article from recent new stories on work related stress

Work related stress has a huge impact on organisations as employees take sufficient amount of time out to recover.  After reading an article from The Guardian, on how to survive workplace stress in recession, it talks about uncontrollable work load being linked to medical problems that could arise. Also working long hours having difficulty concentrating and making reformed decisions, stress could also relate to consuming too much alcohol, smoking and eating wrong foods, also has an impact on personal life such as having difficulty in sleeping and could consequently lead to a number of medical problems rising such as increase risk of heart attack, gastro-intestinal problems etc.  Survey conducted by 39,000 people and a quarter struggled to go into work despite being physically ill. Britain has the longest working hours and this is making people stressed and ill as they are going in earlier and finishing later as they are afraid they might lose their job, work related stress is bad not only can it make an individual stressed but can also make them ill as organisation are cutting labour costs as the economy is in recession and therefore fewer people are doing the job and have unmanageable workloads.

There is a rise in stress related illness in the 21^st century and it is a growing problem in society that could worsen if organisations do nothing about it to help workers. It shows that on average a person takes up to 21days to recover. There are many factors that affect individuals at work that are linked to stress including working long hours, unmanageable work load, etc. By identifying the problem and talking to the manager could help in resolving work related stress and by managers providing relevant support to employees dealing with work related stress.

Overall conflict at work could arise for various reasons such as disagreement between individuals within the workplace, also power plays an important role within the organisation, by having the authority and control to manage the organisation effectively. In addition to that another concern is work related stress this is rising due to workers not being able to manage the workload as the article above mentions and can also be linked back strongly to conflict.  Mullins stated the sources of conflict and French and Raven have a theory on different sources of power which show how organisation have the power and control over employees.

References: 

[1] Surviving Workplace Stress [Online] Available From:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/may/17/surviving-workplace-stress-in-recession [Accessed 20th November 2012] 

[2] Mullins, L. (2007) Management & Organisational Behaviour:  8^th edition. Harlow: Prentice Hall.

[3] Simpson, M (2012) PowerPoint.