Conflict Management in Criminal Justice Agency

Organizational Conflict: Traditional View, the Human Relations View, and the Interactionist View

Question (1)

In the area of managing organizational conflict, three distinct views have emerged in the last few decades. The oldest of them all is the traditional view that remained dominant from the nineteenth century until the 1940s. The traditional view in managing organizational conflict assumes that conflict always leads to deteriorated overall employee performance by increasing the conflict level; put a negative impact on the organization and it's bad per se. The traditional view calls for avoiding the conflict whenever it arises. Traditional view of conflict management closely associates the conflict with irrationality, destruction, violence, and senselessness and sees conflict as barrier in a way of an organization to achieve its full potential. Managers who hold traditional view in managing conflict respond to it by eliminating, suppressing, or reducing it. Managers with traditional view use an authoritarian approach for tackling the conflict. Though sometimes authoritarian approach works, it's not generally effective according to a vast body of research on the subject. Various scientific research studies have shown that when employees are suppressed or forced, they get de-motivated which adds more fuel into the fire of conflict and make it worse. Whenever conflict arises, employees need to be taken on board in order to arrive at the best solution. The traditional view is still extensively held because business and industrial institutions face labor union problems and try to crush the “awakening” by force. Moreover, some research studies have concluded that authoritarian approach in managing conflict has actually played a role in the development of labor unions. Disruptive and violent confrontations between management and workers have actually resulted in a view on the part of people that conflict is always detrimental and always be avoided (Vijay, 2000).

After 1940s, another view in the area of conflict management emerged and called contemporary or behavioral view. Contemporary or behavioral view in managing conflict, also known human relations view remained dominant through the 1970s. Human relations view is of the view that conflict is inevitable and natural in all the organizations and it may have either negative or positive effect on the organizational performance. It is up to the managers how they handle the conflict to get either negative or positive results out of it. Human relations view contends that organizational performance can be improved up to a certain level by effectively managing the conflict. Conversely, human relations view holds that if conflict is not managed effectively and allowed to be amplified further or left unresolved, it will actually contribute in declined organizational performance. Human relations view calls for acceptance of conflict and rationalize its existence. Human relations view is of the view that conflict offers some benefits to the organization in terms of process improvement etc. and therefore managers should focus their attention in its effective management rather instead of its elimination or suppression.

After human relations new, another approach in managing conflict emerged that is newest from previous two ...