Conflict Management Assignment 2022

Running head: CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
Conflict Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
Table of Content
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Analyzing the causes of conflict............................................................................................2
Using Fritz Theory and Glasl Model to evaluate causes of the conflict................................3
Prevention strategy using Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis........................................4
Evaluation of the strategy against good sources....................................................................5
Conclusion and final thoughts based on the analysis.................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................8

2CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
Introduction
Workplace conflict or organizational conflict is a status of disagreement caused by the
perceived or actual resistance of needs, interests and values amongst individuals working
together within an organizational setting (Danielsson et al., 2015). Conflict could be of
different forms in an organization including the conflict involving authority and power with
the individuals or groups affected by it. Conflict arises owing to disputes regarding revenue
division, provision of work and the schedule or timing of employees’ work hours.
Jurisdictional disagreements between departments, individuals, unions and management also
come under workplace conflict. Workplace conflict could further be divided into personal
conflict, Intra-group conflict and intergroup conflict (Schmidt et al., 2014). Personal conflict
in the workplace refers to the conflict involving two people that occurs mostly due to
personality clash or mutual dislike. In intra-group conflict, the clash occurs mostly within
groups owing to the lack of freedom, resources and position. Those believing in
independence seem to resist the necessity of interdependence or conformity with group norms
and this leads to conflict (Schmidt et al., 2014). Intergroup conflict on the other hand, is the
conflict that arises due to competition between the various organizational functions such as
sales versus production and so on. It also arises due to the competition between the
hierarchical levels such as managers versus workers and so on (Schmidt et al., 2014).
The assignment aims to analyze the workplace conflict from the given case study
using assessment tools such as the ‘conflict wheel’ and the ‘conflict tree’. The assignment
will also explain the causes of the conflict using Fritz theory and Glasl conflict model. A
prevention strategy will also be provided using Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis theory.
Then, the assignment will evaluate the strategy against good sources. The main notion of the

3CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
essay is to argue that the conflict could have been prevented had the company followed the
conflict management models.
Analyzing the causes of conflict
The conflict wheel is a construct analytical tool that could assist in examining and
understanding conflict with more accuracy and assist in the way to manage conflict after
realizing the actual cause, the need for better insights, opportunities to better the situation and
so on. It first provides an overview of the conflict prior to analyzing it. It has six important
dimensions with which the conflict could be analyzed. These include the actors involved, the
dynamics, structures, issues and options (Lee, Choi & Kim, 2018). The actors involved in the
conflict are James himself, the assisting manager, the manager and James’ team mates. The
issues in the present conflict are – since James was completely new to the job, he needed
guidance, which he did not receive, the assisting manager’s negligence towards James’
queries, the extreme busy schedule of the team mates who did not provide any help to James.
In terms of the conflict dynamics, the level is quite high because it led to James’ resignation
and his transformation from a quiet person to someone arguing with the assisting manager.
Conflict causation in this case is the interaction of factors such as James’ inexperience in the
job and the attitude of the managers that led to the ultimate conflict (Schwartz, Deligiannis &
Homer-Dixon, 2018). The option or strategies James found to deal with the conflict was to
resign from the job and mention the drawbacks of the company in his resignation letter.
The conflict tree presents the distinction between the structural and dynamic factors
involved in the conflict and the way these are linked (Cederman, Weidmann& Bormann,
2015). While the dynamic factors in the case study is the argument between James and the
assisting manager, the structural factor is the attitude of the assisting manager and other
employees towards James’ problems. As per the tree, the main cause of the conflict was the