Interpersonal Conflict Management Among Project Management Students: A Literature Review

Running head: PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Project Management
-A Literature Review
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction:
In any environment that involves individuals working as a collective unit,
interpersonal interactions become necessary which allows collaborative efforts and helps the
unit to function as a team. The interpersonal relations act as one of the core aspects of an
organization and essential component of team performance. However, the interaction can also
lead to interpersonal conflicts caused by dissonance of opinions, ideas, motivations and
values. These conflicts can have negative effects on the performance and productivity of the
individuals as well as the team, as it can increase stress among project management students,
in an organization conflicts can reduce job satisfaction and student retention rates, it can
increase the risks of workplace violence and result in the wastage of resources as well as time
(Gilin Oore et al. 2015). The conflicts can be also caused because of communication gaps or
barriers, limitation of organizational resources, incompatibility among individual goals,
interdependence of duties among the workers as well as differences among individual
personalities. It is therefore important to develop effective conflict management strategies to
prevent the adverse effects of the interpersonal conflicts on the performance of project
management students, teams and the organization (Islam and Karim 2017).
The aim of this study is to analyze the significance of interpersonal conflict
management among project management students through a review of literature. For this
purpose, key journal articles are researched to identify the important aspects of conflict
management and how it can help to improve the performance of the organization as well as
students.
Discussion:
Discussed below are the important aspects that were identified through key journal
articles, using a qualitative analysis of literature.

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Improving Interpersonal Relationships in an organization:
Studies show that effective conflict management can help to improve interpersonal
relations amonf project management students by reducing or overcoming the personal
differences that causes the conflict. Conflict management helps to bridge communication
caps and differences in opinions and perspectives thereby fostering an improvement in
interpersonal relations in an organization (McKenzie 2015). Moreover, managing conflicts
helps to address the dissonance in personal goals and objectives, devise solutions to
overcome them in future situations. A manager or an organizational leader can play a pivotal
role in conflict management, helping students to overcome the personal differences that
precedes or ensues a conflict scenario, and thus help to improve interpersonal relations in the
organization and foster cohesion among people. Conflict management can also help to
contain and quarantine the adverse effects of conflicts and prevent it from spreading across
the organization and instead develop coordination between people to overcome or prevent
future conflict scenarios. Authors suggest that conflict management also helps to develop
mutual respect towards each other in a workplace, help individual to respect differences in
personalities or personal opinions and helps to improve appreciation of workplace diversity
(Leon-Perez et al. 2015). These aspects clearly shows that through effective interpersonal
conflict management the relations between people in an organization can be improved and
conflict managers as well as organizational leaders can help to develop a cohesive workforce
based on the values of mutual respect and understanding and supported be effective
communication strategies.
Reducing work stress
Several studies show that interpersonal conflicts in workplace can increase a sense of
stress and anxiety among individuals and reduce satisfaction towards jobs (Sonnentag and

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Fritz 2015; Theorell et al. 2015; Rispens and Demerouti 2016). Personal disagreements
between individuals can often escalate to interpersonal conflicts, and such conflicts can let to
the individuals involved in the conflict to be aggravated causing stress and anxiety. It has
been suggested by authors that stressors such as individual stressors, group stressors,
organizational stressors, and extra organizational stressors can contribute to job stress
experienced by individuals in an organization (Demerouti 2016). Moreover, interpersonal
conflicts can cause an increase in the group stressors, thereby mediating job stress among
students. Relation between job stress and job satisfaction have been studied by many authors,
with the common conclusion that work stress can reduce the level of job satisfaction among
the project management students and also reduce the student turnover and student retention
(Bliese et al. 2017). Effective conflict management helps project management students to
overcome the stress caused due to interpersonal conflicts, allowing the source of the conflict
to be identified and addressed in order to resolve the conflict (Theorell et al. 2015). Thus, by
resolving the conflict, the group stressor on individuals can be overcome or averted thereby
alleviating stress and anxiety among the project management students and thus helping to
improve the overall job satisfaction. Other studies suggest that by resolving conflicts, the
cohesion among project management students can improve, reduce the chances of escalation
or spread of the conflicts, prevent risks of workplace violence and also help to promote a
positive workplace environment that is based on respect, all of which helps to improve job
satisfaction among the project management students and improve student retention and
turnover (Sonnentag and Fritz 2015).
Reducing the risks of violence:
It has been pointed out that one of the biggest contributors of organizational violence
is interpersonal conflicts in an organization, followed by job stress. Behaviors such as
aggression and bullying in a organization can be caused due to escalation of interpersonal