Case Study Analysis: Conflict Resolution at Campbell Soup Company

This case study examines the conflict resolution strategies employed at the Campbell Soup Company, focusing on issues stemming from organizational culture, leadership style, and resulting task, relationship, and process conflicts. The analysis delves into the actions taken by the then CEO, Doug Conant, to address these challenges, including product innovation, employee performance evaluation, and changes to the organizational environment. It explores the advantages and disadvantages of these strategies, offering short-term and long-term goals for conflict resolution. The study recommends developing a positive work culture through effective leadership, employee motivation, and team building, coupled with innovation in products and packaging to achieve a competitive market advantage. This involved appointing new leaders with improved leadership qualities, encouraging team building, providing rewards and recognition, and focusing on product innovation and packaging to resolve the conflicts. The study emphasizes the importance of aligning company goals with employee and customer satisfaction to drive positive change.

Running head: CONFLICT RESOLUTION
CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Summary....................................................................................................................................2
Advantages.................................................................................................................................2
Disadvantages............................................................................................................................3
Options.......................................................................................................................................4
Short term goals (6 months)...................................................................................................4
Long term goals (12 month)...................................................................................................5
Recommendations......................................................................................................................5

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Summary
The popular, Campbell Soup Company had been facing issues in the market as they
were losing their value in the market. There are several reasons that had contributed to the
continuous decline of the company. One of the issues which the then CEO of the company,
Doug Conant had identified is the organizational culture of the company. He observed that
people in the company did not take any risks and the company had a low trust culture which
was the reason for the lack of innovation in the company. The organizational culture and
environment was becoming chaotic and dysfunctional which was adding to the poor
performance of the company. The leadership style followed in the company was not profound
as well. However, to overcome these issues the company came up with new flavour of soup,
changed and organized shelving and also microwavable soup. The company also came up
with anew score –carding method to evaluate the performance of the employees (Brown
2011).
Advantages
From the case study, it can be derived that decisions taken by the then CEO of
Campbell Soup Company that has helped in resolving task, relationship and process conflict
which had arised in the organisation. The first advantage is understanding the needs of the
customers and coming up with a new flavour soup and to come up with a new innovation
which is microwavable soup. This resolves the both the relationship as well as task conflict. It
to some extent helps in improving the relationship between the customers and the company
which was becoming frail because of the monotonous product the company was offering
which the customers disliked and also the task conflict due to the positive performance of the
employees which led to this positive change in the business. According to the organizational

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behavior theory, reengineering, it is the fundamental designing and rethinking of a business
process so that it can achieve improvements in the business like service, quality cost and
many more (Bajgoric 2018). Campbell follows this and manages to produce innovative and a
quality product to cater to the customers. This usually paves way for distributive bargaining
negotiation where the company makes the offer of introducing the innovative products which
is the anchor.
Disadvantages
The main disadvantage of the company which can be understood from the case study
is the organizational culture of the company. The employees were scared of taking any risk
which was leading to task conflict in the organisation. The lack of innovation and
participation by the employees was due to the poor performance which led to task conflict in
the organisation and the poor leadership led to trust issues among the employees and the
management which led to relationship conflicts that restricted them from properly working
for the betterment of the organisation. Task conflict in the organisation had led to the
turnover of several employees in the management level which had made the working
environment of Campbell chaotic and dysfunctional. This rise in conflict had deeply
impacted the company which led to Campbell losing out on their value of their product which
eventually contributed to the poor or low sales of the product where the customers only
wanted buy the soup product only when the weather was cold and they wanted to have
something like a soup. According to scholars, conflict among the higher management level
and the employees lead to poor performances and lack of motivation to work that has
negative impacts on the productivity and sales of an organisation (Tjosvold, Wan and Tang
2016). Aligning with this, it can be seen that the same had happened to Campbell Soup
Company.

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Options
The case study shows that how conflict have negative impacts on organisations. Thus,
Campbell needs to consider some actions and strategies that will help in resolving the issue of
conflict in the organisation like task conflict and relationship conflict and will help the
organisation in gaining value for their products as well as build a positive workplace
environment and culture for the company which will help in benefitting Campbell Soup
Company.
The company should consider both short term goals as well as long term goals to
resolve the issue of conflict in the organisation.
Short term goals (6 months)
The first goal needs to be ensuring that it improves the organizational culture of Campbell
and thus the options that can be considered are the following:
 Appoint a new leader and a practice a different leadership style to monitor and lead
the employees in the company
 Make concrete changes in the employee evaluation process
 Create policies which state how employees should work in the organisation
 Set new short term targets
 Encourage team building in the company
 Provide rewards, recognition and perks to the employees in order to motivate them.
 Efficient and proper advertising of the company to encourage people to have soup and
also crave for soup and spreading awareness about the company.
Long term goals (12 month)
Campbell needs to consider some long term goals as well that will help in resolving
conflict in the company and lead to the positive growth of the company in the near future.

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 Focus on innovation in the company
 Negotiate with flavour companies to help in innovating in terms of coming up with
new flavours of soup in the market
 Introduce new plans and policies which will provide long term benefits like
promotion and added perks like extra holidays or work from home.
 Reengineer the products and the packaging of the product
 Recruit new competent employees
 Restructure the pricing strategy of the product
 Try to make the workplace positive and encourage team bonding with fun activities
 Encourage communication at all the levels to maintain a positive and a fruitful
relationship between the management level and the employees so that there is some
transparency and for the positive work culture.
All the options that have been mentioned will help the company both short term and in
the long run. The options can help the company to stabilize first and started working on the
process and the other options will help the company, Campbell achieve the long term goals
which is to secure the business of the company and help the company overcome the issues
and gain profits in the market.
Recommendations
There are various options that will help in satisfying both the short term as well as the
long term goals of Campbell however the most ideal option among all the options are the
following which will not only help in resolving conflicts but will also help the company in
overcoming the problems and help in operating successfully in the market.
From the assessment of advantages and disadvantages it can be seen that the most
feasible option for short term goal which will benefit the organisation is to develop a positive

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work culture or environment which will help in enhancing the performance of the employees
that will help in resolving the task conflict as well as the relationship conflict. For that the
company will have to appoint a new leader with efficient leadership qualities who will help in
encouraging the employees to productive and make sure they participate in the process.
Along with that the company will need to encourage team building and have proper leaders
monitor and lead the team for better performances.
The company should also make sure that the employees are motivated so that they
provide continuous productive performances. Rewards and recognition should be
implemented in the company which will provided to the employees after every three months
after evaluating their performance which will ensure they work harder. The rewards and
recognition can be small gift cards, certificates and even a small appreciation from the higher
management in front of other employees to make them feel wanted and a part of the
company. According to scholars, rewards and recognition are considered to be one of the
highest motivational factors which motivate employees so that they can perform better and
enhance their productivity with each passing day (Kuranchie-Mensah and Amponsah-Tawiah
2016). This will help in resolving the issue of task conflict as the performances will be of
high quality and also help in solving relationship conflict as it will make the work
environment better and ensure the employees and the employees at the managerial level work
in a cohesive team for the productivity of the company.
The long term goal of the company is to gain competitive advantage in the market and
ensure productivity of the company and for that the company needs to focus on innovation as
the company lacks innovation and needs to negotiate and partner with a flavour company
who will help in coming up with different flavours of soup. The company also needs to
revamp their entire product by introducing different packaging so that the customers can
distinguish the brand from other brands in the market. This will help in resolving the process

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conflict which was hindering the operations of the company. Along with new packaging and
innovation with flavours the company needs to change the pricing of the product as well and
come up with different size and price it accordingly so that they can not only provide their
customers with options in terms of flavours but also in terms of price which will help the
company in attracting customers and also ensure the business does well in the near future and
introduce newness in their products in the future to break the monotony.

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Reference
Bajgoric, N., 2018. Reengineering business information systems to support business
continuity. International Journal of Business Continuity and Risk Management, 8(1), pp.11-
35.
Brown, A. 2011. How Former Campbell's Soup Company CEO Doug Conant Pulled The
Brand Out From A "Circle Of Doom". [online] Business Insider Australia. Available at:
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/campbell-soup-doug-conant-2011-09?r=US&IR=T
[Accessed 6 Feb. 2020].
Kuranchie-Mensah, E.B. and Amponsah-Tawiah, K., 2016. Employee motivation and work
performance: A comparative study of mining companies in Ghana. Journal of Industrial
Engineering and Management (JIEM), 9(2), pp.255-309.
Tjosvold, D., Wan, P. and Tang, M.M., 2016. Trust and managing conflict: Partners in
developing organizations. In Building trust and constructive conflict management in
organizations (pp. 53-74). Springer, Cham.