Conflict Management: Analysis, Strategies, and Evaluation Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of a workplace conflict scenario, focusing on the causes, dynamics, and potential prevention strategies. The assignment begins by defining workplace conflict and its various forms, then proceeds to analyze the given case study using the 'conflict wheel' and 'conflict tree' analytical tools. It delves into the causes of conflict using Fritz Heider's attribution theory and Friedrich Glasl's model of conflict escalation. Furthermore, the report proposes a prevention strategy based on Eric Berne's Transactional Analysis, evaluating its effectiveness against relevant sources. The analysis emphasizes the importance of effective communication and proactive conflict management models to prevent negative outcomes, such as employee resignation and reputational damage. The report concludes by highlighting the significance of open communication within organizations to foster productivity, employee morale, and overall operational effectiveness.

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

4CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
treatment James received from his supervisors especially the assisting manager, which
subsequently led to him arguing with the manager.
Using Fritz Theory and Glasl Model to evaluate causes of the conflict
According to Fritz Heider, there are two major ideas of Attribution theory that hold
major influence in conflict evaluation (Harvey et al., 2014). These are dispositional
attribution and situational attribution. While in dispositional attribute, the causes for conflict
are blamed on the personality, motives or beliefs, situational attribution finds external factors
as responsible for the conflict. In James’ case, the dispositional factors could be argued as
being at work more than situational factors because the assisting manager did not show any
attitude of helping James neither did any members of the organization.
Friedrich Glasl developed a model to analyze conflict, which came to be known as
Glasl’s model of conflict escalation. The model included nine stages of conflict starting from
tension, debate, actions instead of words, coalitions, loss of face, threat strategies, limited
destruction, total annihilation and together into the abyss (Leon-Perez et al., 2015).
Evaluating the conflict using Glasl’s escalation model reveals that the conflict at the
workplace in the given case study arose due to escalating frustration of James after not
receiving any help from his seniors (Leon-Perez et al., 2015). The conflict first started from
the hardening level then went on to the level of argument and then the action of resignation
by James along with the mutual destruction of the company’s reputation as James pointed out
the lapses of the organization in his resignation letter.
Prevention strategy using Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis
Transactional Analysis refers to the transaction between individuals and its study. The
theory analyzes the reasons for a person’s behavior by determining the ego state of the
person. The three ego states include parent-like, childlike and adult-like ego states (Mazzetti,

5CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
2018). Conflict occurs when any one of these ego states are crossed in a conversation or
situation. In the given scenario, James’ ego state of child-like was crossed when he was not
given any attention by his seniors and supervisors especially the assisting manager. James’
behavior could be said to be child-like because he did not attempt to learn from himself and
depended on others to give him time (Mazzetti, 2018)..
The conflict could have been prevented had James managed to identify his ego state
of child-like and attempted to learn the duty required in his job by observing others and not
asking others because everyone was busy with their own work.
Apart from that, the assisting manager could also have understood that James was
new to the job and hence, could have transacted with James in his parent-like ego state.
Evaluation of the strategy against good sources
The above-presented prevention strategy includes emotional and psychological
element of individual, which means conflict could occur due to poor control over the state of
child-like ego and awareness related to performance of own duties and responsibilities. The
issue can be resolved by developing a suitable workplace communication strategy.
Transactional Analysis is about the interpersonal communication or it is more of a method
that is about studying the interaction between the individual. The case study indicates that the
conflict can be resolved if the organization has a proper and open communication method in
which employees can directly communicate with the supervisors, assistant managers and
branch managers. If the communication is open and transparent, the conflict would have been
reflected. Danielssonet al.(2015) mentioned the fact that organization or any sort of
workplace could benefit from an enhanced workplace communication with the increased
productivity as well as smooth operational effectiveness, while the individuals like James
can benefit from the increased morale, productivity and commitment.

6CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
As put forward by Wright et al., (2014) a general barrier to communication could
involve a lack of understanding across one’s communication style as well as how to approach
and communicate with others who might have different preferences. Moreover, when the
organization is implementing internal communication strategy, it is always effective for
managers and supervisors to check out the ideas that usually come from the
employees.Nordin et al., (2014) stated the fact that proposed communication strategy should
be aligned with the policy goals. For example, there are certain stages such as awareness,
supporters, constituency building, policy change and public will. It has been identified that
in the field of awareness, initial stage for most policy work is about making people aware of
an issue and most importantly why it does matter. So, here by increasing awareness among
the employees, the firm as a whole can lay the groundwork for a long-term change.
On the other side, Hall (2016) mentioned the fact that when it comes to supporters, it
is worth stating that cultivating champions or supporters should be developed upon the
awareness to generate strategic advocates of the issue. The major purpose is to identify as
well as convince the major individuals to deal with their own causes and gain healthy control
over others. Hence, such supporters are usually the policymakers themselves or the people in
position to create impact upon them (GilinOore, Leiter& LeBlanc, 2015). Hence, the
organization could look for state legislators who could speak for their causes and convince
other colleagues to support the favourable policies. Likewise, constituency building is
another significant aspect in the developed prevention-based communication strategy, who
can work together for the issue.
For example, the constituency for organizational changes are supervisors or the
human resource managers. In the context, communication, Ferri-Reed (2013) mentioned
about salience –this means it is not always enough for audience to be aware of the issue.
Sometimes, the supervisors and managers have to believe in its importance. Hence, salience

7CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
basically is about increasing the weight of the issue as well as creating a sense of urgency.
For example, individuals could be aware of workplace or work stress, but organization should
give those issues a greater level of visibility that are related to workplace stress. Moreover,
when such effort to develop awareness and salience are appropriately succeeding, one could
start working to change the way employees think about an issue. For example, organization
faces the issue of poor enquiry, once the organization raised the awareness about the
workplace communication (Katz & Flynn, 2013).
Conclusion and final thoughts based on the analysis
In conclusion, it can be mentioned that workplace conflict is a common issue that
often take place in every organization. It is noted that due to lack of communication or the
absence of proper communication, conflict becomes the usual event in the organization.
However, communication is one such aspect that addresses workplace conflicts. James was
also supposed to conduct a meeting with other team members but could not as the assisting
manager took four days leave. This scenario appeared because the organization lacks suitable
communication. So, when concluding the analysis, it is worth stating that workplace
communication is highly important to the organizations as it allows organizations to be
productive as well as operate effectively.
The analysis also proved the fact that employees are most likely to experience an
increase in morale, productivity and commitment, if they, in the workplace gain the ability of
communicating up and down throughout the communication chain the organization. It can be
stated that workplace communication is more of a process of transmitting the information
between one individual or group to another group of individual in the workplace. Thus, any
issue occurs in the workplace can be traced or tracked, when an employee or the individual
join the company is not left or not disowned from help. In general, it can be stated that

8CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
employees feel empowered if they are able to have an open communication and such type of
communication should occur when information directly flows upward in the workplace and
holds the action of feedback.
References
Cederman, L. E., Weidmann, N. B., & Bormann, N. C. (2015). Triangulating horizontal
inequality: Toward improved conflict analysis. Journal of Peace Research, 52(6),
806-821.
Danielsson, C. B., Bodin, L., Wulff, C., & Theorell, T. (2015). The relation between office
type and workplace conflict: A gender and noise perspective. Journal of
Environmental Psychology, 42, 161-171.
Danielsson, C. B., Bodin, L., Wulff, C., & Theorell, T. (2015). The relation between office
type and workplace conflict: A gender and noise perspective. Journal of
Environmental Psychology, 42, 161-171.
Ferri-Reed, J. (2013). Quality, conflict, and communication across the generations. The
Journal for Quality and Participation, 35(4), 12.
GilinOore, D., Leiter, M. P., & LeBlanc, D. E. (2015). Individual and organizational factors
promoting successful responses to workplace conflict. Canadian
Psychology/psychologiecanadienne, 56(3), 301.
Hall, A. (2016). Exploring the workplace communication preferences of millennials. Journal
of Organizational Culture, Communications and Conflict, 20, 35.
Harvey, P., Madison, K., Martinko, M., Crook, T. R., & Crook, T. A. (2014). Attribution
theory in the organizational sciences: The road traveled and the path ahead. Academy
of Management Perspectives, 28(2), 128-146.

9CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
Katz, N. H., & Flynn, L. T. (2013). Understanding conflict management systems and
strategies in the workplace: A pilot study. Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 30(4), 393-
410.
Lee, H. W., Choi, J. N., & Kim, S. (2018). Does gender diversity help teams constructively
manage status conflict? An evolutionary perspective of status conflict, team
psychological safety, and team creativity. Organizational Behavior and Human
Decision Processes, 144, 187-199.
Leon-Perez, J. M., Medina, F. J., Arenas, A., &Munduate, L. (2015). The relationship
between interpersonal conflict and workplace bullying. Journal of Managerial
Psychology, 30(3), 250-263.
Mazzetti, M. (2018). Cross-cultural transactional analysis. In Relational Transactional
Analysis (pp. 189-197). Routledge.
Nordin, S. M., Sivapalan, S., Bhattacharyya, E., Ahmad, H. H. W. F. W., & Abdullah, A.
(2014). Organizational communication climate and conflict management:
communications management in an oil and gas company. Procedia-Social and
Behavioral Sciences, 109, 1046-1058.
Schmidt, S., Roesler, U., Kusserow, T., & Rau, R. (2014). Uncertainty in the workplace:
Examining role ambiguity and role conflict, and their link to depression—a meta-
analysis. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 23(1), 91-106.
Schwartz, D. M., Deligiannis, T., & Homer-Dixon, T. (2018). The environment and violent
conflict. In Environmental conflict(pp. 273-294). Routledge.
Wright, K. B., Abendschein, B., Wombacher, K., O’Connor, M., Hoffman, M., Dempsey, M.,
...& Shelton, A. (2014). Work-related communication technology use outside of

10CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
regular work hours and work life conflict: The influence of communication
technologies on perceived work life conflict, burnout, job satisfaction, and turnover
intentions. Management Communication Quarterly, 28(4), 507-530.