Case Study: Analyzing Conflict Resolution for a Productive Workplace

This case study examines conflicts among coders due to differing educational backgrounds and training, highlighting a lack of cooperation within the department. It emphasizes the importance of managerial intervention to resolve these conflicts, suggesting that team meetings and motivational techniques could improve relationships and efficiency. Retaining a skilled employee like Kathy, despite the conflict, is presented as a better option than hiring and training new staff, as demonstrated by the unsuccessful hiring of Sara. The study underscores the need for a positive organizational culture that encourages collaboration, mutual trust, and respect to foster a productive work environment. Ultimately, leaders must balance organizational objectives with the emotional aspects of conflict, ensuring healthy relationships and mutual respect among team members. Desklib provides access to similar case studies and solved assignments for students.

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1CASE STUDY
The situation depicts presence of conflicts within the organizational employees
especially the coders due to the differences in their attitudes towards education as well as
formal coding training. The department comprised of four coders namely Kathy, Karen, Nora
and Ginny. Kathy and Karen had received same education and formal coding training as they
belonged to the same school. On the other hand, Nora had not received any formal coding
training instead; she had learnt coding while working. Ginny was a LVN and did not interact
much with the other coders. The situation depicts that there was lack of understanding and
cooperation among the coders belonging to the same department.
In such a situation, it becomes necessary for the managers or directors to take
appropriate actions, which shall help in resolving the conflicts. The organization could have
hired a proper replacement for Kathy but by hiring Sara, the organization failed to do so. In
this case, the action which must have been taken is bringing the group together. It is the
responsibility of the managers or leaders to solve any issue faced by the organizational
employees. Conducting group meetings and encouraging team work could have helped in
improving the relationships between the four coders. The leaders must have used several
motivational techniques to encourage the coders to work in cooperation with each other in
order to improve the efficiency of the department. Despite the conflict, Kathy must have been
retained as she was excellent in her job.
After considering the actions and their potential outcomes, Kathy would be the best
choice as she was excellent in coding and she was also willing to come back full time. This
would save time and resources of the organization as otherwise, it would have to hire a new
employee and train her (Avruch, & Black, 2014). The organization could not even assure that
the newly hired and trained employee would be able to do her job successfully. The
organization had already wasted its time and resources while hiring and training Sara as she

2CASE STUDY
was incapable of maintaining accuracy and the productivity requirements, which ultimately
resulted in her termination.
The appropriate steps taken to ensure a productive work environment would have
been ensuring a proper organizational culture and encouraging collaboration within the
organization. Organizational culture largely determines the values, attitudes and beliefs of the
organizational members and it is the responsibility of the leaders to ensure that there is proper
collaboration, cooperation and team spirit among the employees belonging to the same
departments. Presence of mutual trust and respect along with the presence of team spirit
would have ensured a productive work environment within the organization. The situation of
conflict could have been avoided by ensuring proper collaboration and organizational culture
within the organization (Wallensteen, 2015). It is necessary for the leaders to achieve the
objectives of the organization while considering the emotional aspects of conflicting issues.
The responsibility lies with the departmental heads and leaders to ensure that the members of
the department have healthy relationships with each other and there is mutual trust and
respect among them.

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References:
Avruch, K., & Black, P. (2014). Conflict resolution in intercultural settings: Problems and
prospects.
Wallensteen, P. (2015). Understanding conflict resolution. Sage.