Theories Of Organizational Conflict

1. Introduction

Until recently, organizational trust has been one of the under-researched concepts in scholarly investigations (Mayer, Davis & Schoorman, 1995; Atkinson, Sally & David 2003; Lewicki, Edward & Nicole 2006). The primary reasons for this underdevelopment has noted by Mayer, et. al, (1995) is lack of unified definition of trust, conceptual clarity between risk and trust, trust and its precursor outcomes on one hand and the challenge of analytical vagueness and insufficient information on the trust party and the party to be trusted on the other hand. With all these conceptual issues woven around the term, available evidence shows that the field of organizational trust is still very fallow and it requires extensive exploration for

It can also be referred to as a feeling of displeasure or misunderstanding between people at workplace which stemmed from uncontrolled workplace exigencies such as unclearly defined roles, assignments or tasks, organizational structure, sharing of resources, role dependency, communication gap, poor remuneration or compensation scheme, job insecurity, differences in managerial styles, organizational change and so on . Flowing from the mainstream of definition of organizational conflict, three distinct views have emerged. These include; traditional view, human relation view and interactionist view. The traditional view considers organizational conflict as a negative occurrence, violence or destruction that has devastating impact on organizational performance and effectiveness. The human relation view perceives organizational conflict as a natural event that may enhance organization performance and effectiveness; if it is effectively managed. While the interactionist view believes that organizational conflict is not only positive or negative force but is an essential part of organizational

Some researchers such as Murmnigham & Conlon (1991), Jehn (1999), Dirks & Parks (2003), Ongori (2009), Whitlam & Cameron (2012) have mostly classified the causes of organizational conflict under three categories which include; task conflict, interpersonal conflict and procedural conflict. Task conflict occurs when an employee is unclear about what is expected of him/her to perform, or how to perform the assigned task, task interdependent and/or when the task given to employees working in a group is not clearly defined by the supervisor. Interpersonal conflict arises when there is proliferation of ideas, or interests between individuals working together, scarce resources, lack of corporation, personality clash or interference over whom to be the first to complete a specific task. While, procedural conflict occurs as a result of bureaucratic bottle neck or disagreement over the procedures to be followed in achieving the set organizational targets or goals. In otherwise, management of organizational conflict cannot be handled with the impression of one-size-fit-all