Welcome to

1

• Welcome to
• Bu 288P
• Class 21 Conflict Stress

2
Agenda

• Conflict
• Causes of Organizational Conflict
• Types of Conflict
• Conflict Management Styles
• Stress in Organizations
• Organizational Stressors
• Reactions to Stress
• Reducing Workplace Stress

3
What is Conflict?

• Interpersonal conflict is a process that occurs
  when one person, group, or organization subunit
  frustrates or prevents the goal attainment of
  another.
• Conflict can have a good side or dark side
• antagonistic attitudes and behaviours
• stimulating new ideas, redistribution of power
  and positive organizational change

4
Causes of Organizational Conflict

• Group Identification and Inter-group Bias
• identifying with ones own in-group success and
  disassociated ones self from out-group failures
• Reinforces Positive Self-Esteem provides
  feelings of social solidarity and meets the
  personal needs of belonging Examples?
• Based on race, gender, professional association,
  job category etc.
• Teams because team members with strongly
  identify with their own team, pay special
  attention to how the team interacts with other
  teams e.g self-interest vs. cooperation

5
Causes of Organizational Conflict

• Interdependance
• When individuals or teams are mutually dependent
  on each other to accomplish their own goals.
• Conflict will not develop if the party feels they
  can go it alone
• Antagonism can occur when one group has more
  power over the other group
• Collaboration and mutual assistance is possible
  when the right conditions are present

6
Conflict Conditions

• When parties differ significantly in
• Power who needs who and by how much
• Status when lower level employees give orders
  to higher level supervisors due to unique
  workplace circumstances
• Culture clash of belief and values
• Ambiguous goals, jurisdictions, communication or
  performance criteria
• susceptible to a variety of interpretations and
  actions
• Scarce resources (e.g., limited budget money,
  secretarial support, lab space).

7
3 Types of Conflict

• Relationship conflict
• interpersonal tensions
• Task conflict
• disagreements about the tasks
• Process conflict
• disagreements about how work should be organized
  and accomplished.

8
Conflict Dynamics

• When conflict begins, a number of events
  transpire
• Winning the conflict becomes most important.
• The parties conceal information from each other
  or distort it.
• Each side becomes more cohesive.
• Contact with the opposite party is discouraged.
• The opposite party is negatively stereotyped
  while the image of ones own position is boosted.
• More aggressive people who are skilled at
  engaging in conflict may emerge as leaders.
• Examples of this type of real world antagonism?

9
Conflict Management Styles

• Approach how do you deal with conflict?
• How assertive you are in trying to satisfy your
  own or your groups concerns.
• How cooperative you are in trying to satisfy
  those of the other party or group.

10
Style of Conflict Management

• Avoiding
• Accommodating
• Competing
• Compromise
• 
  Collaboration
• When would each style be most effective during a
  negotiation?

11
Is All Conflict Bad?

• NO!
• promotes necessary
• organizational change
• CONFLICT ? CHANGE ? ADAPTATION ? SURVIVAL

12
Stress in Organizations

• Serious concern costs, health, productivity
  etc.
• Levels of workplace stress are at an all time
  high.

13
Stress

• A psychological reaction to the demands inherent
  in a stressor that has the potential to make a
  person feel tense or anxious.
• Moderate levels of stress can provide an
  appropriate level of stimulation.
• Stress becomes a problem when it leads to high
  levels of anxiety and tension.
• Personality has a large influence on the type of
  stress response

14
Stress Reactions

• Some of these reactions are passive responses,
  over which the individual has little direct
  control (e.g., elevated blood pressure).
• Other reactions are active attempts to cope with
  some aspect of the stress episode.

15
Personality and Stress

• Three key personality traits
• Locus of control
• Type A behaviour pattern
• Negative affectivity

16
Locus of Control

• Externals are more likely to feel anxious in the
  face of potential stressors.
• Internals are more likely to confront stressors
  directly.
• Externals are more prone to simple
  anxiety-reduction strategies.
• Why would externals and internals react
  differently to the same stressors?

17
Type A Behaviour Pattern

• A personality pattern that includes
  aggressiveness, ambitiousness, competitiveness,
  hostility, impatience, and a sense of time
  urgency.
• Type B individuals do not exhibit these extreme
  characteristics.
• Type A people report heavier workloads, longer
  work hours, and more conflicting work demands.
  Why?

18
Negative Affectivity (NA)

• Propensity to view the world, including oneself
  and other people, in a negative light.
• People high in NA report more stressors in the
  work environment and feel more subjective stress.
• They are particularly likely to feel stressed in
  response to the demands of a heavy workload. Why?

19
Negative Affectivity

• People with high NA are more susceptible to
  stress for a number of reasons
• A predisposition to perceive stressors in the
  workplace.
• Hypersensitivity to existing stressors.
• A tendency to gravitate to stressful jobs.
• A tendency to provoke stress.
• The use of passive, indirect coping styles.

20
Organizational Stressors

• Executive and Managerial Level Stressors
• Role overload
• A heavy and compressed workload schedule
• Heavy responsibility with very important
  consequences for the organization
• Operational Level Stressors
• Poor physical working conditions.
• Jobs that are too challenging or not challenging
  enough
• Job scope can be a stressor at levels that are
  either too low or too high.

21
Job Demands-Job Control Model

• Jobs promote high stress when they make high
  demands on employees while giving them little
  control over workplace decisions.
• Likely to produce stress and negative stress
  reactions.
• Associated with increased risk for heart disease,
  depression, stroke etc.

22
Boundary Role Stressors

• Boundary roles are positions in which
  organizational members are required to interact
  with members of other organizations or with the
  public.
• Role Conflict - incompatible with the demands
  between the organization and the public or other
  outside organizations. E.g sales selling vs.
  production
• Burnout is common among boundary role occupants

23
Burnout

• Emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and
  reduced personal accomplishment among those who
  work with people.
• Burnout follows a process
• EMOTIONAL ? DEPERSONALIZATION ?
  LOW
• EXHAUSTION
  PERSONAL
• 
  ACCOMPLISHMENT

24
Burnout

• It is most common among people who entered their
  jobs with especially high ideals.
• Cannot compromise or prioritize ideas, goals or
  expectations must do it all, and there is
  only one way
• Persistant emotional self regulation
• frequent need to engage in emotional labour
  (suppress negative emotions and exaggerate
  positive emotions)

25
General Stressors

• Some stressors are experienced equally by
  occupants of all roles
• Interpersonal conflict
• Work-family conflict huge impact!
• Job insecurity and change
• Role ambiguity
• Sexual harassment

26
Reactions to Stress

• The reactions of people who experience
  organizational stress can be divided into three
  types
• Behavioural reactions
• Psychological reactions
• Physiological reactions

27
Behavioural Reactions to Stress

• Actions that the stressed individual will use to
  try and cope with stress.
• Behavioural reactions to stress include
• Problem solving terminating or eliminating
  stress
• Avoiding / Withdrawal absence or turnover
• Positive Stress Relievers exercise, reading,
  baking, movies etc.
• Negative Stress Relievers
• Use of addictive substances (smoking, alcohol,
  drugs, gambling etc.)
• Violence (against coworkers, spouses, children,
  other organizations etc.)

28
Psychological Reactions to Stress

• Primarily involve emotions / thought processes.
• most common is the use of defense mechanisms
• are psychological attempts to reduce the anxiety
  associated with stress (anxiety reduction)
• Rationalization
• Projection
• Displacement -
• Reaction formation
• Compensation
• Group Exercise define each defense mechanism
  above and give an example of each not mentioned
  in the text.

29
Physiological Reactions to Stress

• Physical outcome associated with positive or
  negative stress
• electrocardiogram irregularities
• elevated levels of blood pressure
• Cholesterol
• Pulse
• Heart attacks, stroke, rashes, sweating,
  stuttering etc.
• Stress has also been associated with the onset of
  various diseases.

30
Reducing Workplace Stress

• Job redesign
• Social support
• Family-friendly human resource policies
• Stress management programs
• Work-life balance programs

31
Job Redesign

• Organizations can redesign jobs to reduce their
  stressful characteristics.
• Most formal job redesign efforts involve
  enriching operative-level jobs to make them more
  stimulating and challenging.
• One study found that job enrichment resulted in
  improvements in employees mental health.

32
Social Support

• Social support refers to having close ties with
  other people.
• A social network acts as a buffer against stress.
• The buffering aspects of social support are most
  potent when they are directly connected to the
  source of stress.
• Coworkers and superiors are the best sources of
  support for dealing with work-related stress.

33
Family Friendly Human Resource Policies

• formalized social support, material support, and
  increased flexibility to adapt to employee needs.
• A common form of material support is corporate
  daycare centres.
• Flexibility includes flex-time, telecommuting,
  job sharing, and family leave policies.

34
Stress Management Programs

• Find balance help employees to manage and
  minimize and work-related stress.
• Techniques and support for meditation and
  training in time management, exercise programs,
  extra-curricular activities etc.
• Benefits reduces physiological arousal, sleep
  disturbances, and self-reported tension and
  anxiety.

35
Work-Life Balance Programs

• Work-life balance programs encourage employees to
  participate in activities to improve their mental
  and physical health.
• Work-life balance programs can include
• Fitness facilities and memberships
• Employee assistance programs
• Health food programs
• Game and relaxation rooms