Louse R. Pondy, in his article named Organizational conflict: Concepts and Models, classifies three types of conflicts among the subunits of an organization. The three major classes of conflict phenomena, he talks about, are Bargaining Model, Bureaucratic Model and Systems model. He acknowledges the literature on organizational conflicts and agrees to the implicit fact that conflict creates a disequilibrium which often leaves the organization unstable. To assume that conflicts represents a state of disequilibrium and generate pressure for conflict resolution, the conflict must disturb the inducement contributions balance, conflict must be treated as cost and the members of organization reacts to the perception of conflict by attempting to resolve the conflict (Pondy 298). Pondy goes one step deeper in the literature to see under what conditions does conflict represent a disequilibrium? While dealing with this question he argues that conflict resolution techniques may be made use of, but a positive out come on those techniques may depend upon the intensity of the conflict and the efficiency of the administrators approach.
The author has treated conflict as a series of episodes which contains latency, feeling, perception, manifestation and aftermath. Then the reaction of the organization in al different cases of conflict is analyzed using the model of inducements-contributions theory by Barnard-Simon. First of all Pondy creates a better understanding on the concepts of organizational conflict by defining it. He argues that conflict needs to be better understood as a dynamic process “a conflict relation ship between tow or more individuals in an organization can be analyzed as sequence of conflict episodes. Each conflict episode begins with conditions characterized by certain conflict potentials” ( Pondy 301). This may not be hostile relationship between the tow or more parties involved but their behavior might show a few conflict-full traits. Hence, each stage of conflict episode with specific reactions begins. It is not necessary that all the episodes take place in a conflict relationship.
Conflicts might be functional or dysfunctional but many of them assume or even made sure that conflict is undesirable. However conflict may threaten the emotional well being of individual person, it might, at the same time, be a positive factor in personal character development. More importantly, conflict is functional or dysfunctional as far as it ‘facilitates or inhibits the organization’s productivity, stability or adoptability. His view of an organization’s equilibrium is to consider all the participants of an organization making contributions in return of certain inducements which exceed the contribution for every participant. The participants will b motivated to keep this equilibrium if it is felt in any way that the contributions exceed the inducements, a situation in which a conflict disturbs the stability of equilibrium. The interaction rate of the conflict among the participants will depend on the stability of the relationship among the participants.
Pondy states that attempts at conflict resolution in bargaining model center around attempting either to increase the pool of available resources or to decrease the demands of the parties to the conflict (Pondy 312). An accepted part of labor management relations are the visible procedure of bargaining. On the other hand the bureaucratic model is used to analyze the vertical conflict in which the superior of an organization attempts to control the subordinate behavior. In a large organization the subordinate’s autonomy could be important when the superior’s goals are not competently matching with that of the organization and subordinate. It is a situation when the subordinate would become rigid and he/she would attempt for a self achievement. Such scenario will create a potential for conflict. The effective leadership on this situation can work on the alternative levels of hierarchy. Lastly, the system model is more about the conflicts in coordination in which the conflicts could be resolved to a great extent by a modified incentive system or proper selection training or assignment procedure.
Over all, this article has given me insights on my management skill of understanding and resolving the organizational conflicts. A conflict with in an organization is a series of dynamic episodes. It can not be necessarily bad always at the same time it would not be good either. Conflicts create a motivation to resolve the conflicts while the chronic conflicts persist only to be managed by an efficient administrator. The applied conflicts resolution techniques must be very prudently and timely chosen.
Works Cited
Pondy, Louis “Organizational Conflict: Concepts and Models” Administrative Science Quarterly
Vol. 2 Number 2 (Sep.1967) pp296-320
