What is conflict?

Conflict is present in everyday life of individual as well as organizations. We can say that wherever there is an interaction, there is conflict. Conflict influences is the behavior, performance and satisfaction of the employees and is a major challenge for the managers when they have to deal with differences among the employees or groups at work. The conflicts pose regular challenges for the managers thus it becomes important for the managers to understand the concept of conflict and also the ways to handle to conflict effectively. There are many ways to define the conflict it has been considered as an expression of hostility antagonism aggression rivalry and negative attitude. It is also linked with situations which involve the contradictory or irreconcilable interests between two opposite parties. Louis R Pondy has given a comprehensive definition of conflict in which he says that the term conflict is used in four different ways:

(i) Antecedent conditions of conflict-full behavior such as scarcity of resources or policy differences.
(ii) Affective states of individuals involved such as stress, tension, hostility anxiety etc.
(iii) Cognitive state of individuals, that is their perception or awareness of conflict situation; and
(iv.) Conflict behavior ranging from passive resistance to over aggression.

Thus we see that conflict is a predictable social phenomenon which can be channelized to used purposes by the managers. From the organizational point of view conflict has following features:

(i) Conflict arises when individual are not able to select the available courses of action

(ii) A conflict between two individuals means that they have contradictory values, perception and goals.

(iii) Conflict involves a series of events and is a dynamic process. Every conflict is made up of a series of inter connected episodes.

(iv.) A conflict should be perceived by the parties involved in it if the parties are not aware of the conflict it is commonly assumed that there is no conflict between the parties.