Topic > Conflict Management and Organizational Performance in the Nigerian Public Service

The word conflict connotes unpleasantness, but it is as old as humanity. Man as a social animal needs interaction and in the process of interaction or work, conflict occurs due to divergent interests emerging in his shared opinions, beliefs, desires, expectations and values; which disposes him to act in a peculiar way. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay If managed correctly, organizational conflict can increase productivity and innovation, thus positively influencing organizational performance. Through conflict, teamwork and cooperation, improvements can be built between employees and this will lead to the achievement of organizational goals and objectives, as difficult conflicts can be managed through bonding, dialogue and negotiation. The survey design was used for the study and the results showed that collective bargaining is the most effective strategy in managing conflicts. This study also highlighted that there are many causes of conflict among employees such as interests, individual and organizational goals. This research found that the presence of conflict cannot be ignored in an organization as it contributes to either an increase or decrease in organizational performance, depending on the conflict management methods adopted in the workplace. This study investigated the effect of conflict management on employee performance in Nigerian public service organization, as a general objective. The specific objectives of this study, which will also be investigated are: to evaluate what causes conflict in the Nigerian public service, to determine the common types of conflict in organizations, to examine the strategies used to manage conflicts in the Nigerian public service and to evaluate the impact of Conflict Management on Organizational Performance in Nigerian Public Service Public Service. In this research's attempt to unravel the effect of conflict management on performance in Nigerian public service organisations, an empirical model was developed using data collected through questionnaires. The participants were 30 workers selected through the process of random sampling technique. Data obtained through the primary source were used. The statistical tools applied in the data analysis to determine the relationship between organizational performance and conflict management were: regression analysis and Spearman correlation analysis. Regression analysis was used to measure the effect of conflict management on organizational performance and showed that collective bargaining is the most effective in conflict management. Spearman's correlation analysis also showed a positive relationship with the application of integrative strategies such as collective bargaining, compromise and accommodation, and a negative relationship in the use of non-integrative strategies such as competition, dominance and avoidance. Conflict could be defined as a negative or destructive relationship of a group, community or individual resulting from a clash of interests or values ​​(Sani Abubakar Lugga Waziri, 2007). In our contemporary public service, with its structurally differentiated character, conflicts of interest inevitably arise. An organization in which there is no conflict, in turn, will generate unmotivated workers who will drastically and negatively affect productivity. Research has shown that a certain level of conflict in the workplace can lead to an increaseinitiative, creativity and motivation among employees, resulting in improved performance. Although the opposite is true for an organization that experiences frequent or many conflicts, as it will also observe a hostile work environment, cooperation among non-workers, and decreased production. It is the duty of managers to learn and implement conflict management strategies that promote performance. With limited resources and differences in interests, people find that their expectations are often not met as expected. As a result, misunderstandings and friction result. Conflict implies communication which makes it present in human relationships. Adomie and Anie (2005) hypothesized that as long as humans aspire to leadership positions, security, authority, and comfort, conflict will remain in our society. Managers are therefore obliged to effectively manage conflicts in order to positively influence organizational performance. Indeed, conflict is an inevitable vice in organizations, regardless of their size, what makes the difference is how and how different managers handle it in their different workplaces. Conflict in general represents negative things. It involves disagreement between people and will manifest itself where people with individual differences converge to do business. Conflict cannot be completely ignored in the organization because it can be the biggest driver of change that will increase profits if managed correctly. Organizations are made up of groups of people with interpersonal relationships designed to transform inputs into desired outputs by bringing together technologies and procedures to achieve organizational goals. Conflict, on the other hand, is not foreign to any organization or workplace, as it could be seen as a clash of interests among the workforce. Conflict is like a double-edged sword that can be manipulated by both employees. employers and employees to drive home their points in order to draw attention to their claim. Unrest is found in the organization when people feel they do not fit their goals in the workplace. Studies have shown that limited resources, needs, unmet desires, diversity of goals, and limited information can trigger conflict in the organization. Conflict can also arise where there are differences in objectives, rivalry of skills and divergent opinions. This is why conflict was described by Kohlrieser (2007) as a disagreement between people that manifests itself as lack of cooperation, hostility and suspicion among workers. Traditionally, conflict is seen as a conflicting interest between opposing parties, which generates distrust and discomfort. Conflict also occurs where there is competition and divergent interests. While conflict can arise where there are things to compete over as bargaining comes into play, where there are elements of cooperation which are beneficial to the parties involved (Plunkett et al, 2005). In every organization conflict is seen as inevitable and a natural process of setting, which will be managed whenever it arises, so that it does not affect the performance of workers. In the organization, people with different races, colors, thoughts and goals come together to occupy different positions and roles, this automatically causes conflicts. Inadequately managed conflict can also lead to an inadequate and unsafe work environment, which encourages insubordination, poor communication and decreased productivity. Every organization faces both internal and external challenges and would like to identify and manage all negative and positive conflictsin others to stay in business. Conflict in organization can be grouped into two; Informal conflict and formal conflicts. Informal conflict is fueled by non-work-related work issues, but has impacts on the organization. Formal conflict is work related and is not hidden as it seeks to impose a demand on the organization. Managing conflict does not mean removing it completely, but it means employing different strategies that will reduce its negative impact on workers and improve goal achievement. organizations. To arrive at a concrete decision in an organization, integrative approaches to conflict management are preferred to the non-integrative approach. The integrative approaches are: inquiry, evaluation, denial, design, and implementation, which produce positive results. For the resolution of conflict between employers and employees, the collective bargaining approach is the preferred one, even in Nigeria. This is according to the Nigerian Trade Union Amendment Act of 2000. Conflict management practically involves negotiations between the aggrieved parties, which will lead to offering a solution to their demands. The conflict management strategies studied in this study are the following: Avoidance, Accommodation, Competition, Compromise and Collaboration. In simple terms these strategies can be briefly explained as: Avoidance, meaning is when the parties involved in the conflict avoid themselves. The accommodation strategy occurs when a disagreeing party decides to be respectful for the sake of harmony. Applying the competition strategy, it occurs when the parties involved in a conflict are not ready to swell, they do not care whose horse is gorging. With the compromise strategy, the parties involved in the conflict are ready to let go of something in order to reach an agreement. In the collaborative strategy, conflicting parties are ready to make sacrifices to satisfy their desires. The research model consists of conflict management as the independent variable and organizational performance as the dependent variable. A descriptive and survey research design was used for this study, which used a total of 128 employees from some selected public service institutions. A stratified random sampling technique was employed to select 32 participants, resulting in the sample size representing 25% of the total workforce in the organizations. The basic criteria for the inclusion of the sample were: the attendance register of each organization and the classification of staff (managerial and non-managerial) into two job frameworks. Of the 32 self-administered structured questionnaires used for data collection, respondents returned only 30 copies. , for a total of 94% collected and used for analysis. The researcher developed an instrument entitled “Conflict, Management and Organization Performance Questionnaire” (CMOPQ). The instrument consisted of two sections, A and B. Section A sought demographic information about the respondents, while section B sought information on conflict management and organizational performance (dependent and independent variables). Section A contained 3 questionnaires while section B contained 7 questionnaires to be answered by the staff of the various selected organisations. Likert scale with responses ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree was provided to answer section B. To ascertain the suitability of the instrument for the study, 25 workers from other organizations were administered a questionnaire and were been tested with the TEST and re-Test technique.Initially the questionnaire was administered to three experts for face validation. Two of them were from the Department of Management in the Faculty of Social Sciences, while one was a research lecturer in the Faculty of Arts, Nile University of Nigeria. Input from the research experts led to the adjustment of the instruments especially regarding ambiguous questions, difficult vocabulary and excessive words. The instrument was ultimately ratified by the researcher's supervisor as capable of measuring what it was supposed to measure. A pre-test of the Conflict, Management and Organization Performance Questionnaire (CMOPQ) instrument was carried out on 25 people who had not been used for testing. main study. The data obtained were analyzed using the cronback Alpha coefficient technique at the level of 0.05. The reliability coefficient index of the obtained questionnaire ranges from 0.796 to 0.895 coefficient. This is evidence of the reliability of the questionnaire for this study. As this study attempts to determine the effect of conflict management and organizational performance in the Nigerian public service, an empirical model was developed using data collected through questionnaires. The statistical tools used for the analysis of the data collected were: Spearman correlation coefficient, means and standard deviation, Shapiro-Wilk, frequency and percentage counts (descriptive statistics). The demographic results showed that the job position of the respondents revealed that non-managerial personnel were 65.2%, while those interviewed were managerial personnel, they were 34.8% of the total. The mean of 9.6 years and a standard deviation of 3.4 years represented the organizational tenure of the respondents. This helped reveal the tenure, maturity, rank and educational status of the organization's employees, most of whom are non-managerial officials. The table below shows 6 conflict management strategies in order of effectiveness and importance in managing conflicts. At the top of the ranking is collective bargaining which has an average score of 4.0 ea (sd=1.01). The Compromise follows with an average score of 3.35 and a (sd=1.07). Housing was third in order of importance, with an average score of 3.25 and a (sd=1.08). These 3 strategies are called integrative conflict management strategies. The other 3 conflict management strategies that are not too effective in managing conflict are: Comparison, on the table has a mean score of 1.24 and a (sd=0.76). The competition follows with an average score of 1.22 ea (sd=0.52). Avoidance, is the minimum in the preference scale for conflict management, has an average score of 1.10 and a (sd=0.62). Hypothesis 1: Spearman correlation technique was used to test hypothesis 1, which states that, there is no significant relationship between conflict management and organizational performance. This study shows that there is a significant relationship between conflict management and organizational performance, therefore the postulated null hypothesis was rejected and the alternative hypothesis accepted. For hypotheses 2 to 7, the Spearman correlation method was applied and the strategies of collective bargaining, compromise and accommodation all have a positive correlation with organizational performance when used for conflict management. But the relationship between conflict management and organizational performance, for hypotheses 5 to 7 (comparison, competition and avoidance strategies) was rejected. Since their application did not have a positive correlation with organizational performance. In determining the best conflict management strategy for organizational performance, the.