Theoretical
Framework
Theory on the practice of politics
is discord caused by the actual or perceived opposition of needs, values and
interest between people working together, Joseph et al (1974). Herrey et al
(1973) agreed that conflict is a state of oppositions between persons, ideas,
interest etc. Terry. (1996) refers to the term as a perceived incompatibilities
resulting typically from some form of interference or opposition.
Conflict theory states that the
society or organization functions so that each individual participant and its
group struggle to maximize their benefits which inevitably contribute to social
change such as changes in politics and revelations. (Bonsoff and Victor, 1998)
Assumption
The assumptions of conflict theory
are: Competition, structural inequality and Revolution.
(i) Competition over scarce resources such
as money power position etc is at the heart of all social relationships such as
organizations. Competition rather than consensus is characteristics of human
relationships. Politics not always hard work is the major way to win such
competition and have your ways in organizations.
(ii) Structural
inequality: inequality in power and reward are built in all social structures.
Individuals and groups that benefit form any particular structure strive to see
it maintained through politics.
(iii) Revolution:
Changes in organizations occur as a result of conflict between competing social
classes rather than through adoption. Change is often abrupt and revolutionary
rather than evolutionary. Any organization that does welcome change hardly
makes meaningful progress
One of the ways to promote new ideas
that will being changes in organizations is through politics. According to Bonsoff
and Victor, (1998).
For many decades, managers had been
taught to view conflict as a negative force. However, conflict may actually be
either functional or dysfunctional. As a result of the early perception, the
early approach to conflict management theory was based on the assumption that
all conflict was bad and would always be counter productive to organizational
goals. Conflict management was therefore synonymous with conflict avoidance.
Therefore most managers view conflict as something they must eliminate from
their organizations. This avoidance approach to conflict management was
prevalent during the latter part of the nineteenth century and continued until
the mid (1940s Nurm et al, 1997). The human relation theory of conflict started
from the late 1940s through the mid 1970s. This theory argued that conflict was
a natural and inevitable occurrence in any organizational setting. Because
conflict was unavoidable, human relation approach theory recommended acceptance
of conflict. In other words, conflict cannot be eliminated and may even benefit
the organization, Shelton, et al (2004).
A new theory on conflict emerged
around mid-1970s. This theoretical perspective is the interactions approach.
The view point espouses not only accepting conflict, but also encouraging it.
The theories are of the optimism that a conflict-free, humorous, and
cooperative organization tends to become stagnant and no responsive to market
change and advancement. This interactions theory advocates that it is necessary
for managers to inject a minimum level of conflict to maintain an optional
level of organizational performance Shelton and darling (2004) managers
therefore most control conflict.
- that is they must keep dysfunctional
conflict at on acceptable level but also they must learn to stimulate
functionally.