INCREASING ORGANIZATIONAL EFFICIENCY THROUGH CONFLICTS RESOLUTION

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Generally, intra personal, interpersonal and inter group conflict usually takes place within organizations. Individuals within organizations have many conflicting organizational gross pressure operating on them. In other words, conflict is where not in organizations, and it usually arises when;

• The boss wants more production/ service.
• Subordinates wants more consideration.
• Operators resist change etc.

Conflict have sent  many organizations to their early  or untimely doom. Like social interactions, interactive behavior can occur at the individual, inter-personal, group or organizational levels. And it frequently results in conflict at each of these conflicts have left much to be desired in the activities of these banks.

Organizations, either public or private, small or big exist essentially to achieve certain economics, social or political objectives. These objectives may be in form of profit making, provision of services, production of goods and increase in sales turnover etc. however, these objectives can only be achieved when human resources are employed to utilize other resources such as raw materials, machineries, money and information (George and Jones, 1996). Organizations are made up of different people with different attitudes, abilities, beliefs and personality; therefore conflict is inevitable. There is no organization that can effectively carry out its day to day activities without encountering some form of conflict. Therefore, conflict is the commonest, general and wide-spread phenomenon that is synonymous with group activity and interaction. According to Uga (1992), conflict cannot be completely dissociated from human beings and their endeavors, be it group or organization. This means that conflict is a “necessary evil” that have one cannot do without.

Conflict refers to a situation  in which there are incompatible goals, cognition or emotion within or between individuals or groups that led to opposition (Uya, 1992). This definition recognizes three basic types of conflict which are goal conflict which arises when the desired outcomes are incompatible between groups, cognitive conflict arises as a result of incompatibility of ideas, affective conflict on the other hand usually arise when there is an incomoatibility in emotions. Conflict can also arise when two or more values, perspectives and emotions are contradictory in nature and have  not  been agreed upon. Conflict hhas both positive and negative effects on organizations that is why there is a need for effective conflict management strategy.

Conflict management refers to  attempt to control or regulate conflict through a number of measures. Conflict management strategies refers to the internal mechanisms used by the various authorities in resolving conflict (Adeyemi and Ademilua, 2012). Constructively managed, conflict induces a positive performance, while poorly managed, it heats up the environment to bring about dislocation of the entire group and polarization, reduced productivity on job performance, brings about psychological and physical injury, emotional distress and inability to sleep, interference with problem activities, escalation of differences into antagonistic position and malice, and increased hostility (Akanji, 2005). Through an effective conflict management, a co-operative atmosphere is created to promote opportunities and movements, directed towards non-violent, reconciliation or basic clashing interest (Uchendu, Anijiobi and Odigwe, 2013).

Therefore, with particular reference to the United Bank for Africa (UBA) PLC, this conflict is not absent. this is because conflict is a day occurrence in life.  But it is not entirely bad. This is because an organization can exploit opportunities and increase its efficiency through conflict. Conflict can lead to innovations and change, it can energies people to activity, develop protection for something else in the organization and be an important element in system  analysis of the organization. Such factors indicates that conflict can be  ne managed  to work for rather then against goal attainment in the modern organizations. More concequently, it has been suggested that there are four causes of organizational conflict, viz:

• An incompatible goals situation
• The existence of incompatible means or incompatible resources allocation.
• A problem of status incongruities, and
• A difference in perceptions

In the classical organizations, there are four predominant types of structural causes of conflict;

• Hierarchical conflict between various levels of the organization.
• Conflict between the board of directors and top management.
• Conflict between the middle management and supervisory personnel or there may be general conflict between management and the workers.
• Functional conflict between functional department of an organization.

1.2      STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

            Conflicts  are the graveyard of an organization. It then follows that any firm that toys with its conflicts resolution or how to bring harmonic atmosphere among  its human elements is doomed  to have an organizational chaos, anarchy and lawless which will untimely end the organization in its grave. Therefore, the need to have proper conflict resolution and tranquility in a banking industry cannot be overemphasized. Regrettably, most banking firms have neglected this, thereby resulting in poor performance in the industry. For an organization to run out of such problem and the like of chaos, anarchy, lawlessness, less of customers patronage, poor competitive powers, conflicts need to be monitored and controlled from the point of its development to the point of its resolution.

It is a common knowledge that conflict result into stress consequently hasnegative consequences in the organizational parlance, which might manifest as boredom, tension, withdrawal and communication breakdown.. at times, these may not be noticed and will instead make the organization to trust and believe that “all that glitters is gold”. Hence will put all its egg in a basket because the needed information in the current trend and direction of activities is lacked. In all, these will result in lunge revenue losses to the organization.

This research on conflict resolution with particular reference to United Bank for Africa (UBA) PLC Enugu  has raised some questions among experts and professional, which this study has attempted to address.

These includes:

1. Can conflict resolution help to improve the organization efficiency of (UBA)?
2. Can organizations exist without conflict?
3. Is conflict beneficial or detrimental to organizational goals?

These questions forms the basis of investigation, which this study is designed to accomplish

1.3      RESEARCH QUESTION

           The following are the research questions:

1. To what extent has conflict resolution helped to improve the organizational efficiency of (UBA) PLC Enugu?
2. Why should (UBa) plc Enugu avoid conflicts?
3. What measures of conflicts resolution could be use in (UBA) PLC Enugu in order to make  conflicts beneficial rather than being detrimental in achieving its set goals?

1.4      PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

1. To know the extent in which conflict resolution has helped in improving the organizational efficiency of (UBA) PLC Enugu.
2. To find out reasons why (UBA) plc Enugu should avoid conflicts.
3. To explore measures of conflict resolution that will be use in (UBA)PLC Enugu to make conflict beneficial rather than being detrimental in achieving its set goals.

1.5      RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

The research work will be guided by these hypotheses.

1. Hi: Conflicts resolution helps to improve the organizational efficiency of (UBA) PLC Enugu.

Ho: Conflicts resolution does not help to improve the organizational efficiency of (UBA) Enugu.

1. Hi: There are reasons why (UBA) PLC Enugu should avoid conflicts.

Ho:  There are no reasons why (UBA) PLC Enugu should avoid conflicts.

1. Hi: There are some measures of conflicts resolution that could be used in (UBA) PLC Enugu to make conflicts beneficial rather than being detrimental in achieving its set goals.

Ho: There are no measures of conflicts resolution that could be used in (UBA) PLC Enugu to make conflicts beneficial rather than being detrimental in achieving its set goals.

1.6      SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Conflict has been regarded as the black spot of organizations often constitutes the largest single current liability of such an organization, some loses are incurred for persistence and detrimental conflicts. Such losses which are seen theoretically, practically include loss of goodwill, customers patronage, market share, output, communication, job satisfaction due to stress caused by conflict. The researcher having viewed the huge loss involved deems it inevitable to study  the various ways of increasing efficiency  by resolution of conflict in banking firms. So, it is hoped that firms such as United Bank for Africa (UBA) PLC Enugu will  achieve her organizational efficiency  through this research, it is also hoped that future researchers will benefit from this work.

1.7      SCOPE OF THE STUDY

           This research work covers a comprehensive analysis on the increase in organizational efficiency through conflict resolution, using the United Bank for Africa (UBA) PLC Enugu as a study guide or point of emphasis.

1.8      LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

           The researcher encountered many difficulties in the process of collecting data for his research. These problems invariably formed the basis for limitations of the study.

At first, time constraint affected a comprehension review of related literature on the subject after the study. In other words, gathering of materials textbooks, journals etc for the review of literature were time consuming. The researcher being a student has other courses to cover and thus had to apportion the time to meet with the demands of the other courses. The researcher also encountered some other limitations like; lack of funds, problem of inadequate information due to lack or inadequate instructional materials like textbooks, magazine and journals for literature review. The researcher would have been more retained without these constraints.

1.9      DEFINITION OF TERMS/OPERATIONALIZATION

           There are some terms which their explanations according to the context of their usage in this study will help enhance the understanding of this research work. They are as follows:

• ORGANIZATION: An organization is a structured process in which persons interact for objectives. In other word, it is an administrative and functional structure (as a business or a political party).
• CONFLICT: This is a strong disagreement between people, groups, etc that results in often angry argument. In other words, it is the condition of objective incompatiblility between values or goals; as the behavior is deliberately interfering with another’s goal achievement and emotionally in terms of hostility.
• INTRA PERSONAL CONFLICT: This is the type of conflict that can arise when personal and organizational goals are incompatible and each cannot be  used to achieve the other.
• INTRA GROUP CONFLICT: This is the conflict that occurs between two or more members of the same group or team.
• EFFICIENCY: Efficiency is used in terms of input, output and organizational objective to mean achievement of objectives at a minimum cost.

1.10    ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

This research work is organized in five chapters for easy  understanding; chapter one is concern with the introduction, which consists of the background of the study, statement of the problem, research questions, purpose of the study, research hypotheses, significance of the study, scope of the study, limitations of the study, operationalization/definition of terms and organization of the study. Chapter two being the review of the related literature presents the theoretical framework, conceptual framework and other areas concerning the subject matter. Chapter three is a research methodology, it covers deals on the research design and methods adopted in the study. Chapter four concentrates on the data collection and analysis and presentation of findings. While chapter five gives summary, conclusion and recommendations made of the study.

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