BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The assessment of conflict management on organization harmony
cannot be over-emphasized as it has become a virtual tool used in
promoting organizational development. Certainly for organizational
development to take place there must be proper conflict management as
such, conflict management has become indispensable in any organization
or managerial setting in order to succeed.
Conflicts are inevitable parts of organizational life since the
goals of different stakeholders such as the employee and employers are
often incompatible. Gordon (1997) sees conflicts as the result of
incompatible potential relationships, this occurs as a result of one
party perceiving that another party has impeded, or will frustrate one
or more of its concerns. Johnson (2000) views conflict as a struggle or
contest between people with opposing needs, ideas beliefs, values or
goals while Steers (1998) refers to conflicts as a process in which
individuals or groups feels that other individuals or groups have
frustrated or are about to frustrate their plans, goals, beliefs or
activities.
Conflict is a part of organizational life and may occur between
individuals, between the individual and the group and between a group.
Mayo (1949) stated that production depends on the relationship of
workers where he divided workers into groups, that is the management
and the employees. He emphasized that there must be cordial
relationship between these groups of workers before any organizational
harmony could take place or exist. He further stated that management
should always give priority to the need of other employees so that they
will have a sense of belonging and as such, increase productivity, but
that whenever, the management ignore the need of employees, there
would be no harmony and as such productivity will decrease. In a
nutshell, this scholar is emphasizing on the importance of conflict
resolution or management as the cornerstone and central dynamics of
organization harmony.
This study is on the influence of conflict resolution on the
performance of an organization. It stresses or focuses on the causes
and types of industrial conflicts as well as the important roles trade
unions and other key actors in conflict resolution play as well as the
effect or influence of conflict resolution or organization performance.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
There are many problems facing the organization and their effects
widely varies, some of these problems includes: lack of proper welfare
package for the employees, problems of poor condition of work, high
rate of labour turnover as well as nonchalant attitude of management to
workers, low workers productivity among many others.
As a result of these problems enumerated above, industrial
conflicts may arise between management and employees. With these
statement of problems in view, the research is focused on thorough
investigation of what influence does conflict has on workers
productivity and how can conflict resolution affect or influence
workers performance?