HR4072

MSc
Human Resource Management

Critical Research Issues in HRM

Semester 2
2017-2018

Assessment 1

I confirm that this assignment which I have submitted is all my own work and the source
of any information or material I have used (including the internet) has been fully
identified and properly acknowledged as required in the school guidelines I have
received.

Module Tutor Dr Barbara Menara

Student Number

Word Count 2152

In an organisation, setting conflict is unavoidable because of the various interdisciplinary
group tasks (Billing et al., 2014). When the task force is made up of a variety of professionals
with different perspectives, it is of no new occurrence that every professional would
advocate for the handling of the issue by their valuation (Cox, 2003). In such occasions,
where the professionals differ invalidation, it is inevitable that conflicts would arise.
Notably, the implementation of the multidisciplinary workforce in the organisation has
proven to be more effective and efficient (Craig and Muskat, 2014), an effort that enhances
innovation, reduces the cost and improves creativity as well as management. Inter-
professional conflict is dysfunctional for an organisation and undermines cooperation. This
essay will first discuss the causes of inter-professional conflict, as well as the problems and
benefits brought by the conflict, then it will talk about the countermeasures of organisation
in conflict management. Finally, the conclusion will be given.

According to Spike Lunstroth (2016), inter-professional conflict is an occurrence when two

or more professionals with the interrelated scope of activities contest for honours,
accountabilities, ranking position, autonomy even incentives. Cherry, (2015) argues that
wrangles are endemic amongst various organisations especially where the jurisdictions are
vague about practice, hence overlapping of professional activities. Moreover, this negatively
influences the scope of expertise by the professionals (Adams, 2004). This is clear in the
professions that are crowded and highly specialised in the healthcare profession
(Liaropoulos, 2012).

According to Relative Deprivation Theory, Adams (2014) proposes that individuals are not
often in rebellion and make protests against their complaint not until after they are
prompted, and this evokes a feeling of deprivation relatively compared to some individuals
or even groups. In inter-professional conflict context, it is evident that some professionals
are likely to fall into conflict when they are relatively prompted as compared to other
professionals (Liaropoulos, 2012).

Billing et al. (2014) point out that the variation in practical comprehension among the
professionals and difference in the personal dogmas and captivations promote wrangles
among professionals in an organisation. In an assessment carried out by Forbes et al.,
(2011), organisational difficulties are the main contributor to the inter-professional conflicts.
Some of these organisational contributors include having more than solitary supervision.
Hence this tampers with the giving of direction by the managers to the subordinates
(Adams,2004). Moreover, this distorts the job description structure and poor distribution of
resources among the professions in the organisation (Cherry,2015). Other sources of conflict
are minimal job gratification and academic variation which leads to hindrances in
communication among professionals. Krogstad et al. (2004) evaluated that Doctors and
nurses are of the same profession but they both differ in the knowledge scope they both
attain. Notably, the doctors are perceived to be of high esteem in that they are seen to
know more compared to the nurses.

Different professions tend to conceptualise and tolerate wrangles in an array of viewpoints

(Cox,2003). Some professions seem to be attached to advanced inception for constraints,
depression and wrangle that leads an individual to conceptualise circumstances to be
conflicting later on unlike the other expertise they may presume it to be one, thus make to
diverse the tactic of countering the conflict with urgency. This leads to a slackening in
resolving minor issues between the professions (Burnett et al., 2009). For example, a
dispute about prescription may be conceptualised by nurses to be a major one, whereas a
resident may not be affected by the gravity of matter as a conflict at all. Such a situation is
referred to conflict asymmetry. Latest empirical outcomes stipulate that this irregularity of
skirmish conceptualisation within an organisation is detrimental to team operational
(Glitterman, 2009).

The level of variation as stipulated by the asymmetry of conflicts may be intensified by the
conceptualisation or the hierarchical structure integrated by the workforce in the
organisation. People with higher academic credentials tend to take control in any
participation in the workforce collaboration. Liaropoulos, (2012) describes three key roots of
workforce conflict. First, is the lack of empathy for other professional’s role in the
organisation, which leads to misperception concerning who is in control and the precise
significance of every member of the organisation. The second source of conflict is the
absence of sympathy in each member scope of practice, which occurs especially when
different profession are added to the workforce of the organisation. This leads to conflict
when the predecessor of the workforce realises the new entrants to be having an exemplary
skill, thus retaining the potential to outdo the responsibility on the workforce in the
organisation. Consequently, the new entrants on the organisation’s workforce may be
inexperienced in the affiliation and the assimilation with the members of the organisation
that is in existence (Burnett et al., 2009). Thirdly, answerability can be the root of the inter-
professional conflict. Members of the organisation that are ranked above perceived
themselves solely accountable for the entire organisation, while the rest of the members
perceive themselves responsible for their tasks (Liaropoulos, 2012).

Arguably, there are some basic variations in values between professions that may lead to
wrangles. For example, the medical professional entirely values the saving of lives rather
than observing eminence of life for the patient (Cox,2003). The relation between the
medical practitioner and the patient tend to be a demanding one in that the sick person is
the victim of the instructions of medicating practitioners. The patient is expected to comply
with the administered instructions to attain the desired results of the doctor. This may be in
contrast with the social value of the patient, especially the level of self-determination shown
by the patient. Hence, the conflict may arise when the patient is not willing. Eventual result
may not be attained thus tarnishing the image of the medical institution (Billing et al., 2014).
There may be the existence of theoretical variations between the doctors and nurses in the
intervention approach of the patient, in that nurses are impacted with the skill to apply
questioning, operative methodology interventions concerning the ideologies such as
environmental viewpoint as well as system theory (Cherry, 2015; Craig and Muskat, 2014).

Culture may also act as a breeding ground for inter-professional conflicts. Culture cuts
across the way of life of a person and some of the cultural practices are barriers that may
limit an individual in an organisation to behave in particular manner (Cox, 2003). For
instance, in a hospital setting, some practitioners may take a bullet surgery as an offence to
their profession, whereas there are those that have no issue pertaining this. The difference
may lead to conflict in that, to some it may be offensive to carry out such a practice, while
others are not swayed by the act (Craig and Muskat, 2014).

Most professionals attain skills via different ideologies, and this may be the ground on which
the conflict may breed from. These and other variation in the discipline may be in contrast
to the validation of work (Cox, 2003). These differences catalyse the conflicts. For example,
in a hospital setting, all the medical practitioners may not apply the theories on the
psychology of the patient in the same particular manner, but they can embrace the
diversity. This can cause various wrangles, whereby the practitioners can evaluate each
other’s methodology as insignificant, compared to others (Craig and Muskat, 2014).

According to Forbes et al. (2011), there are three approaches that apply to the inter-
disciplinary handling of conflicts, which are avoidance, coercing and problem-solving, an
approach that compliments the integrated theory of intergroup conflict which suggests that
the approaches to the conflict should be based on the causes.

Avoidance calls for verbal withdrawal from any form of misunderstanding, whereby one can
keep the wrangle to oneself. In case of any rise of miss-understanding, it is highly
encouraged that one or all the members to keep off and evade the counter with the rest of
the organisation's member. The silenced weapon will imminently keep the levels of conflicts
at low rates. Rather, in other cases, the members of the organisation are advised to talk it to
the appropriate peers (Billing et al. 2014). Professionals who engage in the extreme
avoidance character tend to attain a conflict-free life. Mostly, these traits are encouraged to
most of the members of the organisations to reduce and counter the level of dysfunction in
the organisation (Cherry, 2015).

Coercing is often used hastily and externally with regards to the official organisation
structure. Forcing highlights desperate “verges” of conflict and generates “victors” and
“failures” in its determination (Heaton, 2008). Though it can actualise a rapid termination of
a current skirmish, most of the encountered repercussion may cause an increase in current
dislikes and unhealthy associations among the organisation members (Glitterman, 2009).
Forcing is attained by persons who exert a real and conceptualised hierarchal authority in
the organisation even the workforce domain. Hanyok et al., (2013) does recognise a
technique of struggle tenacity and distinguished that the occurrence might be via spoken
power, lying, or disregarding other perspectives. The investigators advanced and labelled
this as a technique of lecturing skirmish that encompasses open-handed into a compelling
resolve.

Hanyok et al., (2013) noted that negotiations are frequently theatrical once management
ranks advanced active in the organisation, such as unification or the personnel subdivision.
They also noted that this form of skirmish tenacity is mostly ineffective. When masters are
tangled in inter-professional wrangle controlling, as they prepare when discussions are
presented, it appears that they arrive when they are twilight, in addition to obliging,
squashy or evading.

Greer et al. (2012) pointed to the method of problem-solving as a way of dealing with
conflicts within firms. It happens when in cooperated parties tangled in the wrangles
actively contribute to the actual discussion as to attain a jointly suitable resolution. An
intrapersonal skirmish occurs discretely as an inner struggle. Although the distinct
organisational member involvements in wrangles, this might even cannot be actualised or
be recognisable via the rest of the professionals. It is a condition in which unlikely absorbed,
concurrently happenings is the compelling facts about equivalent is robustly developed in
an individual and the consequence of the in-built disorder. Relational and even inter-
professional conflict happens when there are divergences among associates in the
organisation at a particular department concerning objectives, responsibilities, and actions
carried out by the organisation. These differences can create a chore, individual, even
procedure struggles. Finally, inter-professional disorderliness takes place for the differences
amongst the workforce concerning expert, region, and assets. The skirmishes are evocative
of those facts recognised Brown et al. (2011) amongst the organisational members who had
contradictory insights concerning the roles of every discrete.

In conclusion, inter-disciplinary conflicts are entirely made up of seven conflict subjects

namely relationships, securities, standards and morals, organisations role misperception,
grading and authority, character and style and message conveyance and trivial conflict
managing techniques namely evasion, the compelling method, and problematic resolving
methodology stayed recognised and deliberated. The application of these methodologies
the organisation is assured of sustainable harmony, and there is mitigation of wrangles that
may arise at all levels of the organisation. The possibility of inter-professional conflict in an
organisational situation from fluctuating professional perceptions has been exploring. The
segmentation of the description replies conceptualisation of the organisational conflict with
several vital sources of the wrangles and trivial key wrangle controlling and mitigating
methodologies. It is clear from the guidelines and example that confident approaches of
conflict controlling are indispensable in the application of inter-professional wrangles and
should be incorporated into any organisation regardless the level of diversity. As more
studies authorise and supplement these theories of resolving they are being integrated to all
types of organisations and the processes are being acknowledged by most of the
organisations and reinforcing their working harmony among the members and a healing
process is slowly being integrated into the systems of associations.
References

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Billing, T.K., Bhagat, R., Babakus, E., Srivastava, B.N., Shin, M. and Brew, F. (2014). Work–
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