Structural causes of Conflict

In the last byte, we looked at the structural causes of conflict. In today's byte, we look at the personal factors as a source of conflict.

• SKILLS AND ABILITIES - Diversity in skills and abilities could be positive sometimes, but could also turn out to be potentially a source of conflict when jobs are interdependent.
• PERSONALITIES - Individual personality differences play a crucial role when in organizations. A specific style of an individual could be useful from the organizational perspective, but may be hated by co-workers
• PERCEPTIONS - Individual differences in perceptions are another source of conflict. Not all of team members perceive the same aspect of what they are trying to achieve too!
• VALUES & ETHICS - Individual sets of values and ethics and the translation of these into a workplace concept could be a potential source of conflict in organizations.
• EMOTIONS - Individuals carry in emotions from a different context (may be home) into work place and this could be hard for people to deal with and b a source of conflict.
• COMMUNICATION BARRIERS - Language, Distance, etc could distort the message and potentially lead to conflict.
• CULTURAL DIFFERENCES - Lack of understanding of another culture and their values could be another source of conflict.