Structural sources of organizational conflict

In the last byte, we began our discussion about the sources of conflict. We listed the structural sources of organizational conflict in the last byte; we shall discuss these in a bit more detail here.

• SPECIALIZATION - When jobs are highly specialized, employees become experts at certain tasks.  Highly specialized jobs could lead to conflict as people would be little aware of the tasks that other's perform.
• INTERDEPENDENCE - Sometimes work requires groups or individuals to depend on one another to accomplish a certain goal.  This dependency is not an issue as long as the process works smoothly, however it could soon turn into a blame game when there is a problem.
• COMMON RESOURCES - Sharing common resources by multiple people could be another source of conflicts. This escalates in case the resource is scare.
• GOAL DIFFERENCES - When multiple groups work towards maximizing a specific group objective, the lack of understanding of other's objective is the common source of this.
• AUTHORITY RELATIONSHIPS - A supervisor-subordinate relationship is another source of conflicts as one has authority over another. Through greater emphasis on team approach, empowerment etc the potential for such conflict reduces.
• STATUS INCONSISTENCIES - Resentment amongst people due to strong status differences (between management and non management say) is a source of conflicts.
• JURISDICTIONAL AMBIGUITIES - Unclear lines of responsibilities within an organization is the source of such conflicts.