Sources of Conflicts at Rondell - Essay Example

ID] Question 3 (Making reference to Pondy’s model of organizational conflict (Chapter 14, page 390), present the sources of conflicts at Rondell. Then, discuss whether Rondell is at stage 1, 2, 3, or 4 based on the model. In doing so, use elements of the case to back up your arguments. Finally, address whether Rondell should be acting at the level of structure or at the level of attitudes and individuals to solve the conflicts.) Introduction How organizational structure and culture defines and molds the level of cooperation, harmony and team work within organizational processes and activities is clearly exhibited from Rondell Data Corporation’s case. Rondell Corporation traversed the path of success and growth in innovative engineering design of electrical items and radio broadcasting equipments. However, it failed to revamp its organizational structure and establish links between departments to restore mutual cooperation and consensus. This paper aims to look at the sources of conflicts at Rondell. With reference to Pondy’s model of organizational conflict, recommendations follow to improve the power relations, interdependencies and overall performance of the company. Sources of conflicts Prime culprit behind burgeoning conflicts at Rondell Corporation is ineffective organizational structure and power distribution. Though seemingly simple, poorly defined structure starts developing the following loopholes which ultimately leads to reduced agreement between departments and key personnel. Lack of formalization Parent & Slack (1997, p. 221) opine that if an organizational is undergoing tumultuous phase due to differentiation and ambiguous roles, setting up of formalized rules, policies and norms of work practices and behavior can help solve the issues. High formality results in shaping up doubts, unclear job roles and even reciprocal interdependence. At Rondell, informal organizational structure rules the day-to-day operations. Departments have made subunits that in turn are running their individual politics and tactics to fulfill their personal interests. Lack of formalization has made departmental goals overshadow organizational objectives. Differentiation Differentiation refers to dividing the tasks into smaller parts and allocating them to subunits of departments for better fulfillment of goals. Rondell has five major units or functions namely sales, engineering services, research and development (R&D), production and control. Though individual subunit orientation is necessary to contribute effectively to organization’s growth, these five departments at Rondell have deviated too far that synchronization between them has been lost. At Rondell, R&D is purely oriented towards long term development. It suggests improvements in designs at such advances stages where production and manufacturing sync becomes almost unachievable. Sales team has to work as interlink between R&D and production units. R&D unit supplies information regarding raw materials and technological expertise available with the company. Based on this information, sales people commit deliveries and new product developments to its customers. However, sales team is too optimistic about its product developments and meeting all kinds of customer needs which in turn puts pressure on R&D and production. The engineering services unit is the internal coordinator and facilitator. It has to send design prints to production based on feedbacks received from customers and new developments from R&D. This unit, however, has been sandwiched between all other departments due to individual unit interests and objectives. Interdependence Conflicts remain in their latent stage if only differentiation is present. In the absence of interdependence, conflicts do not reach up to the level of manifest because it is interdependence which leads to interferences and blockage of resources, authority and power. At Rondell, interdependence was also at a high level. Production took inputs from engineering, sales and R&D. Engineering services and control had its members scattered throughout departments for quality checks and controls. Sales and R&D are allowed to incorporate late changes in product designs. Manufacturing again returns back faulty engineered designs to engineering department. This engineering and production delay turns sales people making excuses to customers. Thus, every unit is reciprocally interdependent on each other in this case. Absence of reward system One prominent and underlying source of conflict at Rondell is the absence of reward system to encourage achievement of organizational goals by all departments in tandem. Bill Hunt always appreciated sales team for increased sales volume which unnecessarily built up their over-optimism. On the contrary, Doc always favored innovative designs without giving due attention to availability of resources or other managerial incompetency. Complete absence of rewarding contribution to organizational purpose and mission made employees and even key personnel prioritize individual and departmental goals over collective objective sharing. Communication gaps Communication gaps are explicit in Rondell’s case as Len Symmes comments during a formalized meet of key people at Rondell, “Mr. Hunt really doesn’t see the need for it. He uses the meetings as a place to pass on routine information.” Symmes organized a meeting to discuss the issue of conflict and look out for some solution. Thinking that revamping the organizational structure and hierarchical set up would work, he hoped to get along with a meeting every week. However, attitude and exchange of normal and routine information at such important meetings signify existing communication glitches at Rondell. Role conflict Faulty organizational design is the reason of all sorrows at Rondell. Ill-defined task and roles relationships fuel the mismatch in frequencies. Decision making at Rondell assumes centralized format with Hunt at the helm of all affairs. When middle and lower level managers should be empowered to make use of their skills and leadership in solving their problems mutually, authoritative style of Hunt mars the expertise and creativity of its people. Further, according to the organization chart, Doc Reeves should formally report to Frank but is actually more powerful than him. Frank, as head of the engineering services department should possess significant controlling power and authority but in actual, his men are not under his control. He cannot decline last minute design change requests from sales, R&D or even manufacturing department itself, despite being the incharge of final design prints. Such blurred roles and task relationships have added to the woes of Rondell in integrating its functions and establishing formal ties between its major departments. Stage of conflict Pondy suggests five stages of organizational conflicts as latent, perceived, felt, manifest and conflict aftermath. At Rondell, the conflicts have reached the ‘felt conflict’ level. Justification for this proposition goes as follows: Latent conflict: this stage is characterized by competition for resources, drive for autonomy and increased differing goals of subunits. At Rondell, this stage has already been achieved, examples of which are late design improvement requests, sales team turning over-optimistic, Schwab returning the 802 model back to engineering services with sarcastic notes attached, et cetera. Perceived conflict: attributes of this stage include awareness of potential of conflict. For example, Forbus saying, “sure, the chart says he works for me, but we all know Doc does his own thing. He’s not the least bit interested in management routines, and I can’t count on him to take any responsibility in scheduling projects or checking budgets.” Departments are putting blames on each other for inefficiencies. John Oates blames production engineering for not being able to do pre-production work while Paul Hodgetts of R&D complains about incompetency of engineering services to integrate the activities. Felt conflict: this stage entails reflection of anger, frustration or apathy. For instance, Rick Shea tells about persistent irritation at work (Seeger 1995, p. 3) and Frank mourning over his poorly defined role. Rodgers view of his inability to gain confidence of people at Rondell and whether he should be here; exhibits extremity of frustration and adverse behavior which shows that Rondell Corporation is undergoing 3rd stage of organizational conflict. Anger of Ron Porter of sales department and developing polarities between subunits strengthens this proposition. Recommendation At Rondell, conflicts have arisen due to inefficient structure and ambiguous roles and responsibilities. Thus, an integrated approach combining both structure and attitude level change is imperative. Specific solutions under this are as follows: Individual product development teams should be created by making use of cross-functional team concept. This will help integrating the departments better and product lines working efficiently since members of each department can discuss openly on resources, expertise, deadlines, cost and other constraints. Decision making has to be decentralized with line managers and production supervisors more empowered and equipped with freedom to handle routine decisions. Research and development should work as a separate entity detached from engineering services and report directly to the President regarding new product developments. Because engineering services is the internal controller and facilitator, one of its members should lead each of the cross-functional teams and report directly to the vice president. This will assist increase the power, commanding position and importance of engineering services within the company and also reduce the workload of production people in reporting and getting involved in supervisory activities. To act at the level of changing beliefs and attitudes, regular meetings should be arranged between departments, within departments and share ideas on forums. This will help hear each other’s views, reduce grievances and be able to frame collective motives. Especially at Rondell, conflict has moved to such a high level that it has become essential to motivate people to understand other’s viewpoints. To achieve this feat, cross-functional exchange of employees can be done. This rotation of job also eliminates boredom, redundancy and stagnating attitude. Works Cited Seeger, J., “Rondell Data Corporation” Rummler, G. & Brache, A. (1995). Improving performance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, p.9. Trevor, Slack & Parent, Milena. M (1997). Understanding sport organizations: the application of organization theory. USA: Human Kinetics. Read More