Personal and Professional Development
How diversity considerations might impact on conflict in a workplace setting.
1. Introduction
2. Diversity
Firstly, clarifying the meaning of diversity is of utmost importance here in such that, diversity has been well-defined at diverse conceptual levels as it is been associated with age, gender, nationality, ethnicity, work status and education. Therefore, turning to the generally established definition, diversity signifies the dissimilarity between individuals on any characteristics that may bring about the insight that another person is dissimilar from the self (Roberge and Van Dick 2010; Podsiadlowski, et al. 2013). Correspondingly, with reference …show more content…
Therefore is it important to elucidate the definition of conflict as it relates to diversity.
Thus, conflict can be described as a human phenomenon which happens naturally through the interaction of individuals in groups (Appelbaum, Shapiro and Elbaz 1998).
More recently, Standifer et Al. 2013 have described conflict as a social process occurring when a member of a team feels that another member has or will have a negative impact on something they believe is important.
Moreover literature seems to divide conflict in two types, given different labels which have similar meanings such as task conflict and emotional conflict (Pelled, Eisenhardt and Xin 1999).
Emotional conflict, also referred to as relationship conflict or affective conflict, is described (Standifer et Al. 2013) as being based on personal and interpersonal elements but this paper will emphasize task conflict.
In addition, conflict can be either constructive or destructive and unresolved conflict is likely to impact on team work efficiency and effectiveness (du Plessis 2011). However, on an individual scale, it might also create negative feelings such as stress, anger, frustration or even