What Are the Sources of Conflict
1. What are the sources of conflict in this case?
The source of conflict in this case is a disagreement about the way the business within the company is organized, changed by the emergence of new senior manager Mike Roth. Before the appearance of conflict situation the EPI (Educational Pension Investments) was conservative and adhered to steady and safe investments. With the coming of Mike the situation completely changed. Actually he undermined the whole image and philosophy of the company. Mike completely changed the investment policy, made it more aggressive, which resulted in higher ROI (return on investment). However higher ROI entails higher risk. That’s the point where the old senior managers had a contradiction with the new one – Mike. Here we clearly see that Mike vs other senior managers have different values and attitudes towards how the company should present itself on the market. The collapse of these two standpoints makes a conflict.
2. What approaches to conflict management are used by the actors in this situation? How effective was each?
There are five approaches to conflict: the forcing response, the accommodating approach, the avoiding response, the compromising response, the collaborating approach. The main approach used by the actors is the forcing response or negotiation – where the two parties try to settle the situation themselves. In our case this approach didn’t help. The second approach was collaborative approach or mediation, where Dan Richardson – CEO acted as a mediator. Both sides came to him to discuss the problem and make a solution. The result of mediation doesn’t seem to be apparent as the talk between Mike and Dan was postponed to the evening. To say the truth we think that Dan will give a chance to Mike to try to reconsider his policy. But it won’t work, as Mike is a person of great persistency and charisma. He will never agree for compromise. That’s the reason why he is a maverick. In our
The source of conflict in this case is a disagreement about the way the business within the company is organized, changed by the emergence of new senior manager Mike Roth. Before the appearance of conflict situation the EPI (Educational Pension Investments) was conservative and adhered to steady and safe investments. With the coming of Mike the situation completely changed. Actually he undermined the whole image and philosophy of the company. Mike completely changed the investment policy, made it more aggressive, which resulted in higher ROI (return on investment). However higher ROI entails higher risk. That’s the point where the old senior managers had a contradiction with the new one – Mike. Here we clearly see that Mike vs other senior managers have different values and attitudes towards how the company should present itself on the market. The collapse of these two standpoints makes a conflict.
2. What approaches to conflict management are used by the actors in this situation? How effective was each?
There are five approaches to conflict: the forcing response, the accommodating approach, the avoiding response, the compromising response, the collaborating approach. The main approach used by the actors is the forcing response or negotiation – where the two parties try to settle the situation themselves. In our case this approach didn’t help. The second approach was collaborative approach or mediation, where Dan Richardson – CEO acted as a mediator. Both sides came to him to discuss the problem and make a solution. The result of mediation doesn’t seem to be apparent as the talk between Mike and Dan was postponed to the evening. To say the truth we think that Dan will give a chance to Mike to try to reconsider his policy. But it won’t work, as Mike is a person of great persistency and charisma. He will never agree for compromise. That’s the reason why he is a maverick. In our