CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1. BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Diversity is an increasingly important factor in organizations. Jackson, May, & Whitney (2012), as noted in Shaw & Barrett-Power (2009), define diversity as “the presence of differences among members of a social unit”. Jones and George (2014) defined organizational conflict as “the discord that arises when the goals, interests or values of different individuals or groups are incompatible and those individuals or scatter or thwart one another’s pursuit to achieve their objectives”. Green, Lopez, Whysocki and Kenper, 2008 stated that acknowledging, understanding, accepting valuing and celebrating differences among people with respect to age, class, ethnicity, gender, physical and mental ability race, sexual orientation, spiritual practice and public assistance status is what diversity is all about. The differences that make people unique are also sources of potential conflict among them. Diversity in race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, and other personal qualities can lead to divisive and costly conflict in the workplace. A workplace rich with diversity has the potential of exceptional creativity and productivity in organization and success and competitive advantage. It is quite impossible for individuals with diverse background skills and norms to work together, make decisions, and try to meet project goals and objectives without conflict. Conflict among staffs in an organization is unavoidable. If it manages properly, it will bring catalyst for change and can have a positive impact on employee satisfaction and performance of the organization. Conversely, lack of effective management of conflict negatively impacts both employee satisfaction and job performance. When organizational leaders overlook conflict at workplace, they pass a message that unsatisfactory job performance and inappropriate behavior are acceptable.
According to Awan and Anjum (2015) effectively managed conflict enhances open communication, collaborative decision making, regular feedback, and timely resolution of conflict. Open communication and collaboration enhance the flow of new ideas and strengthen work relationship, which can have a positive effect on employee morale. Regular feedback and timely resolution of conflict has the potential of improving employee satisfaction and job performance. Awan and Anjum (2015) argue that a negative work environment that does not promote conflict resolution can result in poor employee behavior and job performance. Poor management of conflict promotes malfunction communication and poor behavior among workers. Poor behavior on the part of one employee has the power to affect overall employee morale, which results in lower productivity. “Conflict is not just an annoyance according to Dana (2009). It requires money and those expenses can be calculated, in terms of wasted time, bad decision, lost employees.” In the health care industry, patients’ health and even their lives can be affected by unmanaged conflict. Awan and Ibrahim (2015) contend that if the individuals do not have the communication or interpersonal skills to resolve their disputes, the conflict can grow and spread to others, eventually affecting their job performance, which, in turn, affects the job satisfaction of others, as well in addition to the staff not having the communication skills to address their disputes, their leaders often lack the necessary skills to be effective in conflict resolution. Once human resources personnel are involved, the process becomes punitive and results in disciplinary action, which contributes to an even greater reduction in employee morale and employee satisfaction. Within any organization, there are usually different positions and jobs. People occupying these positions have different perceptions, goals, thought and concerns. It is difficult to conceptualize society or an organization without inherent differences and contradictions and these leads to conflict. In organization a serious problem can be conflicts that are very serious. This is the bad practice that will be impossible for the workers to at the same place for work. Awan and Ahson (2015) say that diversity and conflict is a natural and inevitable part of people working together and should be kept at a manageable level where it will not disorganize the activities of the organization towards the attainment of its objectives. Awan et al (2015) plead that diversity and conflict may also be of benefit to the organization where it generates radical change in the organizational power structure, current interaction pattern and entrenched attitude and also can lead to increase in output. While some conflicts are functional others are not. It can also affect the organization negatively when it is correlated with poor employee satisfaction, insubordination, low productivity, leads to economic loss, fragmentation to mention but a few. It is the major responsibility of the management to device effective strategies in bringing down conflict to the barest minimum, which will enable the organization to still function to succeed (Robbins & Sanghi, 2014) against this background the study was being carried out on the effect of diversity and conflict management on organizational performance.
