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PROFESSIONAL SKILL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES (PSDA)

Report
On

INTERPERSONAL CONFLICT SITUATION IN TEXTILE INDUSTRY

Submitted to

AMITY BUSINESS SCHOOL

AMITY UNIVERSITY UTTAR PRADESH, NOIDA (U.P.)

In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree

Of
Master of Business Administration (General-E)
By
NAMAN JAIN

ADHAR NAGAR

SHARDUL PATEL

GUNEET

PRIYAM HAZRA

SYED

Under the guidance of

DR. PUJA SAREEN

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

S.No HEADING PAGE No.

1. Introduction 3
2. Project Overview 4
3. Qualitative and 6
Survey Findings
4. Analysis and 9
Suggestions
5. Conclusion 12
6. Acknowledgement 13
7. Bibliography 14
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Introduction

India’s textile scenario Vis a Vis the world

India has the second largest textile manufacturing infrastructure in world after China. India
is one of the few countries in world which has production at each level of textile
manufacturing viz. fibre manufacturing, spinning, weaving, knitting, processing and
garmenting. India became second largest exporter of textile & garment in the world
surpassing Italy and Germany. India exported textile and garment goods worth US$
40billion, with a share of approx. 10% of global textile and garment trade in 2015.

World production of textile machinery annually is over US $ 20 Billion. The major

manufacturers of textile machinery are Italy, Germany, Switzerland, France and China. With
the growing demand in the export market of textile products, India can avail of this
opportunity by upgrading its textile industry especially in the area of modernization of its
weaving and processing sectors. China is leading in the field of textile exports today because
they installed a large set-up of spindles, rotor and shuttle less weaving machines. Today,
China is manufacturing the entire range of machineries for the textile industry, not only
spinning weaving and processing but also knitting, embroidery and plants for the non-woven
industry. Though China has large set up of machinery India having cheap manpower and
abundant source of raw material .This provides a competitive advantage to India, but even
all this textile industry no growing with desired pace. The main reason is occurrence of
dissatisfaction in workers. This dissatisfaction is outcome of conflict which many time
generate strikes or lockout situations. [ CITATION textile17 \l 16393 ]

Conflict in Organizations

Conflicts arise naturally in every arena of our daily life. Every organization encounters
conflict on a daily basis. It is something that cannot be avoided. It happens on the job,
between groups, in our society, within families and right in the middle of our most personal
relationships. But it is possible to manage them when we recognize them on time. It is
necessary to continuously track the organizational signals which point to their existence. If
we do not react duly, this can lead to the situation that the conflict will negatively affect the
organization. Conflict is defined as an incompatibility of goals or values between two or
more parties in a relationship, combined with attempts to control each other and
antagonistic feelings toward each other. [ CITATION textile17 \l 16393 ]
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PROJECT OVERVIEW

The main purpose of this paper was to investigate interpersonal conflict between the co-
workers and labourers of the textile industry. The reasons could range from mistreatment to
discrimination and various other negative barriers to their efficient functioning. A self-
structured questionnaire was used as an instrument for the survey of public sector
employees in a Delhi textile hub ‘Tronica city’.

We took the surveys to the following manufacturers:-

1. Jeans Manufacturer 2. Shirt manufacturer

(Denim World and Metro Fashion) (Kunal enterprises)

Brand name - Mylage and Makeover Brand name - Mcot

In order to duly structure our assessment –

Firstly, we got in contact with the textile industries located in the ‘Tronica City’, Delhi
seeking their permission to have a report made based on their interpersonal relations and
conflicts within the company’s work environment.

Secondly, we devised the questionnaire with simple 18 questions which were made keeping
in consideration the background of the workers who were going to be present there and
thus having an easy to and fro of communication.

Thirdly, we decided upon taking 30 samples which was in line with the overall population
ratio of labourers, workers and skilled workers. 10 samples were to be taken from each of
the three companies. Then, we allotted 5 samples to each of our six group members to carry
out the assessment.

Lastly, we cumulated all our findings through the google form made and thereby evaluated
and assessed the output that had come.
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Apart from the structured survey the group members also indulged in an informal interview
with their respective samples in order to find out the underlying problems that are faced by
them in their workspace. Mostly all of them opened up to the questions asked to them on
the interpersonal situation in their company, whether it was tilting to more of a conflict
situation or was it tilting towards positivity and inclusivity.

Task of Interviewing

The Language used in order to interview them was Hindi as most of the workers didn’t have
a grasp of the English language.

We made them comfortable and established a friendly conversation by underlying the fact
that the information given by them would be private and their name would not be
associated with any of the findings in any way.

We made sure that our sampling of informal interviews was also done in line with the total
no. of workers working there.
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Qualitative and survey findings

What we found through the questionnaire was that mostly which is rightly about 70 to 80 %
of the employees in Denims World And Metro Fashion were satisfied with the inter-personal
scenario of their company whereas in Kunal Enterprises 75 to 85 % were satisfied with their
inter-personal scenario. Thus this shows us that rightly about 22% as an average people
faced interpersonal conflicts through mistreatment and discrimination.

We also found that the most prominent interpersonal problem was that of discrimination
based on demographics. Where in the local people among the workers would mistreat their
counterparts in various instances and situations. They would always try to have an upper
edge over their other counterparts.

But overall the companies were doing great in managing their interpersonal conflicts mainly
due to the reason of appointing leaders who had a more inclusive approach and who were
far more experienced in terms of working in the textile industry and managing their
counterparts.

The end result of the total work in terms of interviewing and assessing their problems gave
way to a series of findings.

Interpersonal relations in organizations are multi-faceted. Individuals come together due to

some needs or attractions. Individuals in organizations are brought together to serve the
public or private corporate interests and their positions are interdependent and
interconnected. Interpersonal conflict is also known as dyadic conflict and refers to the
disagreement or incompatibility between two or more organizational members of the same
or different hierarchical levels or departments. Interpersonal conflicts are universal at the
workplaces irrespective of their type, size, nature and location. It should be managed to
achieve optimum co-existence. There are number of factors that is, behavioural and
organizational, documented in the literature that cause interpersonal conflict at the
workplace. “People are seen involved in clash as a result of temperament and emotion or
over differences of perspective and opinion”. Conflicts arise due to contrasting perceptions,
and values, faulty communication, faulty attribution and distrust, inappropriate
management behaviour, personality differences, incivility, differences due to age, race or
culture, intolerance, threat to status and false pride, organizational change, information
deficiency, role incompatibility and environmental stress. Similarly, some scholars argue
about the work place discrimination, prejudice and perceived inequities, a major cause of
workplace conflict and violence. It is also stated that difference in organizational status and
power serve as a major source of interpersonal conflict.
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Demographic impacts

The findings from the study proved that demographics of employees have significant
impacts on their perception of mistreatment, discrimination and interpersonal conflict.

Age

The findings from the study supported the assumption that youth or young age employees
would be more vulnerable to workplace mistreatment as low status characteristics also
include youth. As regards discrimination the results are also consistent with the results of
prior surveys that found young age employees of 22 and 24 felt more discrimination at the
workplace. The young age employees are mostly less manage experienced, therefore they
are not given the important assignments or they are ignored in important meetings or not
informed about it, hence they feel discriminated. Generally, it is assumed that young age
employees are more aggressive and also there are studies whose findings support that
workplace aggression is mostly displayed by individuals up to the age of 30. Therefore, it
was hypothesized that they would be more in conflict with management as a reactionary
response to its negative behaviour as compared to older employees and the findings also
proved this assumption.

Experience

It was predicted that employees who were less experienced would perceive more
mistreatment and the findings also substantiated this assumption. Actually, it was assumed
on the ground that less experienced employees would have less command on their tasks
and their level of relationship with officer would not be that strong, hence they would make
more mistakes and perceive the officer’s behaviour as more uncivil and discriminatory. It
was supposed that less experienced labour would be more in conflict with their officers as
compared to the more experienced labour. The logic behind this assumption was that less
experienced labour face more problems in task performance and also their interaction with
the officer is comparatively limited resulting in stress and hence, it leads to conflict with
officer.

Status and Position in Organization

As organization status or position in the hierarchy is also considered an important

characteristic of employees that make them either to mistreat or become victim of
mistreatment. Therefore, it was assumed that employees at lower level grades or of non-
supervisory status would be more prone to uncivil treatment and the findings also support
this assumption. At the same time they experienced more interpersonal conflicts with their
officers. But the findings did not support the assumption that employees at low
organizational level would perceive more discrimination. It means that organizational level
is not a base for employees’ discrimination thus, labourers at all organizational levels
equally perceived discriminatory treatment by the officers.
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Different leaders

Different organizations have different cultures and leadership style is one of the important
attribute of organizational culture. Keeping in view this fact it was assumed that there would
be difference among employees’ responses of both the organization regarding experiences
of mistreatment, discrimination and interpersonal conflict. But the findings from the study
did not support this assumption. There was no significant difference among labour’s
responses of both the organization. It means that labour equally perceived mistreatment,
discrimination and interpersonal conflict irrespective of the type of the organization they
worked for. The reason may be that both organizations are from public sector, having same
culture of dealing with employees
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ANALYSIS AND SUGGESTION

Through our assessment we came to know the different reasons causing conflict in ‘Denim
World, ‘Metro Fashion’ and ‘Kunal Enterprises’. The underlying causes of conflict are listed
which illustrates the major areas that are knowingly or unknowingly causing hindrance to
the effective functioning of the organization.

1. Poor Communication

Employees experience continual surprises, for example, they are not informed of major
decisions that affect their work place. Employees do not understand the reason for the
decision; they are not involved in the decision making.

2. Leadership Problems

Leadership problems are a common sourced of conflict. They can include avoiding conflict
instead of addressing problems with subordinates. This allows conflict to fester. In other
instances, supervisors may “play favourites” with some employees. This can make it difficult
to rally the help of subordinates in times of need. Inconsistency in decision making can also
cause problems, such as confusion about expectations when supervisors also do not
understand the jobs of their subordinates.

3. Dead Lines

In projects, deadlines are very important. Dead Lines can easily cause conflicts when the
employee thinks that a dead line given to him or her or as a group to meet a particular
target is limited by management but management thinks it is enough and that can result in
conflict or when groups start to push deadline limits as the conflicts become more
important than reaching their deadlines. When both sides think they are right and the
conflict is not brought to check, the idea that each side must think they are right before they
can move on well begin to affect important deadlines.

4. Lack of teamwork/poor performance

This can be another cause of conflict if some in the team believe other colleagues are not
pulling their weight or not competent in the job they do. Overall, conflict often arises when
there is a non-acceptance of the differences which there is a high level of uncertainty or
where there are poor industrial relations. The atmosphere that this causes can often be
resulting in a rising of tension levels and consequential poor relationship at work.

5. Poor Organizational Structures

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Where people may feel alienated or isolated, thus the spirit of competitiveness and non-co-
operation may be strong, this will also clash with the organizational policies and strategies
due to different styles of interaction or differing values or beliefs as well as culture is not
considered.

6. Lack of Role Definition

Conflict can occur when employees do not understand their role or job functions.
Uncertainty about “who does what” can lead co-workers to feel they are working
disproportionally harder than others. It can also lead to where an employee perceives a co-
worker in infringing upon their duties, clearly defining roles and responsibilities.

7. Non Compliance with work place policies

Policies and procedures in work place bring order and improve efficiency. In a policy
environment, employees usually do not perform to management expectations. It can also
lead to safety issues. Conflicts can occur between co-worker and management when an
employee diverts from required policies, procedures or work rules. It is important for
supervisors to monitor policy compliance and take corrective actions in the early stages of
on compliance. [ CITATION textile17 \l 16393 ]

Measures to overcome these problems (Our Suggestion)

Provide conflict resolution training. You can reduce the negative impact of conflict by
helping employees develop the skills they need to successfully resolve the conflicts that
occur in their lives. This gives people more confidence in their ability to resolve both
personal and professional conflict. It also makes people more effective at addressing minor
conflicts as they occur, instead of allowing them to become major distractions.

Provide communication skills training. By providing communication skills training,

employees can increase their ability to communicate effectively with a diverse range of
individuals, and manage the communication problems that are often at the heart of
organizational conflict.

Help staff develop positive work relationships. Give employees a chance to get to know
each other better and to feel more comfortable with each other. This can be done by
providing opportunities for social interaction on a continuous basis, by giving assignments
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that put staff into contact with people they don't normally interact with, and by providing
cross-training opportunities.

Implement team building activities. You can significantly improve team relationships and
performance through the team development process. Such activities provide an opportunity
for team members to get more comfortable with each other, to identify acceptable
behaviors and modes of interaction, and to determine how team problems and conflicts will
be resolved.

Develop strong communication channels. You can improve communication within a team
or organization by strategically employing informational and problem-solving meetings, and
by utilizing a diverse range of organizational communication tools. Such tools include face-
to-face discussions, e-mail, texting, videoconferences, online meetings, bulletin boards
(both physical and electronic), voice mail and faxes.

Create an environment that encourages participation. This can be done through formal
employee involvement programs such as self-directed work teams, and suggestion systems
that ask for employee input and reward people for their participation. This is especially
important because research has shown that employee involvement programs have a
positive impact on both individual and organizational performance.

Provide conflict mediation training for leaders. No matter how hard you work at reducing
dysfunctional conflict (conflict that hinders performance and prevents you from achieving
organizational goals), sooner or later it is going to occur. Therefore, organizational leaders
should develop their conflict mediation skills so they can help employees resolve the
conflicts that will inevitably arise.

Provide third-party conflict mediation services. There will be times when a manager or
supervisor cannot mediate a conflict between employees. During these times, it helps if
employees feel they have an experienced, objective third-party where they can
confidentially address a conflict situation.

Make sure employees are clear about organizational goals and priorities. Generally
speaking, conflicts occur because of differences over facts, goals, methods or values. By
ensuring that employees (especially the members of a given work team) are on the same
page regarding objectives, priorities and plans, you will decrease the chances that
dysfunctional conflict will occur due to differences over facts, goals or methods.

Treat everyone fairly. This may seem obvious, but many managers are accused of
preferential treatment, and it is incumbent upon organizational leaders to make sure they
are behaving in an egalitarian fashion. Even the appearance of preferential behavior can
create conflict situations. [ CITATION Hol15 \l 16393 ]
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Conclusion

Conflicts are part of human consciousness in all aspects of life. One cannot avoid conflict,
whether at home, at the office, or when watching television news. The consequences of
organizational conflict reach further today than ever before as the interface between work
and home blurs and organizations experiment with flatter and more decentralized
structures. In addition, the complexity of conflict increases as organizations become more
open and diverse. Conflict is inevitable and even desirable: “To work in an organization is to
be in conflict. To take advantage of joint work requires conflict management”.
Organizational conflicts are inevitable and studies show that about 20 percent of employee
time is spent on managing conflicts suggests that conflict analysis and its resolutions has an
important role in private, public and political organizations, as well as in judicial and work
disputes, in military operations and many other institutions. The results from the study
indicate that the major cause of organizational conflicts is lack of resources.

Finally, we recommend other scholars to identify the other factors of organizational conflict,
such as identifying a list of factors causing intrapersonal conflict. So, the following are
recommended: Managers should develop diverse but appropriate strategies to resolve and
manage conflicts; efforts should be made by the management to organize
seminars/workshops on organizational conflict management from time to time for the
employees.
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Acknowledgement

We would like to sincerely thank our professor Dr. Puja Sareen for her guidance and
knowledge throughout the timeframe of making this report. We would also like to thank the
companies Denim World, Metro Fashion and Kunal Enterprises for giving us the opportunity
to interview their employees. Lastly we would like to thank our group members, our friends
and respondents for their constant support.
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Bibliography

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