Inter – Group

Conflict Resolution
(PGDM)
Siddhi Patel- 41
Rahul Wani- 90
Deepika Joshi- 116
INTRODUCTION
The collective incompatibility or disagreement between two or
more divisions, departments, or subsystems in connection with,
 Tasks,
 Resources,
 Information
Examples of organizational intergroup conflict are between
 Line and staff,
 Manufacturing and sales,
 Production and maintenance,
 Headquarters and field staffs, and
 Labour and management
• Conflicts within or between groups can be destructive or constructive,
depending on how the conflict is handled.
• Ronald J. Fisher offers a social-psychological approach to understanding
intergroup conflicts, that is, conflicts between people that occur in terms
of their group identities. He considers the implications of this approach
both for conflict resolution and for the training in conflict resolution.
• Fisher argues that intergroup conflicts arise from objective differences of
interest, coupled with antagonistic or controlling attitudes or behaviors.

Causes of Intergroup Conflict

 Nature of the group
 Work interdependence
 Differences in perceptions
BEHAVIORAL & PERCEPTUAL CHANGES
 Intergroup conflict within an organization can occur across
o Teams
o Departments or Divisions
o Between different level of organizations.
 Cohesiveness – a “we feeling” binding group members together can be a
good or bad thing.
 A certain amount of cohesiveness can turn a group of individuals into a
smooth running team
 Too much of cohesiveness can breed groupthink because a desire to get
along pushes aside critical thinking.
 Four sources of intergroup conflict
Perceived goal incompatibility
 The possibility of conflict increases substantially when departments in the
organization have different or incompatible goals.
Perceived Differences
 The greater the number of ways in which the group see themselves as
different from each other the greater potential of conflict between them.
Task Interdependency
 Task interdependency refers to interrelationships required between two or
more groups in achieving their goals.
Perceived limited resources
 Limited resources create the condition for groups competing and engaging in
conflict over the available resources
INTERVENTION
• Two intervention strategies for managing intergroup conflict:

 problem solving (help the members of two groups to learn the integrating
style to handle their differences)

 organizational mirroring ( appropriate when more than two groups are

having problems in working together)
PROBLEM SOLVING
• Cooperation by edict
• Negotiations
• Leadership replacement
• Personnel rotation
• Structural solutions
• Flexible reporting relationships
• Mediation and arbitration
ORGANIZATIONAL MIRRORING
• This intervention is designed to improve the relationship among three or
more groups

• Requires careful planning and management through an efficient consultant is

required

• This intervention is suitable where the solution of an interface problem

requires the collaboration of several work-related groups
Thank You