دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی مدیریت تعارض در بخش غیر انتفاعی از طریق تغییر فرهنگ سازمانی - امرالد 2017

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the impact of organizational culture on the conflict handling style in non-profit organizations. Conflicts in non-profit organizations and especially in associations are more numerous, mainly because of the search for compromise in the decision-making phases and the high level of loyalty in mission that strongly stimulates the voice of one’s opinion. The authors observe that a modification of the organizational culture, through symbolic changes, can resolve the conflicts sequence. Design/methodology/approach – Culture is measured through the organizational culture profile tool and the culture deciphering technique. The authors detail two cases of non-profit organizations, in which conflicts sequence resolution was handled through organizational culture change while conflicts resolution at the individual level could not bring an end to the conflicts sequence. Findings – These cases highlight how organizational culture shapes behaviors and conflicts handling styles. These cases also give insights on how an organizational culture can be changed to setup new default conflict handling styles in an organization. The cultural change management only worked when it was planned on critical cultural change readiness factors with a strong enforcement of the change by the governing bodies. Research limitations/implications – This study complements research studies on how organizational culture shapes attitudes and behaviors and shows how and under which conditions a cultural change could resolve a conflict sequence. This study also presents a conflict resolution method when the roots of conflicts are embedded in the existing organizational culture. In such conflicts situation, interpersonal conflict resolution technique did not solve the conflicts sequence and only cultural change finally brought an end to the sequence. Practical implications – A combined search on two levels, the individual level and the organizational culture level, will thus show convergent conflict sources and get a great deal of knowledge before solving individual-level conflicts. Social implications – The non-profit sector is sometimes subject to high-conflict situation and this research contributes to more efficient conflict resolution protocols with an applicable method of conflict analysis, change management and conflict resolution. Originality/value – The work showed how the organizational culture is a key element in the explanation of conflict sources and conflict handling in case of high and repeated conflict situation. It is thus possible to resolve conflict sequence by changing a carefully chosen cultural trait. Nevertheless, the culture change management program is complex and risky. In a high-conflict situation, the authors identified several key conflict resolution factors: the careful identification of the organizational culture traits explaining conflict handling style; the alignment of the management team on the cultural change plan to raise up the intensity of the new set of behaviors; and the selection of the most efficient symbolic change decision.

Conclusion

This study tends to complete research studies on how organizational culture shapes attitudes and behaviors and shows how a cultural change can resolve a conflict sequence. On a more empirical aspect, this study also presents a conflict resolution method when the roots of conflicts are embedded in shared organizational norms. In such conflict situations, interpersonal conflict resolution techniques may not solve the conflict sequence but a cultural change could finally put an end to the sequence. We have shown that the combination of the OCP survey (O’Reilly et al., 1991) and open culture deciphering interview (Schein, 2004, p. 217) helped understand the sources of interpersonal conflicts embedded in an organizational culture. We have also shown that cultural change, through key action and careful change management, resolved the conflict sequence by shifting the psychological factors (Rahim, 1983) of the conflicting parties to a more integrating or compromising style. Our work showed how organizational culture can be an important element in the explanation of conflict sources and conflict handling in cases of high and repeated conflict situations. It could thus be possible to resolve conflict sequence by changing a carefully chosen cultural trait. Nevertheless, the culture change management program is complex and risky. In a high-conflict situation, we identified four key conflict resolution factors: careful identification of the organizational culture traits dictating conflict handling style (O’Reilly et al., 1991; Schein, 2004); alignment of the management team on the cultural change plan (Colbert et al., 2008; Manville and Broad, 2013) to intensify the new set of behaviors (Burt et al., 1994; Sorensen, 2002); selection of the most efficient symbolic change decision (Pfeffer, 1981; Johnson, 1990); and careful implementation of the change management project (Cinite et al., 2009).