Lately people have dealt with many types of conflicts more frequently. Conflict is natural. It is an inevitable fact of life. It is found in all societies and communities at all stages of development. It occurs whenever people are confronted with perceived or real clashing interests, goals and values, or competing claims over scarce resources. One of the major challenges of governments and civil society is to develop effective approaches to managing social, political, economic, and ethnic conflicts. Managing competing interests and potential conflict in society is an integral part of good administration and is fundamental to sustainable peace.
Every organization (private or public) has its own inside conflicts and often it is the manager who can prevent and solve them. Because of it the members of administrative staff must choose the right and the most effective methods and ways of solving conflicts.
One way of analyzing and understanding a problem is to ask questions. It is logical to define the term “conflict” and understand what conflict is and what is not. Therefore, we begin with the question, what is a conflict? There is a variety of definitions. For example, according to Webster Dictionary conflict is a “fight, battle or struggle”. As for the definition given by Pruitt and Rubin, conflict is “the perceived nodivergence of interest or a belief that the parties’ current aspirations cannot be achieved simultaneously”.
Hocker and Wilmot define conflict as “the interaction of interdependent people who perceived incompatible goals and interference from each other in achieving those goals”.
From the above definitions we could see that the conflict is the collision of interests, needs and values, which can appear in every social structure. Conflict abounds in our ordinary life, and managing conflict becomes an important field of research in public administration. While some scientists consider conflict to be a stimulus to development and changes, others believe, that conflict is a social disease that has to be cured. But all of them agree in the opinion that conflict is the power that needs correct and reasonable actions to cope with.
German researcher Ralf Darrendorf consideres that the main reason for conflict is the struggle for power, prestige and authority. From this point of view, conflict is absolutely necessary phenomenon for social development, because it enforces all social structures to develop and to get rid of weak and useless elements.
The conflict by itself is neither positive nor negative situation, but the methods of its solution can be adequate or absolutely unacceptable. Conflict in public administration implies not every dispute that appears because of controversial questions, but destructive phenomenon, that can lead to the destruction of social structure or to instability of the country.
It’s absolutely necessary to differentiate the reasons and the subject of conflict in public administration. The reason, or the cause is usually deeper and more difficult that a simple incident. If we speak of the reasons, we can name the following ones:
- Dependence of the group on one person (when one employee blocks the work of the whole team);
- Different aims (the conflict between legitimate authorities and opposition);
- Different levels of education and intelligence (when the subordinates can not understand the director because of lack of education);
- Different values and criteria (the conflict between conservative and reformist types of public administration);
- Difficulties in communication (subjective or objective ones);
- Resources allocation (tangible and intangible ones).
A good administrator does not destroy conflict situations, but use them. It helps to keep the condition of healthy competition which raises labour productivity. The main thing is not to exceed the bounds. When the conflict lies in the sphere of values and aims, it has to be solved.
Much is said about the solution of the conflict. Scientists name different sequences that influence the result of the collision. For example, if the manager ignore or suppress conflicts, this will lead to their exacerbation. Superficial solution of conflict without penetration into the reasons leads to the accumulation of problems. All the actions and reforms should be well-timed and adequate.
However, as Ralf Darrendorf noted, successful solutions depend on 3 major conditions:
- Admission of different points of view;
- Good organization of the sides of conflict;
- The rules of the game.
There are different ways to solve or minimize the conflict. The diagnostics and prediction of the conflict situations play a great role in preventing bad consequences of the contradictions. The most unacceptable ways to overcome conflicts are deviation from the problem, enforcement of obedience and smoothing the contradictions.
Five basic ways of addressing conflict were identified by Thomas Kilman in 1976:
• Avoidance – to avoid or postpone conflict by ignoring it, changing the subject, etc. Avoidance can be useful as a temporary measure to buy time or as a means of dealing with very minor conflicts. In more severe cases, conflict avoidance can involve severing relationships or even leaving a group.
• Collaboration – to work together to find a mutually beneficial solution. According to the model worked by Thomas Kilman collaboration is the only reasonable solution of conflict. But in spite of this we must remember that collaboration can also be time-intensive and inappropriate especially when there is not enough trust, respect or communication among participants for collaboration to take place.
• Compromise – to find the golden mean which each party is partially satisfied with.
• Competition – to assert ones viewpoint at the potential expense of another. It can be useful when achieving ones objectives outweighs ones concern for the relationship.
• Accommodation – surrender ones own needs and wishes to accommodate the other party.
There is a new and actual way to solve the conflict without using violence – to use the practice of mediation, or involving in conflict the third side which has no interest in conflict. Such technologies help to solve any conflict faster and better than in court, because there is no interest for mediator to delay the process.
The study of social processes in society shows that the conflict is one of the major social problems. Public administrators must first supervise conflict situations in the public sphere and try to prevent and solve them with minimal losses, and if possible even with benefit.
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