The Study of Organizations (RLE: Organizations) by Dunkerley David;

Author:Dunkerley, David; [Dunkerley, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2022-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

Quasi-resolution of conflict

Cyert and March point to the ‘obvious potential for internal goal conflict in a coalition of diverse individuals and groups’ (p. 115). Traditionally, this process of dealing with goal conflict was dealt with in the form of inducements. If an individual was given sufficient inducements, it was maintained, he would conform to the goals of the organization. The proposition here is that organizations are composed of individuals with conflicting values and goals, but that the individuals form a kind of uneasy coincidence or coalition from which there are bound to be certain interests, objectives, or goals which are held in common agreement. This process of achieving common agreement is known as the organization goal.

Potential goal conflict is partially resolved by the structural characteristics of the organization. Any organization has a division of labour based upon functional specialization and the way in which tasks are divided and allocated among the organization members is usually strictly defined by the organization. This being the case, general organizational goals are themselves divided so that, for example, there may be an organizational goal of achieving the maximum profit, but this goal is allocated among the various functional specialists such that one may be concerned with maximizing the sales of a product, another with maximizing production, and so on. It is only when these ‘departmentalized’ goals are brought into a coalition that an organizational goal can be said to exist.

Often, the goals determining the organizational goal may be in conflict—in the above example, the situation may arise where the sales specialists have ‘sold’ (on paper) or received orders for more goods than the production specialists can produce. In this way, it is clear that conflict can never be completely resolved, nor are organizational goals ever static or eternal.

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