Profit management

A lot of conflict is generated within organizations because various groups within the organization hold ‘conflicting’ values and perceive situations in a narrow, individualistic manner. An example that comes readily to mind is that of the managment-labour conflict. Labor feels that management is exploiting it because in spite of making a profit, management does nothing for the economic welfare of labor. On the other hand, management feels that the profits should go to cash reserves so as to make the company an attractive proposition for investors. Another example is the conflict between engineering and manufacturing.

Engineering lays stress on technological sophistication and precision and is accused by manufacturing of designing products that will last for many years but that the customers cannot afford. It is maintained that since an organization is composed of individual and they had different perceptions of goals and dithering values, conflict is bound to arise in the organization. Managers of various departments have separate priorities and conflicting ideas about resource allocation. Hence conflict is the unavoidable outcome. Subordinates may clash with the manager over whether the work can be accomplished in the given period of time or not.

They might even argue with subordinates at their own level over the best possible way to do a given job. Thus conflict is an unavoidable outcome but at the same time it is assumed that conflict need not always be detrimental. Under some circumstances it could focus on problems and instigate a search for better and more innovative solutions to problems. Though conflict can lead to more creativity in problem solving and be beneficial to organization under certain conditions, yet it is perceived that conflict as harmful— something to be resolved once it arise.

The views about human nature are that people are essentially good; trust, cooperation and goodness are given in human nature. Accordingly, the major antecedent conditions which induce aggressiveness and conflict in people are the faulty policies and structure resulting in distortion and breakdown in communication. Hence the manager’s role in resolving conflict is to restore understanding, trust and openness between parties. It is not easy to build a strong corporate culture in any organization. A strong culture is based on strong ethics. This is very important for the success of the organization in the long-run.

It is very easy to adopt short-cut methods to reach the top but the downfall also comes at the same rate. Ethics ensure that the organization does not adopt short-cut methods to achieve success; instead it stresses on the concept of sustained success. Every organization has its own code of ethics and standards in a written form. The code of ethics normally contains the following points:

• Honesty
• Fairness in practices of the company—Disclosing the inside information;
• Acquiring and using outside information—Disclosure of outside activities by the employer to the employee;
• Each organization has its own set of code of ethics.