Slides prepared for my UHS 2062 UTM (Skudai, Malaysia ) students based on the references given. These are just guides to initiate further readings.

1. UHS 2062 LECTURES at UTM Skudai.
Prepared by Siti Rokiah Siwok, Sept 2009
srsiwok@gmail.com

2. Definition of a group
 Four criteria must be met (Gordon, 2001 in
Aamodt, 2007):
 Members see themselves as a unit
 Group must provide rewards to members
 Members of the group share a common goal
 Corresponding effects(whatever happens to a
member affects every other member).

3. Reasons for joining a group
 Assignment
 Physical proximity
 Affiliation
 Identification
 Emotional support
 Assistance or help
 Common interest
 Common goals

4. Group conflicts
 Working together in a group or teams always presents
the potential for the occurrence of conflicts.
 Conflict is the psychological and behavioural reaction
to a perception that another person is keeping you
from reaching a goal, taking away your right to act in
a particular way or violating the expectancies of a
relationship.
 Key component to conflict is perception.
 The level of conflict is a function of the importance of
the goal, behaviour or relationship.

5. Dysfunctional and functional
conflicts
 Most conflicts results in lower team performance, and
lower members satisfaction,
 Most conflicts are dysfunctional , as the conflicts
prevents people from working together, lessens
productivity and increases turnover.
 Moderate degree of conflict , called functional
conflicts can result in better performance- stimulate
new ideas, increase friendly competition and increase
team effectiveness.
 Moderate conflicts reduce the risks of larger conflicts.

6. Types of conflicts
 Individual conflict
 Individual – group conflict
 Group –group conflict

8. Causes of conflicts
Competition of resources
Task independence
Jurisdictional ambiguity
Communication challenges
Beliefs
Personality

9. Conflicting styles
 Avoiding style
 Accommodating style
 Forcing style
 Collaborating style
 Compromising style

10. Determining conflict style
 Organization Conflict Inventory II (Rahim
and Magner, 1995)
 Cohen Conflict Response Inventory
(Cohen, 1997)

11. Resolving conflict
 Prevention /prior to conflict occurrence
 When conflict first occurs
 Third -party intervention

12. Prior to conflict occurring
 An organisation should have a formal policy on how
conflict to be handled, which states that :
 Employees should first try to resolve their own conflicts
 If the above is not successful, employees can utilise a
third party intervention
 Employees should receive training on the causes of
conflict, ways to provent conflict and strategies to
resolve it.

13. When conflict FIRST occurs
 The two parties should be encouraged to use conflict
resolution skills which they had learned. These skills
include:
 Expressing a desire for cooperation
 Offering compliments
 Avoiding negative interaction
 Emphasizing mutual similarities
 Highlighting common goals

14. When conflict FIRST occurs
 Key to resolving conflict is to reduce tension and
increase trust between the 2 parties; which can be
accomplished by :
 Stating an intention to reduce tension
 Publicly announcing steps to be taken to reduce
tension.
 Inviting the other side to take action in to reduce
tension.
 Making sure all initiative are unambiguous.

15. Third party intervention
 If conflict cannot be resolved, good to seek
help-third party intervention, through
mediation or arbitration.

16. Summary
 Groups consists of multiple members who
perceive themselves as a unit a and sharer
common goal or goals
 People joining groups due to a need for affiliation,
a need for identification with success, a need for
emotional support, a need for assistance, common
goals , physical proximity and assignment.
 Many factors contribute to a group success.

17. Summary
 Teams have four developmental stages; namely
forming, storming, norming and performing.
 The team approach is not always the best.
 Conflict has many causes, such as competition of
resources etc.
 People react to conflict differently
 Conflict is part of life in an organization and can
be managed wisely and successfully.

18. Reference:
 Aamodt, M.G (2007). Industrial /organizational
psychology. An applied approach. Belmont, CA:
Thomson.