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Introduction

The report summarizes the effect of conflict and power and politics on individuals and groups
in context to the organization in the hospitality industry in 2010. It is clear that due to the
nature of work in the industry individuals face problems in achieving organisational goals
and the overall success of the organisation. The objectives were to identify key problems and
offer recommendation to Conflict and power and politics in an organization. Training and
communication was seen to be the overall answer to hardships faced in the hospitality
industry. The report is limited to the conflicts and power and politics between individuals and
groups in an organization only in the hospitality industry.
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2.1 Different views of conflict

The traditional view of conflict believes that conflict of all kinds is harmful
and must be avoided. According to this school of thought, conflicts serve
no useful purpose because it distracts managers’ attention and diverts
their energy and resources. It views conflict as a dysfunctional outcome
resulting from poor communication, a lack of openness and trust between
people, and the failure of managers to be responsive to the needs and
aspirations of their employees. This view of conflict prevailed during the
1930’s and 1940’s. (Rout & Omiko, 2007)

The human relations view of conflict believes that conflict is natural and is
an inevitable outcome in any group. It should be accepted as a reality.
Sometimes, conflicts leads to improvement in group performance and it
can be a desirable state. Successful management of conflict does not
mean total elimination of conflict but selecting a conflict-reduction
strategy to handle conflict when it disrupts performance or interpersonal
relations. This view dominated conflict theory from the late 1940’s
through the mid 1970’s. (Rout & Omiko, 2007)

The integrationist view of conflict believes that conflict is not only a

positive force in a group but also it is absolutely necessary for a group to
perform effectively. It is based on the belief that a harmonious, peaceful,
tranquil and cooperative group is prone to become static, apathetic and
non-responsive to the need of change and innovation. In situations that
call for creativity and when discussion of alternatives are needed, the
stimulation of conflict is one of the solutions to handle the situation.
Managers can purposely create conflict to keep the group viable, self-
critical and creative. (Rout & Omiko, 2007)

2.1.1 The paradigm shift of views, conflict now seen as being

Constructive

“Don’t be afraid of opposition. Remember, a kite

rises against, not with the wind.”—Hamilton
Wright Mabie.

In the past management theories used the term conflict avoidance but
today the phrase is increasingly being replaced with conflict management.
It recognizes that while conflict does have associated costs, if handled
constructively, it can also bring with it great benefits. This view point
highlights shift in the paradigm. Managers need to develop flexibility and
new coping skills to function in a positive, productive way in the midst of
unsettling events. (Rout & Omiko, 2007)

2.1.2 Impact of conflict and the paradox of conflict and creativity

Conflict has both positive and negative impact on the performance of an

organization. It leads to constructive problem solving, improving the
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quality of decisions, stimulating involvement in discussions and building

group cohesion. However, it also creates difficulties in communication
between individuals, breaks personal and professional relationships and
reduces effectiveness by causing tension, anxiety and stress.

When the conflict level is low, it has been observed that the behaviour of
the employee is apathetic, stagnant, and non-responsive. All these
characteristics can result in poor performance due to lack of innovation
and motivation. At a group level, there is a tendency to conform to group
norms. However, a preoccupation of group members’ conformity stifles
creativity. When group members are overly concerned about following
rules, innovation becomes difficult to achieve. It encourages members not
to differ; as a result new ideas are unlikely to come up.

Creative and innovative skills have never been as crucial as they are now.
Many managers introduce conflict to make the work environment more
creative. For example; two extreme individuals are grouped together to
work on one project. (Schmidt & Tannenbaum, 2000) The goal of
increasing conflict is to make employees not feel complacent and
apathetic but to be alert, active and energetic. A sense of healthy
competition develops good decision-making and creative problem solving.
(Rout & Omiko, 2007)

2.2 Conflicts faced in the hospitality industry

2.2.1 Work-family conflicts

According to Magnini, due to the nature of the industry, hospitality

workers often face work-family conflict (WFC) issues. Work-family conflict
(WFC) refers to the degree to which the demands of one role make it
difficult to fill the demands of the other role. Personnel in many industries
telecommute to reduce their time away from their families, but the high
human component required in the hospitality industry makes
telecommunicating unfeasible for the vast majority of job positions.
Further, many work schedules in the hospitality sector are countercyclical
to the work schedules of most other industries. That is, the busiest shifts
in hotels and restaurants are often when most other people are off from
work (e.g., weekends and holidays).

WFC is on the rise for a number of reasons: First, the number of dual-
career couples is increasing. Second, the conflict between work and family
roles is increasing because a larger percentage of single parents are
present in the workforce. Third, the percentage of the workforce has
increased in recent years. Fourth, workers are now realizing that they
must earn more money to maintain their chosen lifestyle; consequently
they are spending more time at work. (Magnini, 2009)

Interference caused by WFC can be categorized as either external or

internal. For example, external interference can occur when participation
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in one role precludes attendance of an activity in another role. Internal

interference, on the other hand, is an internally generated psychological
preoccupation with one role while trying to participate in another role.
(Magnini, 2009)

WFC can also cause “presenteeism,” which can be described as a lack of

psychological availability at work. In the hospitality business, employees
experiencing presenteeism can have severe consequences on the firm
because (1) guests often associate the actions and by an individual
employee with their overall impression of the company; and (2)
employees in the hospitality industry must regularly perform tasks beyond
those associated with routine transactions in order to maintain guest
satisfaction in a dynamic work environment. (Magnini, 2009)

2.2.2 Strain based conflicts

Strain-based conflict, on the other hand, occurs when strain generated in

one role intrudes into and impedes successful participation in another
role. For example, marital turmoil is sometimes correlated with decreased
productivity at work. Conversely, strain at work can interfere with family
life. For instance, a hotel or restaurant manager can arrive at home so
mentally exhausted, that it is difficult to substantively interact with family
members. (Magnini, 2009)

2.2.3 Behaviour-based conflicts

Behaviour-based conflict can exist when specific behaviours mandated by

one role are incompatible with the behavioural norms of another role. For
example, a line-level restaurant or hotel manager might be expected to
demonstrate aggressive and logical behaviour at work, but family
members likely need emotion and affection. Thus switching mindsets
between the work and home environment can sometimes be a challenge.
(Magnini, 2009)

2.2.4 Front and back of the house conflicts

"A clash of personalities and egos is usually the

heart of the conflict. The mutual animosity can be
a recipe for disaster, leading to low staff morale, a
breakdown in communication and bad service.
And your customers will notice" - (Hussain, 2008).

Egos aside, this kind of conflict can happen when an experienced chef
resents being dominated by the manager, or just when a simple
misunderstanding occurs. Jealousy can start festering — for instance, the
front-of-house team maybe resentful of the kitchen staff being able to
leave soon after the end of service, before they do. It can even be
something as trivial as the hot and sweaty kitchen staff perceiving that
the front-of-house management have got it easy. The worst case is when
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a particular customer order may require special preparation and the

service staffs have simply not communicated that to the kitchen —
leading to confusion and frustration on all sides. (Hussain, 2008)

2.3 Impact of Supervisor Support

The model below investigates the impact of supervisor support on family and career
satisfaction and the relationships of career and family satisfaction with life satisfaction.

(Karatepe & Uludag, 2008)

FIGURE 1 Conceptual supervisorial support Model

2.3.1 Negative Supervisorial Support

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(H1a and H1b) Supervisor support negatively influences employees' work-family conflict and
family work conflict, which negatively influences family satisfaction (H2a and H2b), career
satisfaction (H3a and H3b) and life satisfaction (H4a and H4b). (Karatepe & Uludag, 2008)

2.3.2 Positive Supervisorial Support

(H5 and H6) Supervisor support positively influences employees' family satisfaction and
career satisfaction, which positively influence life satisfaction (H7 and H8). (Karatepe &
Uludag, 2008)

2.4 Organizational politics

"People will readily admit that governments are
organizations. The converse—that organizations are
governments—is equally true but rarely considered." -
Norton Long (Political scientist).
Organizations, particularly large ones, are like governments in that they are fundamentally
political entities. Organizational politics is the daily process through which the abstractions of
power and organization are experienced. Political activity concerns processes of using
influence to mobilize support for different interests and individual career achievement. While
all groups and individuals bending the rules in their own interests have perfectly logical
reasons for so doing, the resulting behaviour by the organization no longer appears rational.
Politics needs to be understood in terms of power and identity relations or how individuals
seek through political manoeuvrings to further or secure their individual careers and identities
in an uncertain world. (Davey & Mackenzie, 2008)
Organizational politics exploits unofficial networks and contacts to achieve personal gain.
This implies that rewards in an organization are not linked to the formally espoused merits of
work performance. Those who are politically active gain from it, while those who react
defensively lose out.
‘These types of actions are seen as unfair because not
everyone engages in politicking to meet their own
objectives,’ -Andrews and Kacmar

2.5 Politics and women’s careers

The impact of gender on the achievement of power takes place through many small
differences. These include societal divisions of labour, formal and informal organizational
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processes, social interaction and gender identity. It seems, more useful for male managers
than female managers when it comes to promotion. Women executives are more likely to
report a lack of culture fit, exclusion from informal networks and difficulty getting
developmental assignments, including geographical moves. (Davey & Mackenzie, 2008)

The gendered nature of organizations and the exclusion of ethnic and racial minorities
suggest that not everyone will have an equal opportunity to engage politically. Women find
that they do not have the same benefits as men in developing a career, not through formal
barriers but through lack of access to the informal, political activities of the group in power.
To get on, ambitious women had to behave in ways that they claimed were unnatural to them
and that they described as immoral and useless to the organization. Constructing politics and
success in this way put them in a difficult position when accounting for their own ambition or
achievement. (Pfeffer, 2005)

2.6 Playing politics: back-stabbing, chair counting and point scoring

“Man is by nature a political animal” – Aristotle

Politics is presented as something that is clearly separate from being good at one’s job. Thus
men are benefiting by doing something that they enjoy (playing games), doing a competitor
down and getting on in a career. Since politics is one of the ways in which culture games are
played out in organizations, those who do not fit into the in-group will be bemused and
minority groups will find acculturation more difficult. (Davey & Mackenzie, 2008)

2.7 Lessons to be Unlearned

One’s ambivalence about power comes from lessons that are learnt in school. The first lesson
is that life is a matter of individual effort, ability, and achievement. Such is not the case in
organizations. If one knows their organization's strategy but their colleagues do not, then they
will have difficulty accomplishing anything. The private knowledge and private skill that are
so useful in the classroom are insufficient in organizations. Individual success in
organizations is quite frequently a matter of working with and through other people, and
organizational success is often a function of how successfully individuals can coordinate their
activities. (Pfeffer, 2005)
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2.8 Knowledge is the key

Knowledge without power is of remarkably little use. And power without the skill to employ
it effectively is likely to be wasted. (Pfeffer, 2005)
According to Stephen Robbins, expert power is influence wielded as a result of expertise,
special skill, or knowledge. The influence of expert power is widely seen in the hospitality
industry as the effect of one’s knowledge demands respect and power.

2.9 Power and Politics breeds Innovation

There are politics involved in innovation and change. And unless and until one is willing to
come to terms with organizational power and influence, and admit that the skills of getting
things done are as important as the skills of figuring out what to do, one’s organizations will
fall further and further behind. The problem is, in most cases, not an absence of insight or
organizational intelligence but the lack of it. Power is simply the capacity to bring about
certain intended consequences in the behaviour of others. (Pfeffer, 2005)

Bennis and Nanus noted that one of the major problems facing organizations today is not that
too many people exercise too much power, but rather the opposite: These days power is
conspicuous by its absence. Power is at once the most necessary and the most distrusted
element exigent to human progress. Power is the basic energy needed to initiate and sustain
action or, to put it another way, the capacity to translate intention into reality and sustain it.

This is why power and influence are not the organization's last dirty secret, but the secret of
success for both individuals and their organizations. Innovation and change in almost any
arena requires the skill to develop power, and the willingness to employ it to get things
accomplished. Or, in the words of a local radio newscaster, "If you don't like the news, go out
and make some of your own." (Pfeffer, 2005)
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Findings

The view on conflict has changed it is now being seen as a necessity for creativity. (Rout &
Omiko, 2007) (Schmidt & Tannenbaum, 2000) WFC is on the rise in the hospitality industry.
(Magnini, 2009)

Conflicts cost money if not managed properly

• Directly the most noticed HR related expenses is the legal fee paid for conflict that
escalates into the courtroom or an attorney’s office.

Indirect costs include

• Lost management time cost: Conflicts waste time of anyone who is involved in it and
time is money.

• Damages/sabotage/theft cost

• Productivity cost: it includes value of lost time and the opportunity cost of those
involved who would otherwise be producing

• Lost personnel: When employees leave because of unresolved conflict, replacement

and training costs can equal a full year’s salary.

• Absenteeism: This stress combined with disregard for how one’s absence impacts
others, leads to employees choosing to take time off-sometimes excused as sick-day.

• Cost of meetings

(Rout & Omiko, 2007)

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Supervisor support lessens both work-family and family-work conflicts and increases both
family and career satisfaction. The study findings also showed that family satisfaction was
significantly and positively related to life satisfaction. (Karatepe & Uludag, 2008)

Women find that they do not have the same benefits as men in developing a career, not
through formal barriers but through lack of access to the informal, political activities of the
group in power. (Davey & Mackenzie, 2008)

Power and politics are involved in innovation and change. (Pfeffer, 2005)

Conclusion

Conflict, once believed to be harmful, is now looked at as an essential tool to stimulate

creativity and innovation. Today, management theories recognize that even though conflict
does have associated costs, if handled constructively, it can bring with it great benefits. Due
to the nature of work in the hospitality industry, individuals are prone to various conflicts.

There are politics involved in innovation and change. Organizational politics is the daily
process through which the abstractions of power and organization are experienced.
Organizational politics exploits unofficial networks and contacts to achieve personal gain.
The gendered nature of organizations and the exclusion of ethnic and racial minorities
suggest that not everyone will have an equal opportunity to engage politically. Power is at
once the most necessary and the most distrusted element exigent to human progress. Power
is the basic energy needed to initiate and sustain action or, to put it another way, the capacity
to translate intention into reality and sustain it. Power and influence are the secret of success
for both individuals and their organizations. Innovation and change in almost any arena
requires the skill to develop power, and the willingness to employ it to get things
accomplished.
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Recommendations

Due to the nature of work in the hospitality industry various conflicts arise among individuals
and groups in the organization which can be managed by the following
recommendations:.
• Offer service employees a “voice” in determining certain facets of their jobs. When
employees have the authority to solve work problems, they are likely to have lower
levels of stress and also perceive lower levels of WFC. (Magnini, 2009)

• Hotel managers should create and maintain a family-supportive work environment

where there may be various family-friendly programs such as flexible work hours, on-
site childcare services, and maternity leave. (Karatepe & Uludag, 2008)

• Hospitality associates and managers alike should be encouraged to attend a training

session in which they can learn about the four styles of coping that can result from
WFC. (Magnini, 2009)

• Workplace humour is viewed as a useful tool to defuse critical situations, reduce

stress, improve communication and increase group cohesion. (Rout & Omiko, 2007)

The key to ending any tension between front of house and the kitchen is a two-fold approach:
training and communication.

• Adequate training for staff is essential. No matter where they are working in the
establishment, people need to know what's expected of them.
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• Front of house and the kitchen must always be able to communicate with each other.
Should anything go wrong on either side, the customer will be affected.

• Get front-of-house and back-of-house staff to perform a job swap for a brief period.

• Maintain regular contact with the front of house, and kitchen personnel. Observe how
they are interacting and keep an eye out for any potential areas of conflict.

• Keep a diary or log book of the daily service times, whereby you or any of your senior
managers can make a note of any issues, however small, that may have arisen with the
staff.

(Hussain, 2008)

Unless one is willing to come to terms with organizational power and influence, and
admit that the skills of getting things done are as important as the skills of figuring out
what to do, one’s organizations will fall further and further behind (Pfeffer, 2005)

References

Books:

Robbins, S. P., Judge, T. A., & Sanghi, S. (2007). Organizational Behavior. New
Jersey: Pearson education Inc .

Roberto, M. A. (2005). Why do great leaders don’t take yes for an answer.
London: Pearson Education Inc.

Rout, E. L., & Omiko, N. (2007). Corporate Conflict Management: Concepts and
Skills. New Delhi: Prentice-Hall of India Pvt.

Schmidt, W., & Tannenbaum, R. (2000). Management of differences. In Harvard

Business Review on Negotiation and Conflict Resolution (pp. 1-26). Boston:
Harvard Business School Press.

Journal articles:

Davey, & Mackenzie, K. (2008). Women's Accounts of Organizational Politics as a

Gendering Process. Gender, Work & Organization , 650-671.
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Hussain, H. (2008). Keep the teams talking. Caterer & Hotelkeeper , 52-53.

Karatepe, O. M., & Uludag, O. (2008). Supervisor Support, Work-Family Conflict,

and Satisfaction Outcomes: An Empirical Study in the Hotel Industry . Journal of
Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism , 115 - 134 .

Magnini, V. P. (2009). Understanding and Reducing Work-Family Conflict in the

Hospitality Industry. Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism , 119-
136.

Pfeffer, J. (2005). Understanding Power in Organization. California Managemnt

Review , 29-50.

Abbreviations

WFC: Work-family conflicts

HR: Human Resources

W-FCON: Work-family conflict

F-WCON: Family-work conflict

FSAT: Family satisfaction

CSAT: Career satisfaction

LSAT: Life satisfaction

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