Conflict and Interprofessional Relationships in the Workplace - Essay Example

Critical analysis of two journal articles BY YOU YOUR SCHOOL HERE YOUR HERE HERE Introduction “Conflict and intraprofessional relationships in the workplace” seems to work under the premise that conflict is a natural and ongoing entity within the nursing environment. Whether it is involving a team-based environment where group outputs are regular occurrence or whether it is a more traditional, structured environment with minimal social contact, there is going to be conflict. Conflict is described as problems that occur between two or more individuals in areas of business strategy, the interpersonal dimension, due to having different values and social norms, or simply because these individuals cannot reach a win-win consensus and one among the conflicting party feels that their needs are being targeted for criticism. This article covers virtually every dimension of conflict, giving it more reliability. The article also involves different aspects of psychology, such as emotional outcomes or using various hostile actions to project one’s emotions on another and, generally, conflict requires a negotiation style in order to resolve it. It also involves sociological elements such as cultural values and how one within the organisation related to cultural symbols and diversity. A secondary article, “Intraprofessional relations in nursing” describes a primary methodology as an explanatory research case study that measured nurses’ interactions in three different wards of a real-time hospital environment. It describes a rigorous data collection effort and then proposes the consequences of multiple, complex interactions between nurses and their emotional responses to these conflict scenarios. It offers various findings about the nurses involved in the study and how they balance their emotional responses to perceived or actual conflict that occurs in everyday nursing practice. Article analysis The article entitled “Conflict within nursing work environments: concept analysis” by J. Almost describes a secondary research effort to uncover the causes of conflict, rather than attempting to use different conflict management theory to come up with a working solution to problems in the nursing workplace. Therefore, it is somewhat exploratory in nature, though through the use of secondary research sources. The target audience for this paper is generally the practicing nurse, any clinical administration team, and the management systems that govern the nursing work environment. It is not aimed at the general public. In its literature review, it describes the idea of concept analysis, using different supporting literature to describe this term. The term is defined as being able to clarify a devised concept and then using different views from professionals (secondary or primary research) to distinguish between the two ideas. This definition is used to justify the research approach because the authors compare different secondary source publications as a source of comparison to identify the researcher’s premise on the nature of conflict. The research findings identified that there were many different consequences when conflict was occurring in the nursing environment, including job stress, intention to leave, psychosomatic complaints, and absenteeism (among many other negative outcomes). This information was uncovered through concept analysis and review of the pre-existing research studies conducted by other professional researchers in this field. The article further identified the antecedents of conflict through this secondary exploration, which included minimal trust between employees, poor interpersonal communication or communication systems, differences in personal or cultural values, and perceptions of injustice in the nursing environment. It categorizes the different types of conflict into three specific segments, including the psychological, professional and social conflict. They included bureaucratic conflict, bargaining conflict and systems conflict, each representing the different organisational relationship and its impact on nursing well-being or management philosophy. This article does not appeal to any particular segment of nursing but tends to incorporate the whole of nursing practice when describing the research findings and evidence about conflict in these environments. It suggests that the causes or potential solutions to conflict should be applicable in virtually any kind of nursing environment so long as the antecedents of conflict can be identified and effectively managed through different conflict management theories. The article suggests that there are many different stages of conflict where conflict is perceived, felt at the emotional level, and then through other stages there is a manifestation of conflict response until a final conflict aftermath has occurred. It is often this aftermath of conflict that causes a nurse or manager to have a conflict response and take some sort of corrective action to prevent future occurrences of conflict between organisational members. One strength of this article is that is explores the many different dimensions of conflict that involve not only the nurse, but the entire organisational components and leadership. It broadly creates a working theory about the causes of conflict so that the reader will be able to apply at least one of these models to their own working environment when they perceive conflict is occurring or about to occur. Understanding what drives the three stages of conflict can help the reader better identify with conflict management by recognising which particular antecedent is present in their job environment. It has an excellent presentation of multi-faceted information. A major weakness is that it does not use any primary methodology to study these proposed interactions in a real-world nursing environment. In order to add credibility to research, it is often important to create an approach that measures theory with actual nursing practice. In many ways, its weakness is that it is a regurgitation of existing theory. Further article analysis “Intraprofessional relations in nursing” by M. Duddle and M. Boughton is a much more in-depth study that is more practical in current medical environments because of its primary methodology. It is targeted at the practicing nurse, administration of the hospital environment, and also any management team responsible for monitoring or controlling activities of practicing nurses. It seems to work under the premise that conflict is inevitable and there are serious economic and emotional consequences to not only the nursing staff, but to the patient and administration as well. This acts as the foundational hypothesis about the nature of conflict in this workplace environment. The largest focus of this article is to measure nursing perceptions of conflict so that a better picture of their emotional beliefs, rather than structural or cultural, can be identified to personalise the research experience and allow the reader to better understanding why nurses behave the way they do. Their inherent beliefs and perceptions of conflict make this an interesting study for the field of nursing and for leadership. The article’s interview methodology gives this much more credibility as it assesses opinion of nurses rather than using the foundational theories involved with conflict or the intraprofessional nursing relationship. It works under the assumption that diversity in interactions and the quality of these interactions creates a response in the nurses that is unique to the situation occurring. It reinforces the complexities of the nursing role and provides insight into how conflict is perceived, managed or sometimes avoided through altogether avoidance of the social interaction between colleagues. The article’s largest strength is that is provides new information about the inherent coping or avoidance strategies of nurses in a hospital environment and offers a model by which other nurses could navigate a similar job territory and successfully handle conflict scenarios or build more positive intraprofessional relationships. The article’s main weakness is that it proposes no methodology for resiliency when facing difficult colleague interactions. Though it clearly identifies that resiliency can be an outcome of experience, it does not give the reader a solid idea on how to transform any current emotional instability into a more hard-nosed resilient attitude. This might have served the article better if the findings had been developed into a workable model that provided an opportunity for the concerned practicing nurse reader to strengthen their attitudes and emotional states when facing difficult colleague interactions. It tends to provide only the research and findings without necessarily offering the appropriate cure for when a nurse has difficulty navigating the environment or the professional colleague interaction. The findings identify that there are many social norms created in the workplace that are borne of a product of seniority and then passed onto new nurse entrants into the environment. These norms can be highly conflicting with new nurse values and, for the sake of keeping a positive environment, will not address these concerns to their colleagues but simply take an avoidance approach. This is one of the article’s main contributions to the nursing or administration field in nursing practice. Conclusion Almost’s research fails to develop working theories that describe the nature of conflict, only a presentation of various existing researchers’ findings on the subject. Though it does provide meaningful information on the subject of conflict and its antecedents, it fails to offer any substantial contribution to the field of nursing beyond that of works from other researchers. However, for the practicing nurse, conducting this type of exploratory secondary study would be very time consuming in the real-world environment. Duddle & Boughton’s research has much more reliability and validity based on its methodology and ability to show insight into actual nurse perceptions that complicate or benefit the workplace environment. It is a valuable piece of work for any administrator looking for better organisational design tools or how to better manage colleague interaction among employees. References Almost, J 2006, ‘Conflict within nursing work environments: concept analysis’, Journal of Advanced Nursing, vol. 53, no.4, pp.444-453. Duddle, M. & Boughton, M 2007, ‘Intraprofessional relations in nursing’, Journal of Advanced Nursing, vol.59, no.1, pp.29-37. Read More