Preventing Conflicts in Health Organizations - Essay Example

"Preventing Conflicts Health Organizations" is an important example of a paper on care.
It is stated that events become experience only after they have been reflected on thoughtfully. The purpose of this study is to compare and reflect a different finding of studies as a nurse, and to apply the same in the nursing field.

Discussion

Organizational structures are now more of a political type, which has created conflicts for interest in power. Let us consider an example of a distressed factory worker. The problem with the factory worker is that, within the workplace, he is deprived of all rights by his controlling supervisor, which is contrary to the society in which he lives and where he enjoys all rights of a citizen. This reflects the political elements of an organization. This is suggestive of managing groups within an organization, as an essential means of controlling them; thereby preventing autocracy, bureaucracy, technocracy, dictatorial and authoritative nature of the supervisors (Morgan, 2006).

In the organizational study conducted by Litterer (1966) on conflicts in an organization, it is found that normally, conflicts in the organization are strongly criticized but still prevail in most of the affairs. Conflicts are sometimes inevitable as it has roots deep into the organizational structure. Organizations with such characteristics are at times advantageous, as conflict prevents centralization of power. It can, therefore, be used to reduce organizational instability and enhance its managing and practical features (Litterer, 1966).

Ineffective communication and unskilled management staff are the two most potential barriers in the organization that ultimately lead to conflict (Mayer, 1974). Ineffective communication has both internal and external effects upon the organization; laying additional stress on the upper management. Let us consider an example of an executive of an aerospace firm.

A technical staff comes to the executive, telling him that he is resigning due to the incompetency and ineffective communication of his reporting manager. On the contrary, the reporting manager constructs a different explanation. The executive is in the middle of a dilemma, as whom to consider responsible for this conflict.

Organizational behavior plays one of the most crucial roles in long term organizational success. Such behavior pertains to leadership qualities, motivation, managing individuals and teams, and developing collaboration between them; stress-free work environment, decentralized power, and flexibility in organizational structure with changing business trends (Shafritz et al., 2011). According to the study conducted by French et al. (1959), organizational power can be divided into six types, each having the distinct effect of leadership and includes coercive power exerted through force, reward power exerted through motivation, legitimate power exerted through rewards and punishment, reference power exerted through a role model, expert power exerted through expertise and finally, the informational power mainly exerted through utilizing information (French et al., 1959).

Application in Nursing Field

Organizations such as healthcare organizations and Hospitals face several problems, as there is a lack of partnership and collaboration among healthcare professionals. Applying the concepts and theories of all the above studies, useful changes could be brought about in the nursing line of work. As a nurse, I would develop the ability of effective communication and efficient skills in inpatient care. By elimination the root cause of politics, power could be decentralized. Conflicts could be further minimized by adapting the most suitable type of power that endeavors motivation and rewarding policies.

Conclusion

Therefore, different studies are reflected and compared, with the understanding of more insight into applying the same practice and experiences in the nursing field. Finally, the two questions that evolve from the above reflection include what type of organizational behavior best suits the nursing field and whether power should be centralized or decentralized.