Reference no: EM132918419

Cocoa Research Institute of Savanna (CRIS), is an institute which is dedicated to research of plants and is divided into numerous departments. • Sometimes there are issues between the departments due to allocation of plots for experiments, budgetary allocations and participation in international conferences. • Plant Pathology department and Bio-chemistry department are having issues between each other, the two seniors scientists heading the departments due to attitudes problem, refusal to share achievement and research matters. • Small conflicts were temporary, and had never affected the work culture of the institute. • Collaboration between various research divisions was part of the culture of the institute, as it was always necessary, particularly so between plant pathology and biochemistry. • However, this conflict was different. It was a conflict between two senior scientists who had worked together on the same problem over a decade, and had jointly published their work in respected journals. For some strange reason, friends had become foes. In the process, they had vitiated to some extent the research environment of the institute. • The third cocoa project: the institute was preparing a five-year plan of activities to be included in the third phase research; the programme on virus purification and detection appeared in the work plans of both the plant pathology and the biochemistry divisions. The head of pathology department had very strongly questioned the proposal of the biochemistry department to work on cocoa swollen shoot virus problem, the pathology department wanted to take all the credit of the research work done on the specific topic. Responding to the situation, the head of the biochemistry department reacted rather angrily. In the bitter debate which then took place, both heads had lauded the role of their own department while criticism the other department. This was the initiating of the conflict. The other members of the research committee knew well that the work had been, in fact, a collaborative research activity between Dr Agadir, a biochemist, and Dr Ouadda, a plant pathologist, under the backing of their respective departments. Pathology department supposed that they would work on the disputed topic (cocoa swollen shoot virus problem) 'as and when they had time'. The research committee asked the head of the plant pathology department for an explanation, but there was no reply. Later in a meetings, the research committee approved research on cocoa swollen shoot virus as a major activity of the biochemistry department. Both the two departments started to exchange harsh letters. Dr Agadir and Dr Ouadda, both belonging to two different departments worked very hard on the research on cocoa swollen shoot virus; and when ever one of them was not available the second took over the whole research. The conflict was raised due to credit of research, and was raised to such a level that both of the senior scientists didn't even look or greeted each other. Both the two departments continued to exchange acrimonious letters, and collaborative research suffered. Dr Agadir suspected that Dr Agadir had been provoked into this by other colleagues, who were jealous of Dr Agadir, since Dr Agadir was often praised by the director as a good, hard working researcher, at times. Both of the involved department was trying to be fully self-sufficient, such that all collaborative research had been virtually abandoned. Worse, other departments were also moving in that direction and shunning collaborative research. Earlier, all such conflicts were resolved in the research committee; now they were being directly referred to the executive director, bypassing the research committee. Dr Swanson knew that something had definitely to be done to stem the vitiating atmosphere in the institute.

1 What kind of conflict has developed?is it structural,interpersonal,constructive or a combination?Define your answer with as many details as needed?

2 what approach of conflict management is applied in this case?

3 who is responsible for the deteriorating situation?

4 what are sources of conflict here?

5 is this conflict is common in the workplace?

6 what is the possible bsstsolutionto the conflict?

7 what is the personality type ,aggressive or assertive?

8 was the conflict between the two functional or assertive and why?

10 how would you characterize the conflict?

11 what management tecniques were used to slove the conflict?

12 what conflict management skills were used to manage conflict