THE IMPACT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON THE INCIDENCE OF CONFLICTS IN ORGANIZATIONS: AN EMPLOYEE PERSPECTIVE
Keywords:
COVID-19, conflicts in organizationsAbstract
Conflict management is an issue with constant relevance to organizations, but it has taken on new dimensions in the context of the unprecedented global health, social and economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to adapt their conflict management practices to the new realities, organizations need to be aware of the effects of the global crisis on the level of conflicts.
The purpose of the study is to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the occurrence of conflicts in Bulgarian organizations. More specifically, it aims to explore changes in the overall level of conflicts in organizations and the level of interpersonal conflicts to which surveyed employees were involved. The data were collected in April and May 2021 using an online questionnaire in Google forms. The sample consisted of 708 full-time employees from different organizations in Bulgaria.
Findings show that employees assess the overall incidence of conflicts in organizations as not very common due to remote work and lack of direct observations of the working process. When it comes to personal conflicts of employees, the number of reported conflicts increases. Majority of respondents either have experienced an isolated dispute or are still having an ongoing difficult relationship with another member of the organization in the last year. Of the two types of conflicts studied, the ongoing difficult relationships are less common during the pandemic. Although the ongoing conflicts are relatively rarely reported, they indicate the existence of serious and probably more intense conflicts with all the potentially negative effects on the employees involved, the team and the organization. Managers are more likely than employees to be involved either in an isolated dispute or in an ongoing conflict as an active party during the pandemic. Findings suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has not have a significant impact on the incidence of disagreements in the workplace, both at the overall and personal level, as most employees deny witnessing or experiencing more conflicts in the last 12 months than before the crisis. When reported, the increase in the incidence of conflicts is greater at the overall level than at the level of interpersonal conflicts with co-workers.
In the context of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the study has several implications for organizations. First, organizations face the challenge of finding appropriate tools to eliminate or limit the negative effects of the pandemic on employees’ relationships. Second, another challenge is to create a healthy and psychologically safe working environment for each employee. Finally, today more than ever, organizations need to provide adequate conflict management training to employees, especially managers, in order to develop their ability to deal with disagreements in the new dimensions of the workplace.
The study provides original findings on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the incidence of conflicts in organizations, contributing to a better understanding of the under-researched area of the effects of the health crisis on organizational life.
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