BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The assessment of conflict management on organization harmony cannot be over-emphasized as it has become a virtual tool used in promoting organizational development. Certainly for organizational development to take place there must be proper conflict management as such, conflict management has become indispensable in any organization or managerial setting in order to succeed.

Conflicts are inevitable parts of organizational life since the goals of different stakeholders such as the employee and employers are often incompatible. Gordon (1997) sees conflicts as the result of incompatible potential relationships, this occurs as a result of one party perceiving that another party has impeded, or will frustrate one or more of its concerns. Johnson (2000) views conflict as a struggle or contest between people with opposing needs, ideas beliefs, values or goals while Steers (1998) refers to conflicts as a process in which individuals or groups feels that other individuals or groups have frustrated or are about to frustrate their plans, goals, beliefs or activities.

Conflict is a part of organizational life and may occur between individuals, between the individual and the group and between a group. Mayo (1949) stated that production depends on the relationship of workers where he divided workers into groups, that is the management and the employees. He emphasized that there must be cordial relationship between these groups of workers before any organizational harmony could take place or exist. He further stated that management should always give priority to the need of other employees so that they will have a sense of belonging and as such, increase productivity, but that whenever, the management ignore the need of employees, there would be no harmony and as such productivity will decrease. In a nutshell, this scholar is emphasizing on the importance of conflict resolution or management as the cornerstone and central dynamics of organization harmony.

This study is on the influence of conflict resolution on the performance of an organization. It stresses or focuses on the causes and types of industrial conflicts as well as the important roles trade unions and other key actors in conflict resolution play as well as the effect or influence of conflict resolution or organization performance.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

There are many problems facing the organization and their effects widely varies, some of these problems includes: lack of proper welfare package for the employees, problems of poor condition of work, high rate of labour turnover as well as nonchalant attitude of management to workers, low workers productivity among many others.

As a result of these problems enumerated above, industrial conflicts may arise between management and employees. With these statement of problems in view, the research is focused on thorough investigation of what influence does conflict has on workers productivity and how can conflict resolution affect or influence workers performance?