MLDR 6175 Week 2 Conflict Case Description Example

A Case Description Both Department Heads Could Read Without Objecting: The Lantern Hall Calendar Dispute as a Dated Sequence Through Pondy's Five Stages, With Each Side's Account in Its Own Words

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Walden University

MLDR 6175: Managing, Mediating, and Resolving Conflict

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Month Day, Year

A Case Description Both Department Heads Could Read Without Objecting: The Lantern Hall Calendar Dispute as a Dated Sequence Through Pondy's Five Stages, With Each Side's Account in Its Own Words

Orientation

Lantern Hall Theater Company, a composite nonprofit, runs a 640-seat main stage and a 120-seat studio with 46 staff. Its development department, led by the development director, Celia Marsh, raises about 40 percent of the annual budget through donations, sponsorships and events. Its production department, led by the production manager, Owen Brandt, builds and runs every show, manages the crew and controls the technical schedule. Both report to the managing director, Paul Ainsley. This description sets out the dispute over the week of October 12 as a dated sequence, organized by the five stages of a conflict episode that Pondy (1967) described: latent, perceived, felt, manifest and aftermath.

Latent Conditions

The conditions for the dispute existed before anyone disagreed. First, the main stage calendar has no single owner. Development, production, education and rentals each keep their own calendars, and the company manager merges them when asked. Second, on March 4, development confirmed with the season's lead sponsor, a regional credit union, that the annual donor gala would take place on the main stage on Thursday, October 15. At that time, the musical that opens the season had been chosen, but its technical schedule had not been drawn up. Third, the production department's practice, for at least six seasons, has been to close the main stage to outside events during technical rehearsals.

Perceived and Felt Conflict

On June 9, the production department circulated the musical's technical schedule, which set technical rehearsals from October 12 to 18. Owen Brandt saw the conflict with the gala on June 10, when the company manager merged the calendars. He did not raise it with development at that time. On July 21, Celia Marsh learned of the overlap when the company manager asked her about load-in times for the gala. She emailed Owen the same afternoon, writing that the gala date had been "promised to our lead sponsor since March" and asking production to "work around a three-hour evening event." Owen replied on July 23 that the technical week "cannot accommodate outside events" and that the gala "should never have been booked without checking with production." Over the following week, four more emails passed between them, each copied to more colleagues than the last.

Manifest Conflict

The dispute became open at the staff meeting on August 4. When the managing director asked for updates, Owen, according to the minutes, compared development's use of the stage to renting out a hall. Celia answered that production had never considered where the company's money comes from. The managing director ended the discussion and asked both to meet him separately. No decision has been made. The gala invitations are scheduled to go to print on September 1.

Development's Account

From development's side, the gala was booked properly. In March, the stage was free on October 15, and no one had told development that technical rehearsals would fall that week. The credit union's sponsorship, worth about $85,000 this season, depends on the gala taking place on the main stage, where the sponsor's name is on the proscenium. The development director's concern is that moving or shrinking the gala would embarrass the sponsor and the board chair, who personally invited the credit union's president, and would put next season's renewal at risk. Development sees production's position as treating the stage as its own, without regard for the revenue that pays for every production.

Production's Account

From production's side, the technical week is not optional. The musical has 31 scene changes and a crew of 22, and technical rehearsals are when lighting, sound, automation and actors are put together for the first time. Losing an evening means compressing the schedule into longer days, raising overtime costs and fatigue at the point when injuries are most likely. The production manager's concern is that the gala would require striking and reinstalling scenery, adding crew hours and safety risk. Production sees development's position as booking the stage without asking the people responsible for using it safely.

Aftermath, Not Yet Reached

Pondy's aftermath stage, in which a conflict episode leaves conditions that shape the next one, has not yet arrived. Whatever is decided about October 15 will become part of the latent conditions for the next dispute, which is why the description records the conditions in detail. Jehn (1995) found that conflict about how work is organized can damage a group even when the task disagreement is settled; the description therefore treats the missing calendar owner as a condition, not as background. Rahim (2002) argues that organizations manage conflict best by shaping the conditions that produce it, and a calendar with no owner is exactly such a condition.

Word Check

Table 1

Verbs Used for Each Party in This Description

Each party's account was checked to ensure neither was described with verbs implying fault, such as "ignored" or "demanded."

References

Jehn, K. A. (1995). A multimethod examination of the benefits and detriments of intragroup conflict. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40(2), 256-282. https://doi.org/10.2307/2393638

Pondy, L. R. (1967). Organizational conflict: Concepts and models. Administrative Science Quarterly, 12(2), 296-320. https://doi.org/10.2307/2391553

Rahim, M. A. (2002). Toward a theory of managing organizational conflict. International Journal of Conflict Management, 13(3), 206-235. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb022874