INTRA ORGANIZATIONAL CONFLICT AND ITS EFFECT ON OUTPUT. A CASE STUDY OF THE ST. ANTHONY HOSPITAL IN THE VOLTA REGION

Abstract

In many organizations, management team is concerned with improvement of organization's performance and profit maximization while employees have perceived interest of better conditions of service and a conducive working environment. When these opposing objectives are not properly dealt with, it results into a fall in the production of goods and services and thereby affects the general output performance of the organization. In light of this, the study sought to examine the role of intra organizational conflict and its management, and the effects on productivity within Catholic hospitals in the Volta Region using St Anthony Hospital, Dzodze as a case study. The study area was structured in three areas so as to fairly cover all geographical sections of the Region. To achieve these objectives, a total of 200 individuals belonging to 260 000 population were questioned or interviewed for the study. The researcher employed both probability and non- probability techniques to select respondents for inclusion in the sample for the study The study used Pearson Correlation analysis to provide solution to the hypothesis. The Correlation Coefficient of -0.332 showed that there IS a negative relationship between conflict and organizational productivity. The significant value (sv) of 0.000 supports the rejection of the null hypothesis. The study found out that the main cause of organizational conflict was identified as inappropriate communications and poor service delivery It was concluded that there is often an existence of conflict in organizations (hospitals) which mostly occurs between the hospital staffs and patients due to poor service delivery on the part of the staff and inappropriate communications between staff and patients. It was recommended that appropriate measures and mechanisms should be adopted by management of the hospitals to provide training to staff on good customer care delivery/services.