Conflict, Decision Making, and Organizational Design

Dr. Cooper
Bus 520
Conflict, Decision Making, and Organizational Design

Introduction In the era of globalization where businesses have expanded across the globe, competition has increased and has formed a new dynamism in the industry and the market itself. Every company works extra ordinarily to compete with its rivals and sustain its position in the industry. Well planned strategies are developed to give businesses a focused path to follow in order to achieve the aims and objectives of the firm. Labor is the most valuable asset in the whole process. Thus, keeping workers happy and satisfied is a challenge and the most significant task for the leaders of any firm. There are times when employees and employers have conflicts and disagreements over many issues. The following essay is the evaluation of such a case. It will discuss about the conflict, decision making and organizational design of McDonalds.

Discussions Before we begin with the conflicts the company faces, and what are the conflict management strategies etc, let’s first discuss the company itself and its human resource.

McDonalds Company History The McDonald's Corporation is American global operators who are the presenters of fast food restaurants. It is the top-selling fast food chain in the world. The first McDonald's restaurant was started on 15th May 1940 by the brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald ("Dick & Mac") in San Bernardino, California. The restaurant was known after 1948, when the brothers introduced an innovative and efficient way of cooking hamburgers and switched to self-service.
McDonald's currently operates approximately 32,000 restaurants in over 100 countries under its own brand. Its main products are the burgers, sandwiches, fries, menus for breakfast, soft drinks, smoothies, desserts and, recently, salads and fruit. It has included several children's play areas in many restaurants. It serves approximately 47 million customers a day.

Conflict Management When two or more people interact with each other, there are always some points where anyone disagrees. It is the stage where the other party has different notions than the former. The disagreement to conclude to a mutual decision is thus, resulted in conflict. Conflict can be defined as the presence of conflicting motivational structure with respect to the goal. Thus, in order to resolve conflicts, there is a conflict management science. Therefore, to resolve the conflicts, there are some negotiation strategies.

McDonalds and Conflict Management McDonald's employs thousands of young workers in hundreds of stores. It is one of the ten firms that has cultural identification of large sections of the youth. It was very complex to know the current employment situation of young people working in the multinational McDonald's, not only because of the particularity of the universe to be analyzed, but also the revenues and putting obstacles fast food company to its employees to express themselves freely on issues of work organization, the hiring, the various wage categories and, mainly, to provide an opinion on the specific culture of American businessman pool. The vast majority of respondents has completed their studies or are considering, despite the crisis, growing unemployment and insecurity. The idea of individual progress is tied directly to the myth of study and training. One wonders whether in the future this vision can become a myth in frustration, when many of them are not the long awaited progress. Workers in each hamburger chain have low wages; McDonald's does not pay overtime even if their employees work long hours. Hurry to get high profits and low wage cost resulting in an inefficient staff, but the staff has to work faster and as a result, accidents, burns are particularly common. Most employees are people who have few job options and so are forced to accept this exploitation. Not surprisingly, staff at McDonald's rotary is high, making it virtually impossible to organize and fight for a better deal, which suits McDonald's, which has always opposed to unionization. This has resulted in the conflict between the employer and the employees. Therefore, I am suggesting few negotiation strategies that can work for resolving the issue.

Negotiation Strategies to Address Potential Conflicts in the Workplace Negotiation strategies are actions that are carried out in order to meet the objectives in a negotiation. It defines how each party tries to drive it to achieve its objectives. This is a formal process, which places specific goals, and above all defines the range of prepared questions and always occurs in a specific context, in particular circumstances. The negotiation strategies include:

The First Negotiation Strategy It reduced to the opposition and the toughest positions partners;

The Second Negotiation Strategy It is struck between the need mild throbbing stiffness, i.e. reaches a pre-set goal and at the same time not to spoil relations with opponents;

The Third Strategy It involves negotiating solutions to problems based on the content of the conversation is not permitted replica and debates about the positions which each of the parties to strictly follows (they are principled negotiation, as there are fully taken into account the interests of both parties and achieved a positive result, which based on fair rules, irrespective of the will of one of the parties involved to negotiate). Additionally, in order to help McDonalds with effective negotiation strategies, I suggest it to follow the listed below approaches. • Collect and analyze information from the other party • Framing the negotiation as a joint effort • Find differences • Building coalitions

Evidence-Based Management The Evidence-Based Management (EBM) is an emerging technique that arises to use the best evidence available in making management decisions. It may help McDonalds in collecting and analyzing the data that will be needed to resolve the conflict between them and the employees. It follows a process that is applied in four steps: • formulation of appropriate questions, • selective search for evidence, • critical appraisal of the evidence • application of evidence Thus, it is a tool to help the company to create the structures of learning organization and knowledge management, the most valuable resource in the new information society and digital economy that will facilitate in conflict management. Even though for using the evidence based management system and concluding to the results, the company thus, need to have a strong decision making power to reach to the right and the beneficial outcome.

Blocks, Stages, and Methods of Creative Decision Making Decision making is the process by which performs make a choice between options or ways to solve different situations of life in different contexts: at work, family, sentimental, business (using quantitative methodologies provided by the administration).

The Different Stages of the Decision Making
Of course these phases will vary according to the complexity of the problem: from a simple sentence to records of thousands of pages in the case of a space shuttle for example. 1. The phase of understanding. This is to define as clearly as possible what the subject of decision making is. We must gather the most accurate, objective and evidences possible. We can also decide how to decide: define a method of selection for example. Or decide to delegate decision-making: for example at home, it was my wife who decides to purchase appliances. As it is she who uses the more it makes sense to me. 2. The search for different solutions: This is the phase of creativity. From the information gathered, we must define a list of possible solutions. One can also avail of an outsider: specialist, family, and friend. 3. The analysis of the options identified: It is possible to study each one by one. Weigh the pros and cons, advantages and disadvantages, strengths and weaknesses, in short all the important criteria in the particular context. During this phase it is important to remember your long term goals and short term. Normally the decisions you make should help you get closer to these goals. 4. Decision making - Taking action: We must now choose the best solution and put into practice immediately if possible. For a complete process must be monitored and analyzed the results against expectations and potentially alter or change the decision.

Blocks of Decision Making In addition, there are different levels of decision to be taken in a company: • Strategic decisions are binding on the company over a long period (more than 5 years). Decisions are made by the highest hierarchical level, that is to say either by the Directorate General or by the state. These decisions are unique, casual. • Tactical decisions: commit the company in the medium term (2 to 5 years). Decisions are made by the guidelines above. These decisions are infrequent, unpredictable. • Operational decisions: the company undertake short-term (less than 2 years). Decisions are made by the performers. These decisions are frequent, very predictable. Thus, the conflict that exists between the company and its employees has environmental factors that do affect the organizational design of the firm.

Affect of Environmental and Strategic Factors on organizational design Organizational design is a process that involves choosing a structure for the tasks, responsibilities and authority relationships within an organization. It influences patterns of communication between employees. Organizational design plays an important role for a company to succeed.

Environmental Factors Environmental factors that should be taken into account are: the characteristics of the environment and that this could occur in the future, and how these characteristics affect the organization's ability to function successfully. Every organization exists within an environment and the text shows us four important factors in the external environment: suppliers, distributors, competitors and customers.

Strategic Factors The strategies also affect design decisions of organizations. There are three basic strategies to gain a competitive advantage: cost leadership (low cost strategy), differentiation and focus strategies.

Conclusions Both the conflict and the need for the organization seem to be on the horizon not possible, the employment relationship is not considered as a relationship between two opposing factors, or as a process built, but as a product unalterable, unchangeable and, like all products , with the possibility of opting to buy it or not. But once bought "the rules are clear," imposes the naturalness of things. One wonders if this naturalization of things can be moved by an event that somehow breaks the prevailing sense. The whole essay was based on the scenario to develop effective negotiation strategies that can work the best for McDonalds to solve its conflicts with the employees over the wage issues.
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