The data on sales performance in LS Company has shown a important downward trend over the last year. The Marketing and Sales Department is blaming the Finance Department for the poor performance, since it was the pressure from the Finance Department that led the Marketing and Sales Department to increase the product price. The Marketing and Sales Department staff say that, in current market conditions, this was inappropriate and was the major reason for the loss of market share. They feel that the Finance Department staff are short sighted, too focused on costs in pricing decisions and do not appreciate that there are other factors that should be considered in product price setting. Though, the Finance Department thinks that the Marketing and Sales Department has been complacent and has not had an aggressive marketing and sales strategy in place. Perhaps not surprisingly, communications and cooperation amongthe staff in the two departments is at an all time low and in meetings there is constant in-fighting and disagreements.

Compare and contrast the different types and sources of conflict occurring in LS Company.

Conflict is essentially a disagreement and is when single party is perceived as preventing or interfering with the goals and actions of another. It can happen in a variety of forms and at dissimilar levels in an organisation. whereas conflict can be considered as an inevitable feature of organisation life, in the case of LS Company it is having negative outcomes.    

In LS Company, the poor communications and cooperation among the staff in the Marketing and Sales Department and the Finance Department is an instance of horizontal conflict. This type of conflict occurs among groups of staff or between departments at the similar level in the organisation hierarchy.