THE ROLE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS IN THE BANKING SERVICE INDUSTRY

THE ROLE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS IN THE BANKING SERVICE INDUSTRY

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ABSTRACT

In a society where people with a diverse interests, views, and values coexist, differences between such individuals and groups are to be expected. The objective of this research study is to look at conflict situations and its causes, as well as possible solution of improve working environment in an organization. The study shows that conflict stems from incompatibility of goals and interest and if it continued it will destroy the organization. Conflict affects the organization in several ways such as decreased employee satisfaction, insubordination, decreased productivity, economic loss, fragmentation, and poor performance. A formal questionnaire was constructed and survey method was used to collect data from a target group of respondents. Descriptive analytical techniques such as frequency, percentage, and Chi-square was used to analyzed the research hypotheses. The major findings revealed that there is a significant difference between the causes of conflict in banking sector and selected banks in Southwest region of Nigeria. However, there is a significant difference between the effects of organizational conflict and performance of employees in banking sector. The study concluded with some recommendations that management should adopt conflict management strategies that improve the performance of the organization, besides ensuring a free flow of communication between the management and the employee as well as promote interpersonal relationships among co-workers to boost their morale.

1.0            INTRODUCTION

According to David ideal (1983) public relations is the study of principle philosophies theories attitudes and the ideas which govern human activities. The public relation practitioner employs effective communications to build, sustain and defend his organization’s reputation among both its internal and external publics.

Conflict among workers in an organization is inevitable. If it manages properly, it will bring catalyst for change and can have a positive impact on employee satisfaction and performance of the organization. Conversely, unmanaged conflict negatively impacts both employee satisfaction and job performance. When organizational leaders ignore workplace conflict, they send a message that unsatisfactory job performance and inappropriate behavior are acceptable.

Awan and Anjum (2015), says that properly managed conflict promotes open communication, collaborative decision making, regular feedback, and timely resolution of conflict. Open communication and collaboration enhance the flow of new ideas and strengthen work relationship, which can have a positive effect on employee morale. Regular feedback and timely resolution of conflict has the potential of improving employee satisfaction and job performance.

Awan and Anjum (2015) argue that a negative work environment that does not promote conflict resolution can result in poor employee behavior and job performance. Unmanaged conflict promotes dysfunctional communication and poor behavior among staff. Poor behavior on the part of one employee has the power to affect overall employee morale, which results in lower productivity. According to Dana (2000), “conflict is not just an annoyance. It costs money and those costs can be calculated, in terms of wasted time, bad decision, lost employees.” In the health care industry, patients’ health and even their lives can be affected by unmanaged conflict.

Awan and Ibrahim (2015) contend that if the individuals do not have the communication or interpersonal skills to resolve their disputes, the conflict can grow and spread to others, eventually affecting their job performance, which, in turn, affects the job satisfaction of others, as well in addition to the staff not having the communication skills to address their disputes, their leaders often lack the necessary skills to be effective in conflict resolution. Once human resources personnel are involved, the process becomes punitive and results in disciplinary action, which contributes to an even greater reduction in employee morale and employee satisfaction. Within any organization, there are usually different positions and jobs. People occupying these positions have different perceptions, goals, thought and concerns. It is difficult to conceptualize society or an organization without inherent differences and contradictions and these leads to conflict. In organization a serious problem can be conflicts that are very serious. This is the bad practice that will be impossible for the workers to at the same place for work.

Public relations become recognized as a management function. The emergence of public relations as a management function led to further improvement on public relations tolls like   public opinion, publicity, advertising, propaganda, press release conference etc;  financial institutions began to hire experienced people for publicity function in the recent period further development of public relation’s practices was achieve public relations is the art and science of achieving harmony with the environment through mutual understanding based on truth and full information (Black 1989:210).  This means that public relations is a distinctive management function which helps in establishing and maintaining mutual lines of communication, understanding acceptance and cooperation between a organization and its public.

Awan and Ahson (2015) say that conflict is a natural and inevitable part of people working together and should be kept at a manageable level where it will not disorganize the activities of the organization towards the attainment of its objectives. Awan et al (2015), opined that conflict may also be beneficial to the organization where it brings about radical change in the organizational power structure, current interaction pattern and entrenched attitude and also can lead to increase in productivity. While some conflicts are functional others are not. It can also affect the organization negatively when it is associated with decreased employee satisfaction, insubordination, decreased productivity, leads to economic loss, fragmentation to mention but a few.

It is the management major responsibility to device strategies in bringing down conflict as low as possible, which will enable the organization to still function to succeed (Robbins & Sanghi, 2006) against this background the study was being carried out on the negative effect of conflict. The focus of this study therefore is to investigate the role of public relations as a strategic conflict resolution tool in some selected banking firms in Southwest region of Nigeria.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The banking industry in recent times has experienced a lot of problems ranging from insolvency, liquidation, bankruptcy, conflicts, crisis, and inefficiency and among others, which has gone a long way in giving negative impressions of them before their publics. The constant occurrence of these problems which are the direct products of poor communication, poor relationship and poor management styles, purely indicates that Public relations has not fully been integrated into the system of these service organizations. The publics of these affected organizations both internal and external are mainly victims of dissatisfaction, discouragements and regrets. The availability of these problems and impressions has called immensely for the application of the strategic tool of Public relations, which specializes in ensuring two-way communication between the organization and her publics, corporate social responsibility, image building, correction of negative impressions, rumour management and among other things the resolution of conflicts and crisis management.

1.3     OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1.       The role of public relations in the banking service industry is undeniably quite immense and crucial even as a strategic tool of conflict resolution. The objectives of this research work are:-

1.       To identify the nature/type of conflicts in the banking service industry

2.       To discover the areas of conflict in the banking service industry

3.       To determine the effects of conflict in the banking service industry

4.       To determine why Public Relation should be accepted and used in the bank as a strategic tool to resolve conflicts.

5.       To discover, in the light of the findings of this study, other offerings of public relations to the service organizations and make recommendations that will enhance the application of public relations strategies in these organizations for conflict-free operations.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1.       What are the causes of conflict in banking sector in selected banks in Southwest region of Nigeria?

2.       What are the effects of organizational conflict on performance of employees in banking sector?

3.What technique do managers adopt in solving such conflict?

RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

Hypothesis 1

H0:     There is no significant difference between the causes of conflict in banking sector and selected banks in Southwest region of Nigeria

H1:     There is a significant difference between the causes of conflict in banking sector and selected banks in Southwest region of Nigeria

Hypothesis 2

H0:     There is no significant difference between the effects of organizational conflict and performance of employees in banking sector.

H1:     There is a significant difference between the effects of organizational conflict and performance of employees in banking sector.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The study is considered relevant to selected banks in Southwest region of Nigeria. Since the effect of conflict can hinder the performance of the organization. The knowledge gained will also be vital the government in making the right policies that will positively affect the Banking industries; it is also relevant to businesses and students in furthering their studies. The managers of the selected banking industries will also benefit in this study, which will provide a model for an effective means of managing conflict.


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