1. Role Conflict Among
Service Employees
Chapter 9: Case 1
Darren Bumann
David Standley
Amy Tomich
Patrick Wilson
Brian Kennedy

2. Case Summary
 Maggie Beckhard was recently hired
as a supervisor of approximately 20
telephone customer-service
operators.
 Her previous job was supervision of
productions, a much different focus
than customer service.

3. Case Summary
 Maggie now has to deal with employees
who are facing cases of role conflict and
lack of clear responsibility.
• As customer service operators, their job entails
providing quality customer service regardless
of time and resources.
• As employees, they are charged with serving
the most amount of customers in the fastest
and most efficient manner.

4. ‘Roles’ in Business
 Advantages
• Increase internal communication
• Handle specialized or priority problems
• Increase task identity
• Allow specialization in tasks/training
 Disadvantages
• Role Conflict
• Incorrect Role Expectations/Perceptions
• Employee Dissatisfaction

5. Role Conflict
 Role Conflict- A situation in which an
individual is confronted by divergent
role expectations.
 Ex. Studying for a test on Friday
• Education- study to get good grades
• Social - go out late Thursday night
 Ex. Work vs. Home Life/Family

6. Problems
 Serving Two Masters (Opposing external
Role Expectations)
• Employees’ role conflict comes from being
forced to choose between opposing
constituents (opposing internal role
perceptions)
 To meet managerial objectives, operators must abide
by training guidelines and have high caller turnover
 To serve customer needs, operators must be allowed
sufficient time and flexibility to make sure customers
are satisfied

7. Problems
 From Managerial Perspective
• Increased Turnover and Absenteeism
• Lower Job Satisfaction
• Increased Turnover Costs
• Maggie believes that role conflict leads
to these problems because operators
can never satisfy both constituencies.

8. Solutions
 Eliminate Role Conflict in Operators
• Make management serve in customer-
contact positions periodically
 Gain perspective, lead to more realistic
goals/objectives for operators
• Encourage upward communication
from operators to management
 Having ideas and suggestions taken
seriously can increase task identity,
autonomy, and job satisfaction in
operators

9. Solutions
 Eliminate Role Conflict in Operators
• Survey Customer Satisfaction
 Market research of customer
needs/complaints can show operators where
to focus to better serve customers
• Reduce Emphasis of Management on
High Call Turnover
 Implement corporate culture of customer
service and Total Quality Management
• Ever-improving customer service
• Customer retention through satisfaction

10. Solutions
 Take Advantage of Role Conflict
• Empower operators to handle conflicts
• Distinguish between high- and low-
priority calls
• Use as catalyst for increased
communication to management

11. Role Divergence in Teams
 Role conflict in a team
• Conflict can arise between the goals of
an individual and goals of the team
• Role divergence can occur within a team
 A team “leader” may not be accepted by
others as a team “member”
 A team member may not want to oppose
team views (groupthink)

12. Question #1
 What’s the source of role conflict
here?
• Maggie’s employees experienced
opposing role expectations. They
believed:
 Customers wanted their undivided attention
and limitless time to solve problems
 Managers wanted high caller turnover and
as many calls handled as possible

13. Question #2
 Are there functional benefits to
management from role conflict?
• In this specific case, operators may feel
more obliged to serve customers as well
as they can
• Role conflict may encourage upward
communication about concerns

14. Question #3
 Should role conflict among these telephone
service employees be any greater than a typical
employee who works as part of a team and has to
meet the expectations of a boss as well as team
members?
• On one hand, a member of peer team may experience
greater conflict because satisfying both management
and team members over the long run can create difficult
decisions.
• On the other, these operators’ internal conflict can not
be eliminated without creating better service for
customers. Inferior service leads them to lower job
satisfaction, higher absenteeism, and higher turnover.

15. Question #4
 What can Maggie do to manage this role
conflict?
• Eliminate operators’ perception of role conflict
 Enhance culture of TQM and customer service
 Make managers serve as operators to understand the
situation and gain perspective on managerial
objectives
 Encourage employees to communicate needs and
concerns with managers about service