AN APPRAISAL OF COMMUNICATION AS A TOOL FOR RESOLVING CONFLICT IN THE BANKING INDUSTRY

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Background Of The Study

Communication is the passing on of ideas and information. In business, we need good and effective communication, the contact may be between people organization or places and can be in a number of forms such as speech, writing, data communication, actions and gestures.

We all have to communicate. To commutation well, requires not only the development of the basic skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing but also an awareness and understanding of the audience and the environment. Successful communication requires not only that information should be transmitted, but that it should be fully receive and understood. Listening and reading skills and writing skills (Needham and Dransfield 1990).

People in business spend about 70% of their working time in conscious and purposeful communication through speaking, reading or working. They also communicate unconsciously to the major function of an organization setting goals and objectives, making and implementing decisions, measuring resulting, hiring and development staff, dealing with customers and interacting with regulatory agencies.

If we had no communication of information to use, our lives would be no growth or transformation. We would not be enlightened, we should live in total ignorance. Life would not be worth living.

Communication is therefore the sharing of information. It is the most important human survival skill because we need it to maintain contact with the world. Yes, everybody communicated because communication itself is life (Monagham 1981).

Communication is thus a social phenomenon. It is a social intercourse, it is part and parcel of society as well as human existence. It may be used for different purpose viz achieving economic, political, religious, cultural, as well as social objectives. Communication links different people together, and provide experience that promotes social solidarity. Within this contact communication therefore can be seen as a means of transforming information to one’s self and others. (Daniel, 1995).

From pre-historic time, man has trying to inform his fellow man through one form of communication or the other that is through speech, sings, and signals, crude writing on walls or stones, drawing of animals. Apart from these, a variety of signifying form such as building, pictures, status, coins, banners and rituals of all kinds were used to express. Sometimes highly compel ideas.

Trading these forms of communication have been new dimensions into interpersonal and public or mass communication. (Akpan 1993)

Communication in its most general sense is a chain of event in which the significant link is a message in which the case harmonizing sense, communication is a source that can be learned and shared. It is production, perception and understanding of messages that bears the man’s notion of what is important, what is right and what is related to something else.

1.1.1 Brief Historical Background Of First Bank Of Nig (Plc)

The first commercial bank established in Nigeria was the African banking corporation (ABC) in 1983. The bank suffered serious set backs due to lack of manpower and the economic condition of the country. Thus, to save as pilot for the colonial masters George Williams Neville and Alfred Lewis joins a private British shipping company applied to the colonial official in London and got clearance to form British West Africa (BBWA), the bank was in corporation March 31st 1894 in London but commenced business in August 1894 and took over ABC (Ndekwu, 1994: 13)

In June 1954, the word British was dropped from the name of the bank as a direct response to the clamour for independence and self rule. The bank then called Bank of west Africa (BWA).
A further change in mane was affected on November 1st 1966 to standard Bank of west Africa (SBWA) to reflect the merger of the BWA with standard bank of London.

During the Nigeria civil was companies DECREE No 2 of 196 were promulgated leading to the incorporation of SBWA on June 20, 1966 under the new name Standard Bank of Nigeria Limited (Ndekwu 1994, 93)
The tremendous changes which occurred in the early seventies in the Nigeria Economy put considerable pressure not only on the banking institution, but on other companies as well. These changes were necessitated by the federal government of the companies Decree of 1968. Thus no October 1, 1979 the standard Bank of Nigeria limited took a new first bank of Nigeria Limited.

This name was considered fit and reflective of the identity of the bank of the first successful commercial Bank in the country.
From the initial branch network of four (4) in 1896, the bank has grown to over 500 branches as at 2006 and with assert base well over ten billion naira.

1.2 Statement Of The Problem

Many communications fail because the sender tires to convey a message contains too much information, it is difficult to absorb.

One of the most serious problems that organization face today is that of communication. Every person in the organization wants to get information about the happening in his or her organization.

The manager, on the other hand, needs to know the job performance of his subordinates and also the problems that such subordinates face. The subordinates also wants to know what management plants are.

In Nigeria industries today, this vital point of smooth relationship between workers and management has need overlooked and this had led to dissatisfaction and industries unrest.

The organization is faced with a situation where staff will feel they are not being allowed to know what is happening in the organization and what they will want to do to retain their right, while management holds the opinion that staff have done enough to find out what they should know about their job. It is based on the problem of frequent instability and industrial conflict in industrial sector which hinder effective job performance and organization growth.

The researcher decided to examine this and therefore suggest ways of avoiding the question of why staff and management play the cat and dog game while they both purport to pursue the same goal.
The research also examine the conflict between the organization and customers or partners, organization and the host communities.

It is on this basis, that there is need to examine the importance of communication as a tool of resolving conflicts in the banking industry, in order to maintain its goals with ease.

1.3 Objectives Of The Study

This research has as its objective as;

1. To assess whether communication is a tool for resolving conflict in the banking industry.
2. To examine the various modes of communication used by First Bank Plc in solving their conflicts.
3. To identify possible obstacles or barriers to communication and also be state the possibilities of removing most of these barriers.
4. To ascertain the level of relationship between communication and conflict resolution in the banking industry.
5. To determine whether is a relationship between strategies of communication and using communication to achieve organizational goals.

1.4 Research Question

1. Has communication helped in conflict resolving in banks?
2. Which strategies of communication can be used by First Bank Nig. (Plc), Owerri in resolving organizational conflict?
3. What problem are faced by bank, in using communication to resolving conflict?
4. What are the possible solution to such problem?

1.5 Significance Of The Study

The findings from this study will assist the management of First Bank Nig. (Plc) Owerri to know the strategies for managing industrial conflict.
The study will also serve as a reference material t researchers students and writers in subject matters relating to this work.

1.6 Scope And Limitation Of The Study

This research confines itself to discussing how the management of First Bank Nig. (Plc) used communication to reduce industrial crisis in the organization.
Due to lack of time and financial constraints on the part of the researcher, the study is limited to only the data received from 80 (eighty) employers of the (6) six department in the organization.

1.7 Definition Of Terms

Some terms used in this research work are defined to suit the context for which there are used.

Communication:

Is the process by which people attempt to share meaningful through symbols messages (Ikpe, 1993).

Sender:

The sender initials the communication in an organization. The sender will be a person with needs, desire of information and a purpose for communicating them to one more people.

Encoding:

The sender encodes the information to be transmitted by translating it into a series of symbols.

Message:

The message is the physical form in which the sender encodes the information.

Channel:

This is the mode of transmission by which a message moves from source of the message to the receiver of the message (such as air for spoken words and paper for written words)

Decoding:

Decoding is the process by which the receiver interprets the message and translates it into information that is meaningful to him or her.

Noise:

Noise is any factor that intervened between encoding and decoding.

Feedback:

Mortensen (1919), defines feedback as the process of adjusting one’s communication behavior so as to take account of the observed influence of that behavior on the listeners”. It is also a reversal of the communication processing which a reaction to the sender communication is expressed.

None-Verbal Communication:

Is defined by Mthans (1988) as “all behavior expressed consciously or unconsciously performed in the perceived either consciously or uncounsciously.

An Organization:

An organization structure is the formalized procedures through which a business is managed. It could be defined as the framework within which management operates.

Conflict:

This has been defined as “the condition of objective in compatibility of deliberately interfering with an other’s goals, achievement, and emotional in terms of hostility (Kiyman and Thomas 1918)

Crisis:

This has been defined as “any event issue, occurrence or situation that could be described as a turning point, for better or for worse”. It has also been defined as a period of heightened uncertainty that uncertainty that increase the need o plan, and a point in time in which external and internal pressure change objectives and operational practices of an organization (Nkwocha 1999)