Topic: Conflict and Negotiations

 After this Presentation, you can able to answer:

◦ Define conflict.
◦ Differentiate between the traditional, resolution focused,
and interactionist views of conflict.
◦ Outline the conflict process.
◦ Define negotiation.
◦ Contrast distributive and integrative bargaining.
◦ Apply the five steps in the negotiation process.
◦ Show how individual differences influence negotiations.
◦ Assess the roles and functions of third-party negotiations.
◦ Describe cultural differences in negotiations.

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 A process that begins when one party perceives that
another party has negatively affected, or is about to
negatively affect, something that the first party
cares about.
 Encompasses a wide range of conflicts that people
experience in organizations
◦ Incompatibility of goals
◦ Differences over interpretations of facts
◦ Disagreements based on behavioral expectations

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 THE TRADITIONAL VIEW OF CONFLICT
 THE INTERACTIONIST VIEW OF CONFLICT
 MANAGED CONFLICT VIEW

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 The beliefthat all conflict is harmful and
must be avoided.
Conflict was bad and to be avoided it was
viewed negatively and discussed with such
terms as VIOLENCE,DESTRUCTION and
IRRATIONALITY to reinforce its negative
connotation.

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  Poor communication
  Lack of openness
  Failure to respond to employee needs

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 The belief that conflict is not only a positive force in
a group but also an absolute necessity for a group to
perform effectively.
It encourages conflict on the grounds that a
harmonious peaceful. The major contribution of the
view is recognizing that a minimal level of conflict
can help keep a group creative.
 Functional conflict
 Dysfunctional conflict

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 Surfaces important problems so they can be
addressed.
 Causes careful consideration of decisions.
 Increases information available for decision
making.
 Provides opportunities for creativity.

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 Harms group cohesion.
 Promotes interpersonal hostilities.
 Can decrease work productivity and job
satisfaction.
 Can contribute to absenteeism and job turnover.

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 Task Conflict
 Conflicts over content and goals of the work
 Low-to-moderate levels of this type are
FUNCTIONAL
 Relationship Conflict
 Conflict based on interpersonal relationships
 Almost always DYSFUNCTIONAL
 Process Conflict
 Conflict over how work gets done
 Low levels of this type are FUNCTIONAL
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Target corporation investor, William
Ackman tried, unsuccessfully, for
many years to convince the retailer
to change its business strategy to
improve performance and boost
shareholder returns.
 He asked shareholders to elect
candidates who would bring new
ideas to Target’s board, which he
claimed was slow in making critical
decisions. After a long battle that
cost Target millions of dollars in
defending itself, the shareholders
voted to keep the current board
members.
 Ackman is shown here meeting with
the media after losing the battle.

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 Argues that instead of encouraging ‘’Good’’
or discouraging ‘’Bad’’ conflict its more
important to resolve naturally occurring
conflicts productively.

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 We will focus on each step in a moment…

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 Communication
 Semantic difficulties, misunderstandings, over communication
and “noise”
 Structure
 Size and specialization of jobs
 Jurisdictional clarity/ambiguity
 Member/goal incompatibility
 Leadership styles (close or participative)
 Reward systems (win-lose)
 Dependence/interdependence of groups
 Personal Variables
 Differing individual value systems
 Personality types
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 Important stage for two reasons:

1. Conflict is defined
▪ Perceived Conflict
▪ Awareness by one or more parties of the existence of conditions
that create opportunities for conflict to arise

2. Emotions are expressed that have a strong

impact on the eventual outcome
▪ Felt Conflict
▪ Emotional involvement in a conflict creating anxiety, tenseness,
frustration, or hostility

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 Intentions
 Decisions to act in a given way
 Note: behavior does not always accurately reflect
intent
 Dimensions of conflict-handling intentions:
 Cooperativeness
▪ Attempting to satisfy
the other party’s
concerns
 Assertiveness
▪ Attempting to satisfy
one’s own concerns

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Competing
A desire to satisfy one’s interests, regardless of the
impact on the other party to the conflict.

Collaborating
A situation in which the parties to a conflict each
desire to satisfy fully the concerns of all parties.

Avoiding
The desire to withdraw from or suppress a conflict.
Accommodating
The willingness of one party in a conflict to place the
opponent’s interests above his or her own.

Compromising
A situation in which each party to a conflict is
willing to give up something.
 Conflict Management

 The use of resolution and stimulation techniques

to achieve the desired level of conflict
 Conflict-Intensity Continuum

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 Functional
◦ Increased group performance
◦ Improved quality of decisions
◦ Stimulation of creativity and
innovation
◦ Encouragement of interest
and curiosity
◦ Provision of a medium for
problem solving
 Managing Functional
◦ Creation of an environment for
self-evaluation and change
 Dysfunctional
◦ Development of discontent
◦ Reduced group effectiveness
◦ Retarded communication
◦ Reduced group cohesiveness
◦ Infighting among group
members overcomes group
goals
Conflict
◦ Reward dissent and punish
conflict avoiders
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IBM benefits from the diversity
of its employees who engage in
functional conflict that improves
the company’s performance.
For innovation to flourish, IBM needs
different employee experiences,
perspectives, skills, ideas, interests,
information, and thinking.
IBM employees shown here
broaden their diversity experiences
and perspectives by participating in
overseas assignments in emerging
markets.

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 Conflict Resolution
Techniques
◦ Problem solving
◦ Super ordinate goals
◦ Expansion of resources
◦ Avoidance
◦ Smoothing
◦ Compromise
◦ Authoritative command
◦ Altering the human
variable
◦ Altering the structural
variables
 Conflict Stimulation
Techniques
◦ Bringing in outsiders
◦ Communication
◦ Restructuring the
organization
◦ Appointing a devil’s
advocate
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Negotiation (Bargaining)
 A process in which two or more parties exchange
goods or services and attempt to agree on the
exchange rate for them
 Two General Approaches:
 Distributive Bargaining
▪ Negotiation that seeks to divide up a fixed amount of
resources; a win-lose situation
 Integrative Bargaining
▪ Negotiation that seeks one or more settlements that can
create a win-win solution

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United Auto Workers officials (left)
and Ford Motor Company officials
shake hands during news conference
for the start of national negotiations
in July 2011. Both UAW and
Ford say that they are committed
to integrative bargaining in finding
mutually acceptable solutions
to create a win-win settlement that
will help boost their competitiveness
with other automakers in the
United States and abroad.

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Bargaining Characteristic Distributive
Bargaining Integrative Bargaining

Goal Get all the pie you can Expand the pie
Motivation Win-Lose Win-Win
Focus Positions Interests
Information Sharing Low High
Duration of Relationships Short-Term Long-Term

Integrative

Distributive

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 Research shows that when you’re engaged
in distributive bargaining, one of the best
things you can do is make the first offer,
and make it an aggressive one.
 Shows power.
 Establishes an anchoring bias.
 Another distributive bargaining tactic is
revealing a deadline.
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 Why don’t we see more integrative
bargaining in organizations?
 The answer lies in the conditions necessary for
this type of negotiation to succeed.
▪ Parties who are open with information and candid
about their concerns.
▪ A sensitivity by both parties to the other’s needs.
▪ The ability to trust one another.
▪ A willingness by both parties to maintain flexibility.
 These conditions seldom exist in organizations. 14-28
 Compromise might be your worst enemy in
negotiating a win-win agreement.
 The reason is that compromising reduces the
pressure to bargain integratively.

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 BATNA
 The Best Alternative To
a Negotiated
Agreement
 The lowest acceptable
value (outcome) to an
individual for a
negotiated agreement

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 Before you start negotiating, you need to do
your
homework.
 What’s the nature of the conflict?
 What do you want from the negotiation?
 What are your goals?
 You also want to assess what you think are
the other party’s goals.

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 Once you’ve done your planning and
developed a strategy, you’re ready to begin
defining with the other party the ground rules
and procedures of the negotiation itself.
 Who will do the negotiating?
 Where will it take place?

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 When you have exchanged initial positions,
both you and the other party will explain,
amplify, clarify, bolster, and justify your
original demands.
 Provide the other party with any
documentation that helps support your
position.

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 The essence of the negotiation process is the
actual give-and-take in trying to hash out an
agreement. This is where both parties will
undoubtedly need to make concessions.

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 The final step in the negotiation process is
formalizing the agreement you have worked
out and developing any procedures necessary
for implementing and monitoring it.
 For most cases, however, closure of the
negotiation process is nothing more formal
than a handshake.

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 In May 2012, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung
CEO Gee-Sung Choi met with a judge in the U.S.
District Court of Northern California in an attempt
to reach a settlement in a high-profile U.S. patent
case.
 Back in April 2011, Apple had filed a lawsuit
accusing Samsung of copying the “look and feel” of
the iPhone when the Korean company created its
Galaxy line of phones.

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 The Role of Mood & Personality Traits in
Negotiation
 Positive moods positively affect negotiations
 Traits do not appear to have a significantly direct
effect on the outcomes of either bargaining or
negotiating processes (except extraversion, which
is bad for negotiation effectiveness)
 Women negotiate no differently from men,
although men apparently negotiate slightly better
outcomes.
 Men and women with similar power bases use the
same negotiating styles.
 Women’s attitudes toward negotiation and their
success as negotiators are less favorable than
men’s.

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 Cultural Differences in Negotiations
 Multiple cross-cultural studies on negotiation
styles, for instance:
▪ American negotiators are more likely than Japanese
bargainers to make a first offer
▪ North Americans use facts to persuade; Arabs use
emotion; and Russians use asserted ideals
▪ Brazilians say “no” more often than Americans or
Japanese

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In this photo, Japanese labor union
leader Hidekazu Kitagawa (right)
presents the group’s annual wage
and benefits demands to Ikuo Mori,
president of Fuji Heavy Industries,
Ltd., the manufacturer of Subaru
automobiles. Studies on how negotiating
styles vary across national
cultures reveal that the generally
conflict-avoidant Japanese negotiators
tend to communicate indirectly
and use a more polite conversational
style. Their style of interaction
is less aggressive than other
Cultures.

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 Personality Traits
 Extroverts and agreeable people are weaker at
distributive negotiation; disagreeable introverts are
best
 Intelligence is a weak indicator of effectiveness
 Mood and Emotion
 Ability to show anger helps in distributive bargaining
 Positive moods and emotions help integrative
bargaining
 Gender
 Men and women negotiate the same way, but may
experience different outcomes
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 Four Basic Third-Party Roles
 Mediator
▪ A neutral third party who facilitates a negotiated solution by using
reasoning, persuasion, and suggestions for alternatives
 Arbitrator
▪ A third party to a negotiation who has the authority to dictate an
agreement.
 Conciliator
▪ A trusted third party who provides an informal communication link
between the negotiator and the opponent
 Consultant
▪ An impartial third party, skilled in conflict management, who attempts
to facilitate creative problem solving through communication and
analysis

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 Choose an authoritarian management style
 Be certain to communicate with logic
 Seek integrative solutions
 Avoid an issue when it is trivial
 Build trust by accommodating others
 Consider compromising when goals are
important
 Try to find creative ways to achieve the
objectives of both parties
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 Conflict is a reality that crosses all organizational boundaries
to affect individuals, groups and disciplines.
 Administrators must recognize that conflict exists, and bring
it out into the open so that the issue can be effectively dealt
with.
 Understanding conflict will enable administrators to deal
more effectively.
 Handled properly through an appropriate conflict
management style.
 "it is to be hoped that ... we shall always have conflict, the
kind which leads to invention, to the emergence of new
values“ (Marry Parker)

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