ORGANISATIONAL

BEHAVIOUR

Group Conflict & Negotiation

Presented by
M K BANDA
Order of Presentation
 Conflict in Perspective
 Group Membership and Impact
 Competition
 Conflict sources
 Functional Conflict
 Conflict Management
 Bargaining & Negotiation
 Management Conflict
 Interpersonal Conflict

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Conflict in Perspective
 Individual behaviour influenced by group
membership and relationship between
different groups
 Conflict defined as form of interaction among
parties that differ in interests, perceptions
and preferences
 Conflict is characterised by unwillingness to
give other party benefit of doubt regarding
their motives
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Conflict in Perspective
contd.
 Inter group conflict characterised by
ethnocentric view of others, over
valuing of own performance,
stereotyping others.
 Inter group conflict develops out of we
–they attitude and feelings
 Inter group conflict can be reduced by
shared common goal

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Group Membership
 Members of a group tend to believe whatever others
in reference groups believe, even when it contradicts
one’s visual perceptions.
 Groups tend to affirm individuals in ways they cannot
always do for themselves. By being accepted
individuals know that they are okay and erase any
doubts about their identity.
 Group membership comes with a series of pressures,
subtle or overt, to conform to a set of values or
behaviours that the group deems acceptable.
 In organizations are different functional groups,
professional specialties, hierarchical levels, ethnic
groups etc and any or all these can serve as focal
points for the creation of strong reference groups.
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Impact on Behaviour
 Reference groups are immediate and tangible sources of a sense of
belonging to the organization.
 Consequently, groups serve as vehicles for gaining commitment to
organizational goals and motivation to work.
 Group loyalty and commitment lead members to value their own
priorities, goals and points of view more highly than those of out
groups.
 This leads to a competitive we-they atmosphere between groups,
which further strengthens internal groups loyalty and out-group
hostility.
 Organizations find this as a major stumbling block in optimizing
productivity and reaching organization’s goals.
 As a result of conflict, the energy of both groups is being expended in
defense of their own position, as well as attacking the position of the
other group, all at expense of organization’s goals.
 In many such cases, conflict is a major cause of stress for the
individuals involved.

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Competition
 Competition is not necessarily dysfunctional.
 Competition between organizations increases
excellence of the product (quality) and customer
service.
 In sum, competition is both functional and
dysfunctional.
 It is functional when it results in greater team spirit
and effort.
 It is dysfunctional when it siphons energy away from
the overall mission of the organization.

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Conflict Sources
 Conflict in organizations is inevitable and comes from: we-they situations arising
from group membership and where these interface with different functions.
 Other causes are differences in values interests, personalities, education,
culture, perceptions goals and expectations.
 Deficient information that causes misunderstandings may result in conflict.
 Ambiguity can cause conflict when people do battle over power or turf that has
not been clearly assigned.
 Competition over scarce resources causes conflict.
 Group interdependence and outputs that depend on that of another department
can cause conflict.
 Human factors determine whether conflict will occur at interfaces – fight and
stand up for your group; being politically savvy knowing when conflict is
inappropriate.
 Other people thrive on conflict and create it wherever they go.

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Functional Conflict
 Dysfunctional conflict blocks the achievement of organization’s goals: it reduces
productivity, morale, and job satisfaction; it can cause heightened anxiety
(stress), absenteeism and turnover.
 Functional conflict forces articulation of views and positions which results in
greater clarification and understanding: it makes values and belief system of the
organization more visible and makes it easier to see organization’s priorities.
 In general, conflict preserves groups when it allows members to vent their
feelings without destroying relationships. When people band together in conflict,
group cohesiveness is increased.
 Conflict contributes to creativity that results when individuals are forced to find
new ways to look at situations and seek innovative solutions and decisions.
 In order to use conflict positively, employees must possess good conflict skills.
Team members must be trained in good conflict management. When groups
share norms about conflict handling and they are trained in conflict handling,
they are less likely to suppress conflict out of fear that the situation will blow
over.

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Conflict Handling Modes
 Thomas developed a taxonomy that reflects a
person’s strategic intention in a conflict
shown diagrammatically.
 The two axes are: Assertiveness – the degree
to which individual wants to satisfy his/her
own concerns and
 Cooperativeness – the degree to which he or
she wants to satisfy the concerns of the other
party.
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Conflict Handling Modes
High
Competition Collaboration
(Win-lose) (Win-win)

Assertiveness
Compromise
(Win some-lose some)

Avoidance Accommodation
(Lose –lose) (Lose-win)

Low High

Cooperativeness

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Bargaining Approaches
 Inter-group conflicts are resolved through bargaining
and negotiation.
 Bargaining approaches are of two types
 i) Distributive bargaining – classical win-lose
approach in which a fixed amount of resources is
divided. It has a short-term focus on resolutions
because it results in winning the battle and losing the
war. Resentful losers try to figure out a way to get
back at the winners, which creates adversarial
relationships and
 ii) Integrative bargaining a win-win approach suitable
to maintaining long-term resolutions. Settlements in
integrative bargaining consist of creative solutions.

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Negotiation
 Negotiation scheme is best based on integrative bargaining as it
avoids being soft or being hard and competitive.
 The alternative approach is “principled negotiation” consisting of
four principles:
 i) people: separate the people issues from problems, that is,
being “soft on people and hard on problem”.
 ii) interests: focus on interests not positions;
 iii) options: invent options for mutual gain;
 iv) criteria: insist on objective criteria - to avoid a stand-off,
look for objective criteria, like market value, expert opinion,
custom or law that are agreeable to both parties

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Summary
 The calling of workers and colleagues through our belief systems leads
to serious confrontations. Individuals bring different attitude to their
roles in organizations. Their values and needs have been shaped by
different socialization processes depending on: i) cultural and family
traditions ii) level of education and iii) breadth of experience etc
 Dysfunctional conflict blocks the achievement of organization’s goals: it
reduces productivity, morale, and job satisfaction; it can cause
heightened anxiety (stress), absenteeism and turnover.
 Functional conflict forces articulation of views and positions which
results in greater clarification and understanding
 Conflict preserves groups when it allows members to vent their feelings
without destroying relationships.
 Conflict contributes to creativity and innovative solutions and decisions.
 Inter-group conflicts are resolved through bargaining and negotiation
approaches: i) distributive bargaining – classical win-lose approach in
which a fixed amount of resources is divided and ii) integrative
bargaining a win-win approach with long-term solution.

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Review Questions

 Identify and explain why some people have

values and beliefs that lead to serious
confrontations.
 What is dysfunctional conflict and how does it
affect worker behaviour/
 Discuss how conflict could be harnessed to
bring about creativity.
 Distinguish between negotiation and
bargaining

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References

 Kolb D A, Osland J S Rubin I M, (1995)

Organizational Behavior: An Experiential
Approach Prentice Hall, New Jersey.
Chapter 11
 Cole G A, (2004) Organisational
Behaviour, Thomson Learning.
Chapter12

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Management Conflict
 Argenti (1976) - the leading causes of business failure is too much
agreement among top managers: they have similar training and
experience. Boards of Directors compound the problem by avoiding
conflict with a unified internal management team
 Constructive inter-person conflict correctly used is part of organization
life. An organization in which there is little disagreement fails in
competitive environments. Members fail to adapt to change, or they
see no need to change or improve.
 Conflict is the life-blood of vibrant, progressive, stimulating
organizations. Conflict sparks creativity, stimulates innovation and
encourages personal improvement Robbins (1978).
 Appropriate conflict can be beneficial: in corporate governance –
keeping companies on the right road in the face of forceful individuals
in authority.
 Conflict is a question of personal preference - arises from family
background, cultural values or personality characteristics, but is
reinforced by current experience
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Process of Conflict
 Past experiences, confirmed by recent but perhaps
irrelevant recent experience, make people believe
that conflict is necessary or should be avoided.
 When something triggers or questions our beliefs we
feel either aggressive or passive and act accordingly
without review.
 If we act aggressively then others respond
accordingly and a new ‘present’ experience reinforces
our decision to ‘go for conflict’ and a spiral begins
ending in a dysfunction.
 Conversely if we act passively, a spiral begins that
result in our interests being crushed.

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 Process of conflict

Present reinforcements Pride

Feedback One-up ness
Esteem

Positive outcomes
Feelings Actions
Beliefs

Negative outcomes

Lowered esteem
Introspection
Past messages/ Sense of loss
experiences Shame
Stopping point

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Managers and Conflict
 Most managers are ambivalent about conflict and this stems
from i) a lack of understanding of conflict causes ii) the variety
of modes for managing conflict effectively and iii) from lack of
confidence in one’s personal skills for handling the tense
emotionally charged environment typical of most interpersonal
confrontation.
 The task of the effective manager is to maintain an optimal
level of conflict while keeping conflict focused on productive
purposes.
 The balance requires that the manager must be able to: i)
recognize their own beliefs may lead them to inappropriate
action, ii) diagnose the causes of conflict, iii) decide on their
achievable objectives and, iv) settle on a strategy to handle
conflict so that objective is achieved.

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Personal Beliefs

 The concept is that past experiences confuse

us when we are attempting to handle current
situations.
 The confusion makes us act inappropriately
and with these experiences we rationalize as
our personal beliefs.
 Used appropriately, past experiences can
guide our actions through our lives.
 Used inappropriately, they lead us to a
catastrophe spiral.

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Effects of Beliefs
 Albert Ellis pointed out that 99% of the world’s ills are founded in four beliefs:
 i) A cosmic order of things: belief in absolute patterns and not probabilities.
Cosmic beliefs lead us to think that there are absolute patterns– blocking need
for detailed planning. Thus people tend to avoid conflict.
 ii) A fundamental acceptance of hierarchy : the belief in hierarchy leads us to
think that position determines the person. Thus, we tend to believe that people
holding high or senior positions are superior in everything and should not be
challenged. This tends to suggest that conflict within organization structures
should be avoided instead of being challenged.
 iii) Conformity to others: the belief that because we behave in a particular way,
others should have similar behaviour, beliefs and values. Those who do not
behave in this way are somehow wrong people. This leads to dysfunctional
conflict.
 iv) A belief in self: - concerned with reaching targets set by people in the past.
Parents and guardians set us objectives. Such objectives make us believe that to
be a successful person we have to achieve these set objectives and failure to
achieve means we have failed as a person.

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Interpersonal Conflict

 The calling workers and colleagues through are our belief

systems leads to serious confrontations.
 We label others as trouble makers or lazy simply because they
do not fit our patterns.
 Research has shown that managers tend to attribute poor
performance to personal deficiencies in workers such as
laziness, lack of skill, lack of motivation etc.
 When workers are asked to explain their poor performance,
they attribute it to poor supplies, uncooperative co-workers etc.
 Managers should guard against reflexive tendency to assume
that bad worker behaviour implies bad people.

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 Interpersonal Conflict
Source Focus of Conflict

Personal differences Perception and expectations

Information deficiency Misinformation and misrepresentations
Role incompatibility Goals and responsibilities
Environmental stress Resource scarcity and uncertainty

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Individual Value System
 Individuals bring different attitudes to their roles in
organizations.
 Values and needs have been shaped by different
socialization processes depending on:
 Cultural and family traditions, level of education and
breadth of experience etc.
 As a result their interpretations of events,
expectation about relationships will vary
considerably.
 Conflicts resulting from incompatible personal values
and needs are some of the most difficult to resolve

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Conflict in General
 Conflict based on misinformation tends to be
factual – additional info resolves issues
 Organisational complexity tends to produce
conflict between various groups – leading to
goal conflict
 Conflict from personal differences and role
incompatibility are exacerbated by a stressful
environment – scarcity of resources
 Uncertainty fosters conflict – makes
employees anxious and prone to conflict
arising from frustration.
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Summary

 Inter-group conflict occurs when i) members of each group have an ethnocentric

view of the other group; and strongly prefer ‘their own kind’ ii) each group
overvalues the performance of its own members and devalues the performance
of the other group and iii) each group stereotypes the other.
 Inter-group conflict develops out of ‘we-they’ attitudes and feelings. The key
variable is competition for scarce resources. Inter-group conflict can be reduced
by: i) non-competitive contact in which conflictual group has equal status ii) a
super-ordinate goal that is important for all and attainable only by joint
cooperation.
 Conflict is the life-blood of vibrant, progressive, stimulating organizations. It
sparks creativity, stimulates innovation and encourages personal improvement.
Appropriate conflict can be beneficial. It is important in corporate governance –
keeping companies on the right road in the face of forceful individuals in
authority.
 Four personal beliefs that lead to inaction are: cosmic order of things, belief in
hierarchy, others and self.

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Review Questions

 Explain how competition arises and how

it escalates into conflict.
 Explain management conflict.
 Describe the process of conflict.

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References

 Kolb D A, Osland J S Rubin I M, (1995)

Organizational Behavior: An Experiential
Approach Prentice Hall, New Jersey.
Chapter 11
 Cole G A, (2004) Organisational
Behaviour, Thomson Learning.
Chapter12

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 THANK YOU

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