TERM PROJECT- WEIGHS 40% OF FINAL GRADE Step-by-step1: Identify a Failed Collaboration with Significant Issues/Stakes Identify a specific case of collaboration failure for an in-depth analysis. The ca

CHAPTER 9:

TYPES OF CONFLICTS

In general, there are three types of conflicts:

• task conflict

• relationship conflict

• process conflicts

Task conflict 

• Task conflicts are usually related to the content and goals of the work.

• Effect of task conflict on performance is less clear, and it depends on

  • Who are involved, top management or lower level?

    • Conflict among top management teams is associated with higher performance

    • Conflict among low-level employees is associated with lower performance

  • Whether relationship conflict is also involved?

    • Yes? Then it is more likely to lead to lower performance

  • Intensity of conflict

    • Neither low or high level of intensity is beneficial

    • Moderate level is optimal

  • Personality composition of team members

    • Higher performance is more likely if team members are high in openness and emotional stability

Relationship conflict

• Relationship conflict focuses on relationships and often take the form of personality clashes as well as interpersonal hostility and friction

• Relationship conflicts are almost always dysfunctional. Research has shown that relationship conflicts

  • decrease mutual understanding

  • are psychologically exhausting

  • tend to be more destructive than other types of conflicts

• Tips for handling relationship conflict:

  • If you are involved in a conflict:

    • Communicate directly with the other person to resolve the perceived conflict.

    • Avoid dragging co-workers into the conflict.

    • If necessary, seek help from direct supervisors or human resource specialists.

  • If you are not involved:

    • Do not take sides.

    • Suggest the parties work things out themselves.

    • If necessary, refer the problem to parties’ direct supervisors.

Process conflict

• Process conflict usually revolve around delegation and role

• Process conflict tend to become highly personalized and transform into relationship conflict

Conflicts may be beneficial in some cases but very rarely people wall off their feelings into categories of task, process, or relationship conflicts

Managers can minimize the negative effects of conflict by focusing on preparing people for conflicts developing resolution strategies facilitating open discussion. Specifically, managers should prevent conflicts from happening by eliminating sources of conflicts and equip employees with proper conflict resolution strategies. On the team- and organizational level, managers should also consider adopting managerial structures that are less prone to conflicts. 

Communication

• Through semantic difficulties, misunderstandings and “noise” in the communication channels

• Conflicts are more likely when there is too little or too much communication

• Size, specialization, and composition of the group (Larger groups, highly specialized tasks, younger members, high turnover)

• Ambiguity responsibility: Higher ambiguity leads to greater potential for conflict

• Zero-sum reward systems create conflicts, as in such systems employees need to compete, sometimes unethically, for rewards

• Leadership style: Conflicts is more likely when managers exert tight control and leave employees little discretion

• The diversity of goals

• If one group is dependent on another

• Personality: People high in disagreeableness, neuroticism, or self-monitoring are prone to tangle with other people more often, and to react poorly when conflict occurs

• Emotions (e.g., negative affectivity)

• Value incongruence

strategies

• Cooperativeness: The degree to which one party attempts to satisfy the other party’s concerns.

• Assertiveness: The degree to which one party attempts to satisfy his or her own concerns.

Choose between conflict resolution strategies wisely:

• Issue is trivial

• Issue is a symptom

• No chance you’ll win

• Others are in better position to resolve

• Need to buy time

• Other’s needs are more important than yours

• Group goals are more important than yours

• Build up your “bank”

• Harmony is essential

• Issue is of moderate importance

• Halfway point is meaningful to everyone

• Equal power

• Speed is important

• Issue is important

• Speed is important

• Future relationship unimportant

• Have power in relationship

• Issue is important

• Common enemy present

• Trust is high enough to warrant info exchange

• No severe time pressure

• Integration possible

In preparing employees for conflicts, managers should also examine the organization to see if the very structure of the organization is responsible or partially responsible for conflicts. Listed below are some options that managers should consider when examining the organizational level factors behind conflicts.

• Expansion of resources: If conflict is due to limited resource, expansion of the resource may be a win-win solution

• Authoritative command: Management use formal authority to resolve conflict

• Altering the human variable: If conflicts are caused by attitudes and behaviors human relations training may be a solution

• Altering the structural variables: If conflicts are caused by the organizational structure, conflicts may be solved by job redesign or transfers

THIRD-PARTY CONFLICT RESOLUTION

Sometimes parties directly involved in a conflict may not be able to solve the conflict, which prompts the need for third party intervention. In most cases, third parties play one of the following four roles: 

• Mediator

• Arbitrator

• Conciliator

• Consultant

Mediator

• A mediator is a neutral third party who facilitates a negotiated solution by using reasoning, persuasion, and suggestions for alternatives. 

• Mediators often appear in labour-management negotiations and civil court disputes

• Settlement rate through mediators is about 60 percent; satisfaction rate is about 75 percent

• The success of mediators depends on:

  • whether participants are motivated to bargain and settle

  • intensity of conflict: mediators are most effective under moderate levels of conflict

  • whether the mediator appears neutral and non-coercive

Arbitrator

• Arbitrators have the authority to dictate an agreement.

• The use of an arbitrator can be voluntary (requested) or compulsory (imposed by law or contract)

• Use of an arbitrator will always result in a settlement however, conflict may resurface at a later time

Conciliator

• Conciliators are trusted third parties who provide an informal communication link between the negotiator and the opponent.

• Use of conciliators is informal in nature

• Conciliators are used extensively in international, labor, family, and community disputes

• Conciliators engage in fact-finding, interpretation of messages, and persuading disputants to develop agreements

Consultant

• Consultants are skilled and impartial third parties who attempt to facilitate problem-solving through communication and analysis, aided by a knowledge of conflict management

• Consultants do not try to settle the issues but rather work to improve relationships between parties so they can reach a settlement for themselves

• The use of consultants require longer-term focus: It is based on building new and positive perceptions and attitudes between the conflicting parties

NEGOTIATION BASICS

• Definition: Negotiation refers to a process in which two or more parties exchange goods or services and attempt to agree upon the exchange rate for them. 

• How to negotiate? There are five steps to negotiation:

• Five steps to negotiation:

  • Developing a strategy

  • Definition of ground rules

  • Clarification and justification

  • Bargaining and problem-solving

  • Closure and implementation - Distributive bargaining

Developing a strategy

Know your

• Issues: items that are specifically placed on the bargaining table for discussion

• Positions: Individual stand on the issues

• Interests: The underlying concerns that are affected by the negotiation resolution

• Aspiration or bargaining range, as defined by target point and resistance point

  • Target point: the most ideal but realistic outcome

  • Resistance point: the point where you would walk away from the negotiation

• BATNA: Best alternative to a negotiated agreement. This is your backup offer. Therefore, the outcome from the current negotiation has to be better than your BATNA, or you should simply choose your BATNA.

Defining group rules

Reach agreement with the other party regarding the details about the negotiation

• Who will do the negotiation?

• Where will it take place?

• What time constraints, if any, will apply?

• To what issues will negotiation be limited?

• Will there be a specific procedure to follow if an impasse is reached?

• Exchange initial proposals or demands

Clarification and Justification

• This is an opportunity for both parties to explain, amplify, clarify, bolster, and justify their original demands

• No need to be confrontational

• A persuasion process in which you convince the other party about why your demands are legitimate and why it is important to fulfill such demands

Bargaining and Problem-Solving + Closure and Implementation

• Competing and collaborating strategies in negotiations tend to result in better outcomes than compromising and accommodating strategies

• Finalizing negotiation involving hammering out the specifics in a formal contract. In most cases, however, closure of negotiation is simply a handshake.

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN NEGOTIATION

People differ in terms of their capability to negotiate effectively. While part of these differences can be attributed to how frequently people practice negotiating with others, let's not forget that the characteristics that make each and every one of us unique may also contribute to our negotiation effectiveness. In this section, we focus on the effects of personality, emotions, and gender on negotiation.

Personality Traits in Negotiation

• Effect of personality on negotiation is weak and situation dependent

• Extraversion: Results depend on how others react to someone who is assertive and enthusiastic

• Agreeableness = cooperativeness + warmth

  • Cooperativeness impairs negotiation results

  • Warmth improves negotiation results

• People can learn to be better negotiators

Moods/Emotions in Negotiation

• For distributive negotiations

  • Negotiators in a position of power or equal status who show anger negotiate better outcomes because their anger induces concessions from their opponents

  • Those in a less powerful position, displaying anger leads to worse outcomes

• For integrative negotiations

  • Positive moods and emotions appear to lead to more integrative agreements (higher levels of joint gain).

• In general:

  • Anxious negotiators expect lower outcomes, respond to offers more quickly, and exit the bargaining process more quickly

  • Negative emotions lead people to oversimplify issues, lose trust, and put negative interpretations on the other party’s behavior

  • Positive emotions increase tendency to take broader view of the situation and develop innovative solutions

Gender Differences in Negotiation

• Do men and women negotiate differently? NO, at least not because the gender. Research has shown that men seem to be more successful negotiators than women because:

• The stereotype of women of being cooperative, pleasant, caring, and accommodating and the stereotype of men being tough

• The fact that women tend to be in relatively less powerful positions than men