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Chapter 14 Conflict and Negotiation Page
Chapter 14
Conflict and Negotiation
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After studying this chapter, students should be able to:
14-1. Describe the three types of conflict and the three loci of conflict.
14-2. Outline the conflict process.
14-3. Contrast distributive and integrative bargaining.
14-4. Apply the five steps of the negotiation process.
14-5. Show how individual differences influence negotiations.
14-6. Assess the roles and functions of third-party negotiations.
INSTRUCTOR’S RESOURCES
Instructors may wish to use the following resources when presenting this chapter.
Text Exercises
Myth or Science?: “Teams Negotiate Better than Individuals in Collectivistic
Cultures”
Career OBjectives: How Can I Get a Better Job?
An Ethical Choice: Using Empathy to Negotiate More Ethically
MyLab Management
oPersonal Inventory Assessment: Strategies for Handling Conflict
oWatch It!: Gordon Law Group: Conflict and Negotiation
Point/Counterpoint: Non-Unioned Positions and the “Gig Economy” Are Bad for
Workers
Questions for Review
Experiential Exercise: A Negotiation Role-Play
Ethical Dilemma: The Case of the Overly Assertive Employee
Text Cases
Case Incident 1: Disorderly Conduct
Case Incident 2: Twinkies, Rubber Rooms, and Collective Bargaining
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Instructor’s Choice
This section presents an exercise that is NOT found in the student’s textbook. Instructor’s
Choice reinforces the text’s emphasis through various activities. Some Instructor’s
Choice activities are centered on debates, group exercises, Internet research, and student
experiences. Some can be used in class in their entirety, while others require some
additional work on the student’s part. The course instructor may choose to use these at
any time throughout the class—some may be more effective as icebreakers, while some
may be used to pull together various concepts covered in the chapter.
Web Exercises
and ideas for researching OB topics on the Internet. The exercises “Exploring OB Topics
on the Web” are set up so that you can simply photocopy the pages, distribute them to
your class, and make assignments accordingly. You may want to assign the exercises as
an out-of-class activity or as lab activities with your class.
Summary and Implications for Managers
While many people assume conflict lowers group and organizational performance, this
assumption is frequently incorrect. Conflict can be either constructive or destructive to
the functioning of a group or unit. Levels of conflict can be either too high or too low to
be constructive. Either extreme hinders performance. An optimal level is one that
prevents stagnation, stimulates creativity, allows tensions to be released, and initiates the
seeds of change without being disruptive or preventing coordination of activities. Specific
implications for managers are below:
Choose an authoritarian management style in emergencies, when unpopular
actions need to be implemented (such as cost cutting, enforcement of unpopular
rules, discipline), and when the issue is vital to the organization’s welfare. Be
certain to communicate your logic when possible, to make certain employees
remain engaged and productive.
Seek integrative solutions when your objective is to learn, when you want to
merge insights from people with different perspectives, when you need to gain
commitment by incorporating concerns into a consensus, and when you need to
work through feelings that have interfered with a relationship.
You can build trust by accommodating others when you find you’re wrong, when
you need to demonstrate reasonableness, when other positions need to be heard,
when issues are more important to others than to yourself, when you want to
satisfy others and maintain cooperation, when you can build social credits for
later issues, to minimize loss when you are outmatched and losing, and when
employees should learn from their own mistakes.
Consider compromising when goals are important but not worth potential
disruption, when opponents with equal power are committed to mutually
exclusive goals, and when you need temporary settlements to complex issues.
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Distributive bargaining can resolve disputes, but it often reduces the satisfaction
of one or more negotiators because it is confrontational and focused on the short
term. Integrative bargaining, in contrast, tends to provide outcomes that satisfy all
parties and build lasting relationships.
This chapter begins with a discussion of the conditions in a jail and the reaction of inmates to the
conditions.. Hunger strikes highlight many of the concepts we will cover in this chapter. First, it highlights
a response to conflict. In the cases above, the conflicts between inmates and prison officials were
dysfunctional. However, as you will learn from this book, some conflict is beneficial, and even necessary,
because it enhances creativity and drives change in organizations. Second, the process that alleviated the
conflict was to negotiate. By using their health as a bargaining tool, inmates in Mississippi were able to
gain better conditions. Would the same tactic always be successful in every context? Not necessarily. We’ll
also be explaining many factors that influence the success of negotiation techniques across situations, from
emotions to personality.
BRIEF CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. A Definition of Conflict
A. There has been no shortage of definitions of conflict, but common to most is the
idea that conflict is a perception.
1. If no one is aware of a conflict, then it is generally agreed no conflict exists.
and interaction.
2. We define conflict as 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.
3. There is no consensus over the role of conflict in groups and organizations.
4. In the past, researchers tended to argue about whether conflict was uniformly
conflict have different effects.
5. Contemporary perspectives differentiate types of conflict based on their
effects. (Exhibit 14-1)
performance.
b. Conflicts that hinder group performance are dysfunctional or destructive
forms of conflict.
II. Types of Conflict
A. Types of Conflict
1. Researchers have classified conflicts into three categories: task, relationship,
or process.
2. Studies demonstrate that relationship conflicts, at least in work settings, are
circumstances).
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3. Of the three types, relationship conflicts also appear to be the most
psychologically exhausting to individuals.
information about the job.
4. While scholars agree that relationship conflict is dysfunctional, there is
considerably less agreement as to whether task and process conflicts are
functional.
conflict and performance.
c. One such factor was whether the conflict included top management or
occurred lower in the organization.
negatively associated with group performance.
e. This review also found that it mattered whether other types of conflict
were occurring at the same time.
was positive.
5. Finally, some scholars have argued that the strength of conflict is important—
important issues.
a. If task conflict is too high, however, infighting will quickly degenerate
into personality conflict.
creativity in groups, but high levels decreased team performance.
6. Finally, the personalities of the teams appear to matter.
task conflict into increased group performance.
b. The reason may be that open and emotionally stable teams can put task
conflicts.
7. What about process conflict? Researchers found that process conflicts revolve
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marginalized.
8. Thus, process conflicts often become highly personalized and quickly devolve
into relationship conflicts.
nowhere.
B. Loci of Conflict
conflict occurs.
2. Here, too, there are three basic types.
intragroup conflict (within the group).
4. That makes sense given that groups and teams often exist only to perform a
conflict.
5. Another intriguing question about loci is whether conflicts interact or buffer
one another.
a. Intense intergroup conflict can be quite stressful to group members and
might well affect the way they interact.
7. It’s possible that while the concepts of task, relationship, and process conflict
are useful in understanding intragroup or even dyadic conflict, they are less
useful in explaining the effects of intergroup conflict.
III. The Conflict Process
A. Introduction
1. The conflict process has five stages: potential opposition or incompatibility,
cognition and personalization, intentions, behavior, and outcomes. (Exhibit
14-2)
B. Stage I: Potential Opposition or Incompatibility
1. Communication
a. Communication as a source of conflict represents those opposing forces
that arise from semantic difficulties, misunderstandings, and “noise” in the
communication channels.
b. Differing word connotations, jargon, insufficient exchange of information,
and noise in the communication channel are all barriers to communication
and potential antecedents to conflict.
c. The potential for conflict increases when either too little or too much
communication takes place.
d. Communication is functional up to a point, after which it is possible to
over communicate, increasing the potential for conflict.
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2. Structure
a. The term structure includes variables such as size, degree of
specialization, jurisdictional clarity, member-goal compatibility, leadership
styles, reward systems, and the degree of dependence.
b. Size and specialization act as forces to stimulate conflict.
3. Personal variables—include personality, emotions, and values.
a. People high in the personality traits of disagreeableness, neuroticism, or
self-monitoring are prone to tangle with other people more often, and to
react poorly when conflicts occur.
b. Emotions can also cause conflict even when they are not directed at
others.
C. Stage II: Cognition and Personalization
1. Antecedent conditions lead to conflict only when the parties are affected by
and aware of it.
2. However, because a disagreement is a perceived conflict does not mean it is
personalized.
3. Conflict is personalized when it is felt and when individuals become
emotionally involved.
delineates the possible settlements.
5. Second, emotions play a major role in shaping perceptions.
6. Negative emotions produce oversimplification of issues, reductions in trust,
and negative interpretations of the other party’s behavior.
7. Positive feelings increase the tendency to see potential relationships among
develop more innovative solutions.
D. Stage III: Intentions
1. Intentions are decisions to act in a given way.
a. Why are intentions separated out as a distinct stage? Merely one party
attributing the wrong intentions to the other escalates a lot of conflicts.
represented in Exhibit 14-3.
c. Five conflict-handling intentions can be identified: competing,
collaborating, avoiding, accommodating, and compromising.
E. Stage IV: Behavior
1. Stage IV is where conflicts become visible. The behavior stage includes the
intentions. (Exhibit 14-4)
2. At the lower part of the continuum, conflicts are characterized by subtle,
indirect, and highly controlled forms of tension.
3. Conflict intensities escalate as they move upward along the continuum until
they become highly destructive.
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who have been assigned power tend to have a more difficult time using
collaborative strategies.
b. Exhibit 14-5 lists the major resolution and stimulation techniques that
allow managers to control conflict levels.
c. We have already described several as conflict-handling intentions.
d. Under ideal conditions, a person’s intentions should translate into
comparable behaviors.
F. Stage V: Outcomes
dysfunctional in hindering it. (Exhibit 14-1)
2. Functional outcomes
a. Conflict is constructive when it:
i. Improves the quality of decisions.
ii. Stimulates creativity and innovation.
iii. Encourages interest and curiosity.
tensions released.
v. Fosters an environment of self-evaluation and change.
3. Dysfunctional outcomes
a. The destructive consequences of conflict on the performance of a group or
an organization are generally well known.
reduce group effectiveness.
4. Managing functional conflict
a. If managers recognize that in some situations conflict can be beneficial,
what can they do to manage conflict effectively in their organizations?
b. Groups that resolve conflicts successfully discuss differences of
on collectivistic tendencies and motives.
IV. Negotiation
A. Introduction
1. Negotiation is a process in which two or more parties exchange goods or
services and attempt to agree upon the exchange rate for them. We use the
terms negotiation and bargaining interchangeably.
themselves.
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3. Depending on how much the parties are going to interact with one another,
B. Bargaining Strategies
1. Two general approaches to negotiation: (Exhibit 14-6)
a. Distributive bargaining
b. Integrative bargaining
2. Distributive bargaining
share of a fixed pie.
i. By fixed pie, we mean a set amount of goods or services to be divvied
up.
ii. When the pie is fixed, or the parties believe it is, they tend to bargain
distributively.
labor-management negotiations over wages.
i. The essence of distributive bargaining is depicted in Exhibit 14-7.
(a) Parties A and B represent two negotiators.
(b) Each has a target point that defines what he or she would like to
achieve.
that is acceptable.
(d) The area between these two points makes up each one’s aspiration
range.
(e) As long as there is some overlap between A and B’s aspiration
ranges, there exists a settlement range where each one’s aspirations
can be met.
3. Integrative bargaining
a. In contrast to distributive bargaining, integrative bargaining operates
under the assumption that one or more of the possible settlements can
create a win-win solution.
b. Both parties must be engaged for it to work.
succeed.
i. These include opposing parties who are open with information and
candid about concerns, are sensitive to the other’s needs and trust, and
maintain flexibility. Because these conditions seldom exist in
organizations, negotiations often take a win-at-any-cost dynamic.
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iii. The use and effectiveness of negotiation strategies may depend on
regulatory focus of the parties involved (i.e., promotion or prevention
integratively.
ii. After all, if you or your opponent caves in easily, it doesn’t require
anyone to be creative to reach a settlement. Thus, people end up
settling for less than they could have obtained if they had been forced
to consider the other party’s interests, trade off issues, and be creative.
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