Chapter 14 Conflict and Negotiation Page
i.
B. The Negotiation Process (Exhibit 14-8)
1. Preparation and planning
a. Do your homework.
v. What are your goals?
b. You also want assess what you think are the other party’s goals.
support your position.
d. Relationships will change as a result of a negotiation, so that’s another
outcome to take into consideration.
Agreement (BATNA).
ii. Your BATNA determines the lowest value acceptable to you for a
negotiated agreement.
impasse.
2. Definition of ground rules
constraints, if any, will apply?
b. To what issues will negotiation be limited? Will there be a specific
demands.
3. Clarification and justification
bolster, and justify your original demands.
b. This need not be confrontational.
helps support your position.
4. Bargaining and problem solving
to hash out an agreement.
b. Concessions will undoubtedly need to be made by both parties.
5. Closure and implementation
a. The final step—formalizing the agreement that has been worked out and
developing any procedures that are necessary for implementation and
monitoring.
b. Major negotiations will require hammering out the specifics in a formal
contract.
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c. For most cases, however, closure of the negotiation process is nothing
more formal than a handshake.
C. Individual Differences in Negotiation Effectiveness
1. Personality traits in negotiation
a. Can you predict an opponent’s negotiating tactics if you know something
more generally, affects negotiation outcomes depends on the situation.
ii. The importance of being extraverted in negotiations, for example, will
assertive and enthusiastic.
iii. Recent research also suggests that personality traits such as
agreeableness and extraversion do have an effect, but the effect
other was agreeable.
iv. A recent study suggested that the type of negotiations matter as well.
In this study, agreeable individuals reacted more positively and felt
negotiations than in distributive ones.
(a) Low levels of stress, in turn, made for more effective negotiation
outcomes.
2. Moods/emotions in negotiation
a. Moods and emotions influence negotiation, but the way they do depends
on the type of negotiation.
anger that is genuine (deep acting) is.
c. Another relevant emotion is disappointment.
counterpart concedes more.
d. Anxiety also appears to have an impact on negotiation.
e. One study found that anxious negotiators expect lower outcomes from
appear to lead to more integrative agreements (higher levels of joint gain).
3. Culture in negotiations
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cultures than between them.
i. For example, a Colombian is apt to do better negotiating with a
Colombian than with a Sri Lankan.
China and Qatar are more likely to use a competitive negotiation strategy
than people from the US.
4. Gender differences in negotiations
a. Men and women negotiate differently and these differences affect
outcomes.
d. Moreover, women do tend to value relationship outcomes more than men,
and men tend to value economic outcomes more than women.
outcomes.
i. Compared to men, women tend to behave in a less assertive, less
self-interested, and more accommodating manner.
i. First, organizational culture plays a role here.
ii. If an organization, even unwittingly, encourages a predominantly
gender-stereotypic behaviors (men negotiating competitively, women
negotiating cooperatively), and it will also increase backlash when
women go against stereotype.
II. Negotiating in a Social Context
A. Introduction
1. To really understand negotiations in practice, we must then consider the social
factors of reputation and relationships.
B. Reputation
1. Your reputation is the way other people think and talk about you.
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matters.
b. In short, trust in a negotiation process opens the door to many forms of
integrative negotiation strategies that benefit both parties.
2. The most effective way to build trust is to behave in an honest way across
repeated interactions.
different outcomes.
b. This helps to achieve win-win outcomes, since both parties can work to
other party.
3. What type of characteristic helps a person develop a
trustworthy reputation? A combination of competence and
integrity.
a situation and their own resources, and more credible
impasses.
4. Individuals who have a reputation for integrity can also be
more e$ective in negotiations.
5. Finally, individuals who have higher reputations are better
liked and have more friends and allies—in other words, they
have more social resources, which may give them more
understood power in negotiations.
III. Third-Party Negotiations
1. When individuals or group representatives reach a stalemate and are unable to
resolve their differences through direct negotiations, they may turn to a third
party.
2. A mediator is a neutral third party who facilitates a negotiated solution by
using reasoning and persuasion, suggesting alternatives, and the like.
3. An arbitrator is a third party with the authority to dictate an agreement.
4. A conciliator is a trusted third party who provides an informal
communication link among parties.
IV. Summary and Implications for Managers
A. While many people assume conflict lowers group and organizational
performance, this assumption is frequently incorrect.
B. Conflict can be either constructive or destructive to the functioning of a group or
unit.
C. Levels of conflict can be either too high or too low to be constructive. Either
extreme hinders performance.
D. An optimal level is one that prevents stagnation, stimulates creativity, allows
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tensions to be released, and initiates the seeds of change without being disruptive
or preventing coordination of activities. Specific implications for managers are
below:
employees remain engaged and productive.
2. 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.
4. 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.
5. Distributive bargaining can resolve disputes, but it often reduces the
EXPANDED 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.
B. We define conflict as a process that begins when one party perceives that another
party has negatively affected, or is about to negatively affects, something that the
first party cares about.
1. This describes that point when an interaction “crosses over” to become an
inter-party conflict.
organizations.
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 good or bad. Such simplistic views eventually gave way to
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effects. (Exhibit 14-1)
a. Functional conflict supports the goals of the group and improves its
performance.
b. Conflicts that hinder group performance are dysfunctional or destructive
forms of conflict.
II. Types of Conflict
A. Types of Conflict
relationship, or process.
a. Task conflict relates to the content and goals of the work.
b. Relationship conflict focuses on interpersonal relationships.
c. Process conflict is about how the work gets done.
2. Studies demonstrate that relationship conflicts, at least in work settings,
some circumstances).
a. Why? It appears that the friction and interpersonal hostilities inherent in
relationship conflicts increase personality clashes and decrease mutual
understanding, which hinders the completion of organizational tasks.
3. Of the three types, relationship conflicts also appear to be the most
psychologically exhausting to individuals.
information about the job.
5. While scholars agree that relationship conflict is dysfunctional, there is
considerably less agreement as to whether task and process conflicts are
functional.
a. Early research suggested that task conflict within groups was associated
conflict and performance.
c. One such factor was whether the conflict included top management or
occurred lower in the organization.
d. Task conflict among top management teams was positively associated
with their performance, whereas conflict lower in the organization was
negatively associated with group performance.
were occurring at the same time.
f. If task and relationship conflict occurred together, task conflict was more
likely negative, whereas if task conflict occurred by itself, it more likely
was positive.
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6. Finally, some scholars have argued that the strength of conflict is
addressing the 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.
7. 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.
8. What about process conflict? Researchers found that process conflicts
members feeling marginalized.
9. Thus, process conflicts often become highly personalized and quickly
devolve into relationship conflicts.
a. It’s also true, of course, that arguing about how to do something takes time
away from actually doing it. We’re all been part of groups in which the
nowhere.
B. Loci of Conflict
1. Another way to understand conflict is to consider its locus, or where the
conflict occurs.
2. Here, too, there are three basic types:
considers intragroup conflict (within the group).
4. That makes sense given that groups and teams often exist only to perform
a particular task. However, it doesn’t necessarily tell us about the other
loci of conflict.
5. Another intriguing question about loci is whether conflicts interact or
buffer one another.
occurs.
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7. It’s possible that while the concepts of task, relationship, and process
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