Organization
Santosh_2102
KiniOB2e_C10_Final_R.pptxCHAPTER 10
Managing Conflict and Negotiations
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Major Questions You Should Be Able to Answer
10.1 How can a contemporary perspective on conflict make me more effective at school, work, and home?
10.2 What are some types of conflict and how can I manage them to my benefit?
10.3 What can I do to manage work–family conflict and incivility to make me more effective at school, work, and home?
10.4 What can I do to prevent, reduce, or overcome conflict?
10.5 What are some best practices for effective negotiation?
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What Is Conflict?
Occurs when one party perceives that its interests are being opposed or negatively affected by another part.
It is inevitable and may be cultivated.
It can have both positive and negative outcomes.
Organizations can have too much or too little conflict.
It may be either functional or dysfunctional.
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Conflict is a pervasive part of the human experience, and it produces undesirable consequences such as absences, avoiding work-related events, quitting, terminations, and project failures.
Managing conflict effectively is essential for individual, departmental, and organizational effectiveness.
Conflict has both positive and negative consequences, and thus it is important to avoid the negative side of conflict while also gaining from its positive outcomes.
One party perceives its interests are being opposed or set back by another party.
Sources of conflict and issues can be real or imagined.
A lack of fairness, perceived or real, is a major source of conflict at work.
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Causes of Conflict
Conflicts may arise due to
Interdependencies
Incompatibilities
Overlapping or unclear boundaries
Competition over limited resources
Unreasonable or unclear organizational polices
Organizational complexity
Escalation of conflict when
Tactics change
Number of issues grows
Issues move from specific to general
Number of parties grow
Goals change
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Certain situations produce more conflict than others.
By knowing the antecedents or causes of conflict, you and managers are better able to anticipate conflict and take steps to resolve it if it becomes dysfunctional.
Table 10.1 lists many of the situations that tend to produce either functional or dysfunctional conflict.
When conflict escalates, the intensity increases; people can then take positions that are increasingly extreme and hard to justify.
Conflict escalation often exhibits these five characteristics:
Change in tactics from light to heavy tactics (i.e., from persuasive arguments, promises, and efforts to please the other side to threats, power plays, and violence).
Increase in the number of issues.
Issues move from specific to general.
The number of parties grows.
The goals change from “doing well” or resolution to winning and even hurting the other party.
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Avoidance of Conflict
Avoidance of conflict can occur for myriad reasons—good and bad
Fear of rejection, harm, damage to or loss of relationships, desire to avoid saying the wrong thing
By managing conflict, a number of desirable outcomes can emerge
Agreement
Stronger relationships
Learning
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We avoid conflict because we fear various combinations of: harm, rejection, loss of relationship, anger, being seen as selfish, saying the wrong thing, failing, hurting someone else, or getting what you want (i.e., fearing the consequences of success).
Avoiding conflict doesn’t make it go away; more likely the conflict situation will continue or even escalate.
Instead of ignoring conflict, you may be well served to:
Stop ignoring a conflict by bringing both sides together to address the issues.
Act decisively to improve the outcome.
Make the path to resolution open and honest.
Use descriptive language instead of evaluative.
Make the process a team-building opportunity.
Keep the upside in mind.
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Test Your OB Knowledge (1 of 4)
Which of the following statements about conflict is NOT true?
Dysfunctional conflict threatens an organization’s interests.
People avoid conflict due to a fear of damaging relationships.
Functional conflict can promote creative problem solving.
All conflict is negative.
Organizations can suffer from either too little or too much conflict.
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The answer is D. All conflict is negative.
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Conventional Forms of Conflict
Personality conflicts
Relational or interpersonal: based on personal dislike or disagreement
Particularly harmful
Critically important to identify and remedy these conflicts
Intergroup conflict
Conflict states
Conflict process
Cohesion and “in-group thinking”
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Personality conflicts: interpersonal opposition based on personal dislike or disagreement.
Personality conflicts are common and can be troublesome since personality traits are stable and resistant to change.
Personality conflicts that are ignored or avoided often escalate.
Table 10.2 presents practical tips for individuals involved in or affected by personality conflicts.
Intergroup Conflict: Conflict among work groups, teams, and departments is a common threat to individual and organizational effectiveness.
Conflict states: shared perceptions among team members about the target (i.e., tasks or relationships) and intensity of the conflict.
Conflict processes: the means by which team members work through task and relationship disagreements.
Conflict processes and how teams manage their differences matter, and processes are at least as important as the source of the conflict.
Group cohesiveness can turn a “group” into a “team,” but excessive levels can impact the team’s ability to think critically.
Research has identified challenges associated with increased group cohesiveness.
Managers cannot eliminate in-group thinking, but they certainly should not ignore it when handling intergroup conflicts.
The contact hypothesis, conflict reduction, and creating a psychologically safe climate have been recommended as ways to handle intergroup conflict.
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Approaches to Intergroup Conflict (1 of 2)
Contact hypothesis
The more members of different groups interact, the less intergroup conflict they will experience.
Quality contact matters from the in-group’s perspective.
Conflict resolution
Work to eliminate specific negative interactions.
Conduct team building.
Encourage and facilitate friendships via social events.
Foster positive attitudes (e.g. empathy and compassion).
Avoid or neutralize negative gossip resolution.
Be a role model.
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Contact hypothesis: suggests that the more members of different groups interact, the less intergroup conflict they will experience.
The contact hypothesis has been recommended as a way to reduce intergroup conflict, but just increasing the amount of interaction across groups may be a naive and limited approach for overcoming stereotyping and in-group thinking.
Research indicates that contact matters, quality contact matters more, but both matter most from the in-group’s perspective.
Intergroup friendships are desirable, but they are readily overpowered by negative intergroup interactions.
The top priority for managers faced with intergroup conflict is to identify and root out specific negative linkages between or among groups.
Conflict resolution: work to eliminate specific negative interactions.
Conduct team building to reduce intragroup conflict, and prepare for cross-functional teamwork.
Encourage and facilitate friendships via social events (e.g., happy hours, sports leagues, and book clubs).
Foster positive attitudes (e.g., empathy and compassion).
Avoid or neutralize negative gossip.
Practice the above—be a role model.
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Approaches to Intergroup Conflict (2 of 2)
Psychologically safe climate
A shared belief held by team members that the team
Is a safe place for interpersonal risk taking
Captures a sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject, or punish someone for speaking up
Foster a psychologically safe climate by
Assuring leaders are inclusive and accessible
Hiring and developing employees who are comfortable expressing their own ideas and are receptive to those expressed by others
Celebrating and reinforcing the value of differences between group members and their ideas
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Climate: employees’ shared perceptions of policies, practices, and procedures.
Psychological safe climate: a shared belief among team members that it is safe to engage in risky behaviors, such as questioning current practices without retribution or negative consequences.
When employees feel psychologically safe, they are more likely to speak up and present their ideas and less likely to take disagreements personally.
Recommendations for fostering a psychologically safe climate include:
Ensure leaders are inclusive and accessible.
Hire and develop employees who are comfortable expressing their own ideas and receptive and constructive to those expressed by others.
Celebrate and even reinforce the value of differences between group members and their ideas.
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Test Your OB Knowledge (2 of 4)
Carol is the manager of the marketing department for Bells Corporation. She observed an employee group engaging in stereotyping other groups as being all alike. What is likely happening with this group?
There are personality conflicts.
The group has become too cohesive.
The group succumbed to the contact hypothesis.
The group views outsiders as friends.
Group members do not view the group as a safe place to express opinions.
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The answer is B. The group has become too cohesive.
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Work–Family Conflict (1 of 2)
Occurs when the demands or pressures from work and family are mutually incompatible
TABLE 10.3 Negative Consequences of Conflicts Between Work, Family, and Other Life Domains
| WORK INTERFERES WITH FAMILY | FAMILY INTERFERES WITH WORK | POTENTIAL OUTCOMES |
| Job satisfaction | Marital satisfaction | Life satisfaction |
| Intentions to quit | Family satisfaction | Health problems |
| Absenteeism | Family-related strain | Depression |
| Performance | Family-related performance | Substance use or abuse |
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Work–family conflict: occurs when the demands or pressures from work and family domains are mutually incompatible.
Work–family conflict can take two distinct forms: work interference with family and family interference with work.
Hostilities in one life domain can manifest in other domains as a result of the spillover effect.
Since it may not be possible to avoid or remove conflicts completely, people need to manage or balance demands between the different domains of their lives.
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Work–Family Conflict (2 of 2)
Importance of balance to reducing conflict
Work–family balance begins at home.
An employer’s family-supportive philosophy is more important than specific programs.
Balance requires flexibility .
Importance of work–life family balance varies across generations.
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Balance requires flexibility, which is a key aspect of many efforts to eliminate or reduce conflicts.
Flexspace: when policies enable employees to do their work from different locations besides the office.
Flextime: flexible scheduling, either when work is expected to be completed (e.g., deadlines) or during which particular hours of the day (e.g., 10–5, or anytime today).
The value of most any type of flexible work arrangement can be undermined if the employee’s immediate supervisor isn’t supportive.
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Incivility and Bullying
Incivility
Any form of socially harmful behavior
Aggression
Interpersonal deviance
Social undermining
Interactional justice
Harassment
Abusive supervision
Bullying
Bullying
Different from other forms of incivility
Most often evident to others
Affects even those that are NOT bullied
Has group-level implications
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Incivility: any form of socially harmful behavior, such as aggression, interpersonal deviance, social undermining, interactional injustice, harassment, abusive supervision, and bullying.
Table 10.4 describes some of employees’ common responses to incivility and their frequencies.
Both individuals and their employers can be the root cause of mistreatment at work.
Figure 10.3 illustrates some common causes of various forms of incivility.
Bullying
Bullying is different from other forms of mistreatment or incivility in at least three ways: bullying is often evident to others; bullying affects even those who are NOT bullied; and bullying has group-level implications.
Table 10.5 presents best practices for addressing bullying.
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Best Anti-Bullying Strategies (1 of 2)
Develop a workplace bullying policy.
Encourage open and respectful communication.
Develop clear procedures.
Identify and model appropriate behaviors.
System for reporting bullying.
Identify and resolve conflicts quickly and fairly—avoid escalation.
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The Internet and particularly social media have created new avenues and weapons for bullies at school, at work, and in our social lives through cyber bullying.
Virtual bullying is more common than face-to-face bullying, although the two often co-occur.
Not only do face-to-face and cyber bullying directly harm the targeted person, but the fear of future mistreatment amplifies this effect.
Employers should create policies to prevent and address virtual incivility, and employees should follow best practices for appropriate e-mails and social media use.
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Best Anti-Bullying Strategies (2 of 2)
Determine the situations, policies, and behaviors likely to cause or allow bullying to occur.
Provide training to employees regarding how to manage conflict.
Clear consequences for engaging in bullying.
Monitor and review employee relationships with particular attention to fairness.
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Test Your OB Knowledge (3 of 4)
Pablo, the COO at Happy Travel Agency, read some posts on Facebook concerning employees who were bullied at the agency. Pablo would like to correct the situation. He should do all of the following EXCEPT
consider what it is like to be bullied.
develop a workplace bullying policy.
send an e-mail to all employees that names the employee being bullied and demands that it stops.
communicate the social media policy to all employees.
provide training to employees in conflict resolution.
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The answer is C, send an e-mail to all employees that names the employee being bullied and demand that it stops
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Effectively Managing Conflict (1 of 2)
What is programmed conflict?
Conflict that raises different opinions regardless of the personal feelings of the managers
Gets contributors to either defend or criticize ideas based on relevant facts rather than personal preference or political interest
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Programmed conflict: conflict that raises different opinions regardless of the personal feelings of the managers.
The challenge with programmed conflict is to get contributors to either defend or criticize ideas based on relevant facts rather than on the basis of personal preference or political interests.
Two programmed conflict techniques with proven track records are devil’s advocacy and the dialectic method.
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Effectively Managing Conflict (2 of 2)
Programmed conflict techniques
Devil’s advocacy
Assigning someone the role of critic
Dialectic method
Fostering a structured debate of opposing viewpoints
Important to use to actively stimulate functional conflict when necessary, such as when the risk of blind conformity or groupthink is high
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Devil’s advocacy: assigning someone the role of critic.
Devil’s advocacy alters the usual decision-making process by assigning an individual or group to criticize the proposal and having the critique presented to key decision makers.
It is a good idea to rotate the job of devil’s advocate so no one person or group develops a strictly negative reputation and to promote skill development.
Dialectic method: fostering a structured debate of opposing viewpoints prior to making a decision.
This method alters the usual decision-making process by generating a counterproposal based on different assumptions and having the advocates of each position present and debate the merits of their proposals before key decision makers.
Drawbacks of the dialectic method technique are that winning the debate may overshadow the issue at hand, and this method requires more skill training than does devil’s advocacy.
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Five Common Conflict-Handling Styles
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People tend to handle (negative) conflict in similar ways, referred to as styles.
Figure 10-5 shows some of the common conflict styles, distinguished based on relative concern for others (x-axis) and concern for self (y-axis).
Integrating (problem solving): interested parties confront the issue and cooperatively identify the problem, generate and weigh alternatives, and select a solution.
Obliging (smoothing): people show low concern for themselves and a great concern for others.
Dominating: high concern for self and low concern for others, often characterized by “I win, you lose” tactics.
Avoiding: passive withdrawal from the problem and active suppression of the issue are common.
Compromising: give-and-take approach with a moderate concern for both self and others.
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Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)
The benefit of ADR is that it uses faster, more user-friendly methods of dispute resolution, instead of traditional, adversarial approaches such as unilateral decision making or litigation.
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Alternative dispute resolution (ADR): uses faster, more user-friendly methods of dispute resolution instead of traditional, adversarial approaches such as unilateral decision making or litigation.
ADR has enjoyed enthusiastic growth in recent years due to lower costs and speed.
ADR methods vary with respect to difficulty and expense.
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Alternative Dispute Resolution
Forms of ADR
Facilitation
Conciliation
Peer review
Ombudsman
Mediation
Arbitration
Benefits of ADR
Speed
Lower cost
Confidentiality
Potential for win-win resolution
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Facilitation: a third party informally urges disputing parties to deal directly with each other in a positive and constructive manner.
Conciliation: a neutral third party informally acts as a communication conduit between disputing parties.
Peer review: a panel of trustworthy co-workers hears both sides of a dispute in an informal and confidential meeting and may make binding decisions depending on the company.
Ombudsman: someone who works for the organization and is widely respected and trusted by his or her co-workers hears grievances on a confidential basis and attempts to arrange a solution.
Mediation: a trained, third-party neutral actively guides the disputing parties in exploring innovative solutions to the conflict to help the disputants to reach a mutually acceptable decision.
Arbitration: a third-party neutral makes final and binding decisions based on legal merits.
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Test Your OB Knowledge (4 of 4)
Scottie Pet Food Company appointed an employee who is widely respected and trusted by his coworkers to hear grievances and arrange a solution. What is this form of ADR called?
arbitration
peer review
facilitation
ombudsman
conciliation
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The answer is D, ombudsman.
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Negotiation
Negotiation may be thought of as a give-and-take decision-making process involving two or more parties with different preferences
Distributive
Win–Lose
Integrative
Win–Win
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Distributive negotiation: usually involves a single issue—a “fixed pie”—in which one person gains at the expense of another.
This position-based, “win–lose” approach of distributive negotiation is arguably the most common.
Integrative negotiation: a host of interests are considered, resulting in an agreement that is satisfactory for both parties.
This kind of interest-based negotiation is a more collaborative, problem-solving approach.
Table 10.8 describes some of the key differences between conventional position-based negotiation and the more collaborative interest-based process.
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Considerations When Choosing a Negotiation Approach
Know who you are.
Manage outcome expectations.
Consider the other person’s outcome.
Adhere to standards of justice.
Remember your reputation.
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Factors to Consider When Choosing Which Approach to Take
Personality matters in the negotiation process, with people with high levels of agreeableness being best suited for integrative negotiations.
Skilled negotiators manage expectations in advance of actual negotiations.
It is important to consider the other person’s outcome and if that party is satisfied.
It is important to adhere to standards of justice.
You must remember your reputation and realize that winning at all costs often has significant costs.
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Emotions in Negotiation
Use emotions to your advantage.
Identify your ideal emotions: Match your emotions to your objectives.
Manage your emotions: Take steps to promote positive emotions.
Know your hot buttons.
Keep your balance: Know when to break or redirect.
Identify your take-away emotions: Set a goal for emotions.
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Negotiation experts and researchers acknowledge that emotions are an integral part of the human experience, and they provide guidance on how to use emotions to your advantage.
Emotions are contagious, and if you want the other party to be calm, creative, or energetic, then consider showing these emotions yourself.
The following tips can help you prepare emotionally for an impending negotiation:
Determine the ideal emotions that will best suit your objectives.
Manage your emotions and determine what you can do in advance to put yourself in the ideal emotional state.
Know what your hot buttons are and manage them appropriately.
Use appropriate tactics to keep your balance.
Set your emotional goals of how you want to feel when you are finished negotiating (e.g., relieved, satisfied, etc.).
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Ethics in Negotiations
Ethics in negotiations
The success of negotiations is influenced by the quality of information exchanged.
Telling lies, hiding key facts, and engaging in other potentially unethical tactics erodes trust and goodwill.
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The success of negotiations is often influenced to a large extent by the quality of information exchanged.
Telling lies, hiding key facts, and engaging in other potentially unethical tactics erodes trust and good will, both vital in successful negotiations.
Table 10.9 describes “dirty tricks” that are sometimes used in negotiations.
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Managing Conflict and Negotiations: Putting It All in Context
Figure 10.6 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
Jump to Appendix 2 for description
Copyright 2014 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
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Appendix 1 Five Common Conflict-Handling Styles
The figure shows that five of the most common styles are distinguished by the combatants’ relative concern for others and for self. The combinations of these two characteristics produce the conflict-handling styles called integrating, obliging, dominating, avoiding, and compromising.
Integrating is high in concern for others and high in concern for self.
Obliging is high in concern for others, but low in concern for self.
Dominating is low in concern for others, but high in concern for self.
Avoiding is low in both concern for others and concern for self.
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Appendix 2 Managing Conflict and Negotiations: Putting It All in Context
The Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB shows the relationship between the three categories Inputs, Process, and Outcomes.
Inputs
Person factors: personality, experience, skills and abilities, conflict-handling styles, values, needs, mindfulness, ethics, and incivility
Situation factors: relationship quality, leadership, organizational climate, stressors, incivility, alternative dispute resolution practices
Leads to
Processes
Individual Level: conflict and negotiation, emotions, interpersonal skills, perceptions, performance management practices, trust, and communication
Group, Team Level: group and team dynamics, conflict and negotiation, decision making, performance management, leadership, communication, and trust
Organizational Level: human resources policies and practices, communication, leading and managing change and stress
Leads to
Outcomes
Individual Level: task performance, work attitudes, citizenship behavior and or counterproductive behavior, turnover, career outcomes, and creativity
Group, Team Level: group and or team performance, group satisfaction, and group cohesion and conflict
Organizational Level: accounting and or financial performance, customer satisfaction, innovation, and reputation
In return, Outcomes relates to both Inputs and Processes.
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