Conflict and Negotiation Flashcards
Conflict (substantive/emotional)
Incompatible preferences
Substantive conflict:
- Evaluative (about values and goals)
- judgmental (about means and methods)
- resource allocation related
Emotional conflict (deeper)
Types of conflict
- Manifest conflict
- Latent conflict: Conflict is likely, but not (yet) manifest
- Structural conflict: Structural aspects of the situation make latent conflict likely
- Misdirected conflict:
- Reason for conflict and manifest object of conflict are not identical
- Conflict is directed against a party which is not responsible for conflict
Levels of conflict
- Intrapersonal conflict
- Interpersonal conflict
- Intergroup conflict
- interorganizational conflict
Work situations prone to conflict
- Work-flow interdependence
- Power and/or value asymmetry (can lead to or avoid conflict, e.g. you don’t want to challenge your boss/
once someone becomes boss they have the power to start conflicts) - Role ambiguity or domain ambiguity (If I don’t know what is expected from me -> Conflict)
- Resource scarcity
Management related conflict situations
- Vertical conflict (rare; normally lower level employees do not dare to challenge higher levels)
- Horizontal conflict (among colleagues )
- Line-staff conflict
- Role conflict
Prisoners Dilemma
Best strategy: repeat what your opponent did in the last round
Tit-for-Tat: Anatol Rapoport (Game Theory) :
- Start cooperative
- The strategy is predictable (after few iterations) and
fair
- not exploitable
Prisoners Dilemma
Best strategy: repeat what your opponent did in the last round
Tit-for-Tat: Anatol Rapoport (Game Theory) :
- Start cooperative
- The strategy is predictable (after few iterations) and
fair
- not exploitable
Managing conflict
- Conflict in organizations is inevitable.
- A “conflict-free” organization signals that its
members are either inhibited or uncreative - Essential to organizational success: Avoiding destructive conflict dynamics spirals and achieving constructive results rather than avoiding conflicts altogether.
Two faces of conflict
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Too little / too much conflict is destructive -> moderate levels of conflict are constructive
Constructive and destructive conflicts
- Constructive: Results in positive benefits to the group.
- Destructive: Works to the group’s or organization’s disadvantage
—> Outcomes of conflicts depend on competitive or cooperative processes within the conflicting parties
Preventing destructive conflict
: * Monitor employees’ work
* Encourage employees to approach you
* Clear the air with regular meetings
* Provide a suggestion box
* Offer information about decisions
* Use employee surveys
Improving conflict resolution
- Discover the reasons for and meaning of conflict
- Listen actively
- Communicate emotions
- Search for hidden fears
- Do not seek to establish who is right and who is wrong
Indirect conflict management approaches
- Appeal to common goals
- Hierarchical referral
- Organizational redesign:
- Decoupling (put people apart if they cannot work together)
- Buffering (workflow interdependence, costly)
- Linking pins (exchange individuals from one conflicting team to another : enhances trust)
- Liaison groups (meet regularly to find a solution instead of fighting each other),
Personal conflict styles
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Personal Political Styles
The purist
The team player
The street fighter
The manoeuvrer
The purist
prefers open behavior, relationship building and trusts to the system to deliver correct decisions and to recognise merit.
The team player
engages in “positive politics” for the good of the whole. Powerbase built through dependence on others.
The street fighter
overt and aggressive, sees the organization as competitive, which legitimises survivalist individualism
The manoeuvrer
prefers covert behaviour, working through agenda management rather than direct advocacy of a particular position
Negotiation
The process of making joint decisions when parties involved have different preferences
Negotiation Goals
Substance related
- values and goals
- means and methods
Relationship-related
Approaches to negotiation
Distributive negotiation
integrative negotiation (precondition: find common grounds)
Classic two party negotiation
The bargaining zone
Discover the bargaining zone (Between Graduate’s
minimum reservation point and Employer’s maximum reservation point) - Find an agreement within this
bargaining zone - Is this agreement Pareto optimal?
Common pitfalls in negotiation
- falling prey to the myth of the “fixed pie”
- non-rational escalation of conflict
- overconfidence and ignoring others’ needs
- pareto-suboptimal solutions
Pareto Optimality
A change that can make at least one individual better off, without making any other individual worse off, is called a Pareto improvement.
An allocation of resources is Pareto optimal when no further Pareto improvements can be
made.
Pareto optimality is an important criterion for evaluating economic systems and political
policies.
Gaining integrative agreement
Attitudinal foundations
- Trust
- Share information
- Ask concrete questions
Information foundations
- Understand one’s own and possibly the others BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement)
Behavioral foundations
- Separate people from problems
- Focus on interests rather than positions
- Avoid making premature judgments
- Evaluate agreements objectively
