Negotiation and Conflict Management Flashcards
What is conflict?
- A process that begins when one party perceives that another party has negatively affected, or is about to negatively affect, something that the firs party cares about
- The parties to it must perceive it
What are the different views of conflict?
- Traditional View
- Interactionist
- Managed Conflict
What is the traditional view of conflict?
- Bad and needs to be avoided
- Viewed negatively and discussed with terms such as violence, destruction
- Conflcit is a dysfucntional outcome resulting form poor communication, a lack of openness and trust between people, and the failure of managers to be responsive to the needs and aspirations of their employees
What is the interactionist view of conflict?
- A harmonious, peaceful, tranquil and cooperative group is prone to becoming static, apathetic and unresponsive to needs for change and innovation
- Minimal level of conflict can help keep a group viable, self critical, creative and reduce groupthink
- But not all conflicts are good
- Functional, constructive forms support goals
- Conflict that hinder group performance are dysfunctional or destructive
What is the managed conflict view?
- There are some very specific cases in which conflict can be beneficial
- However in most cases workplace conflicts are not productive and produce stress
What are functional and dysfunctional conflicts?
- Task conflict relates to the content and goals of the work - good if low to moderate
- Relationship conflict focuses on interpersonal relationships - not good
- Process conflict relates to how the work gets done - good if low
- Task conflict often leads to relationship conflicts
What are the stages of the conflict process?
- Potential opposition or incompatibility
- Cognition and personalisation
- Intentions
- Behaviour
- Outcomes
What are the antecedent conditions of potential opposition or incompatibility?
- Communication
- Differing word connotations, jargon, noise
- Structure
- Size of group, degree os specialisation in tasks assigned, jurisdictional clarity, member-goal compatibility, leadership styles, reward systems, degree of dependence between groups
- Personal Variables
- Personality, emotions, values
What happens during the cognition and personalisation phase?
- Perceived conflict
- Felt conflict
- Individuals become emotionally involved
- Where contlict issues tend to be defined - either as zero sum or win win
What are the dimensions in conflict handling intentions?
Assertiveness vs Cooperativeness
What are the conflict handling intentions?
- Competing
- Collaborating
- Compromising
- Avoiding
- Accommodating
What is the competing conflict handling intention?
- High Assertive
- Low cooperative
What is the collaborating conflict handling intention?
- High Assertive
- High cooperative
What is the compromising conflict handling intention?
- Mid Assertive
- Mid cooperative
What is the avoiding conflict handling intention?
- Low Assertive
- Low cooperative
What is the accommodating conflict handling intention?
- Low Assertive
- High cooperative
What happens during the behaviour phase of conflict?
- Overt conflict
- Party’s behaviour
- Other’s reaction
What happens during the intention phase of conflict?
- Conflict handling intentions
- Competing
- Collaborating
- Compromising
- Avoiding
- Accommodating
What are the potential outcomes of conflict?
- Increased group performance - functional
- Decreased group performance - dysfunctional
What is the dual concerns model?
- Concerns about other’s outcomes vs Concern about own outcomes
- Inaction
- Yielding
- Compromising
- Problem solving
- Contending
What is inaction in the dual concerns model?
Actors show little interest in whether they attain own outcomes, and little concern about whether the other party obtains their outcomes
What is yielding in the dual concerns model?
Actors show little interest in whether they attain own outcomes, but are quite interested in whether the other party attains their outcomes
What is compromising in the dual concerns model?
Actors show moderate concern in obtaining own outcomes, as well as moderate concern for the other party obtaining their outcomes
What is problem solving in the dual concerns model?
Actors show high concern in obtaining own and other party’s outcomes
What is contending in the dual concerns model?
Actors pursue ow outcomes strongly, show little concern of other party obtaining their desired outcomes
What are interests, rights and powers and how are they related?
- Parties in conflict use one of three frames
- Interests
- People talk about their ‘positions’ but often what is at stake is their underlying interests
- Rights
- People may be concerned about who is ‘right’ - that is, who has legitimacy, who is correct and what is fair
- Power
- People may wish to resolve a conflict on the basis of who is stronger
What is negotiation?
- A process in which two or more parties exchange goods or services and attempt to agree upon the exchange rate for them
- To agree on how to share a limited resource
- To create something new that either party could attain on their own
- To resolve a problem or dispute between the parties
What are the ranges of the negotiation process?
- Positive bargaining range
- When there is overlap between aspiration ranges of the two parties
- Negative bargaining range
- When there is no overlap between aspiration ranges of the two parties
What are the bargaining strategies?
- Distributive
* Integrative
What is a distributive bargaining strategy?
- Operates under zero-sum conditions - gains are made at others expense/fixed pie
What do distributive bargaining strategies include?
- Starting points (initial offer should allow for concession making)
- Target points
- Resistance points (walk away point)
- Alternative Options
What are key strategies for a distributive bargaining strategey?
- Push for settlement near opponents resistance point
- Get other party to change their resistance point
- If settlements range is negative, either
- Get other party to change their resistance point
- Change your own resistance point
- Convince other party that the settlement is the best possible solution
- Guard information carefully
- Make the first offer, and make it aggressive
- Reveal a deadline
What is integrative bargaining?
- Non-zero sum, can be win-win
- An open, sharing and creative process
- It is fine to share each other’s BATNAs
- Not wrapping a competitive strategy in a friendly package
- Both the relationship and the outcomes are important to both parties
- Intangibles (reputation, pride, principles, fairness) are more important in an integrative process
What is a BATNA?
Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement
What are the key steps to an integrative bargaining?
- Identify and define the problem
- Understand the problem fully
- Generate alternative solutions
- Evaluate and select among alternatives
What is true of compromising in integrative bargaining?
- May be worst enemy in negotiating a win-win agreement
- Reduces the pressure to bargain integratively
- Don’t cave in, try to find creative solutions
What are the differences in goals between distributive and integrative bargaining?
- Distributive
- Get as much of the pie as posssible
- Integrative
- Expand the pie so that both parties can be satisfied
What are the differences in motivations between distributive and integrative bargaining?
- Distributive
- Win-Lose
- Integrative
- Win-Win
What are the differences in focus between distributive and integrative bargaining?
- Distributive
- Positions (I can’t go beyond this point)
- Integrative
- Interests (Why is this issue so important)
What are the differences in interests between distributive and integrative bargaining?
- Distributive
- Opposed
- Integrative
- Congruent
What are the differences in information sharing between distributive and integrative bargaining?
- Distributive
- Low (sharing will only allow other party to take advantage)
- Integrative
- High (sharing will allow each party to find ways to satisfy interests of each party)
What are the differences in duration of relationships between distributive and integrative bargaining?
- Distributive
- Short term
- Integrative
- Long term
What is the role of alternatives in negotiated agreements?
- Alternatives give the negotiator power to walk away form the negotiation
- If alternatives are attractive, negotiators can:
- Set their goals higher
- Make fewer concessions
- If there are no attractive alternatives
- Negotiators have much less bargaining power
What are effective negotiating tactics?
- Forbearance
- Requires a lot of patience
- Silence
- Demonstrates self-control, confidence, discipling
- Surprise
- Use of teams
- Increasing the agenda
- Allows for logrolling
- Fait accompli
- Involves taking a chance
- Apparent withdrawl
- Reversal
- Probing/Testing
- Identity other party’s BATNA, target, resistance point
- Setting limits
- Feinting
- Association
- Bracketing
- Directs you towards your bet chances for negotiation
- Salami
- Taking one slice at a time
- Quick close
- The Agent of Limited Authority
- “I’m not at liberty to make that concession”
What are the differences between individuals in negotiation?
- Extroverts/agreeable people tend to share too much information
- People in a position of power who show anger negotiate better, for those in less powerful positions the opposite is true
- Those who experience anxiety in negotiation tend to use more deceptions, have lower expectations for outcomes and respond to offers more quickly
- High power distance cultures may exercise more restraint
What is a mediator?
- Neutral 3rd party who facilitates a negotiated solution by using reasoning and persuasion, suggesting alternatives
- Widely used in labour management negotiation and civil court disputes
What is an arbitrator?
- 3rd party with the authority to dictate an agreement
- Voluntary or compulsotry
What is a conciliator?
Trusted 3rd party who provides an informal communication link between the negotiator and the opponent
What are the third parties for negotiation?
- Mediator
- Arbitrator
- Concilliator
- Consultant
What is a resistance point?
The minimum acceptable deal
