Organizational Behaviour: Concepts,
Controversies, Applications
Ninth Canadian Edition
Chapter 9
Conflict and Negotiation
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Chapter Outline (1 of 5)
• Conflict Defined
– Functional v s Dysfunctional Conflict
– Types of Conflict
– Loci of Conflict
– Sources of Conflict
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Chapter Outline (2 of 5)
• Conflict Resolution
– Conflict Management Strategies Based on Dual
Concern Theory
– What Can Individuals Do to Manage Conflict?
– Resolving Personality Conflicts
• Conflict Outcomes
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Chapter Outline (3 of 5)
• Negotiation
– Bargaining Strategies
– How to Negotiate
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Chapter Outline (4 of 5)
• Individual Differences in Negotiation Effectiveness
– Personality Traits in Negotiation
– Moods/Emotions in Negotiation
– Gender Expression in Negotiation
– Negotiating in a Social Context
– Reputation
– Relationships
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Chapter Outline (5 of 5)
• Third Party Negotiations
– Mediator
– Arbitrator
– Conciliator
– Conflict Resolution and Culture
– Cultural Differences in Negotiating Style
– Culture, Negotiations, and Emotions
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Conflict Defined (1 of 8)
• Conflict is 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.
• Conflict in the workplace can affect the effectiveness of
individuals, teams, and the entire organization.
• Conflict has positive and negative effects.
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Conflict Defined (2 of 8)
Functional v s Dysfunctional Conflict
• Is conflict always bad?
• Functional Conflict is conflict that supports the goals of the
group and improves its performance.
• Dysfunctional Conflict is conflict that hinders group
performance.
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Conflict Defined (3 of 8)
Types of Conflict
• Task conflict is conflict over the content and goals of the
work.
• Relationship conflict is conflict based on interpersonal
relationships.
– Almost always dysfunctional
– Can be psychologically exhausting
• Process conflict is conflict over how work gets done.
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Conflict Defined (5 of 8)
Loci of Conflict
• Dyadic conflict is conflict that occurs between two people.
• Intragroup conflict is conflict that occurs within a group or
team.
• Intergroup conflict is conflict between different groups or
teams.
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Conflict Defined (6 of 8)
Sources of Conflict
• Communication
– Through semantic difficulties, misunderstandings and
“noise” in the communication channels
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Conflict Defined (7 of 8)
Sources of Conflict
• Structure
– Size, specialization, and composition of the group
– Ambiguity of responsibility
– Reward systems
– Leadership style
– The diversity of goals
– If one group is dependent on another
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Conflict Defined (8 of 8)
Sources of Conflict
• Personal Variables
– Personality
▪ People high in disagreeableness, neuroticism, or
self-monitoring are prone to tangle with other
people more often, and to react poorly when conflict
occurs
– Emotions
– Values
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Conflict Resolution (1 of 8)
Conflict Management Strategies Based on Dual Concern
Theory
• Conflict researchers often use dual concern theory to
describe people’s conflict management strategies.
• Cooperativeness - the degree to which one party attempts
to satisfy the other party’s concerns
• Assertiveness - the degree to which one party attempts to
satisfy his or her own concerns
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Conflict Resolution (2 of 8)
Conflict Management Strategies Based on Dual Concern
Theory
• Five conflict-handling styles:
• Forcing - Imposing one’s will on the other party
• Problem solving - Trying to reach an agreement that
satisfies both one’s own and the other party’s aspirations
as much as possible
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Conflict Resolution (3 of 8)
Conflict Management Strategies Based on Dual Concern
Theory
• Avoiding - Ignoring or minimizing the importance of the
issues creating the conflict
• Yielding - Accepting and incorporating the will of the other
party
• Compromising - Balancing concern for oneself with
concern for the other party in order to reach a solution
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Conflict Resolution (4 of 8)
Exhibit 9.2 Conflict-Handling Strategies and Accompanying Behaviours
Sources: Based on K. W. Thomas, “Conflict and Negotiation Processes in Organizations,”
in Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, vol. 3, 2nd ed., ed. M. D.
Dunnette and L. M. Hough (Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press, 1992), p. 668 ;
C. K. W. De Dreu, A. Evers, B. Beersma, E. S. Kluwer, and A. Nauta, “A Theory-Based
Measure of Conflict Management Strategies in the Workplace,” Journal of Organizational
Behavior 22, no. 6 (September 2001), pp. 645–668; and D. G. Pruitt and J. Rubin, Social
Conflict: Escalation, Stalemate and Settlement (New York: Random House, 1986).
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Conflict Resolution (5 of 8)
What Can Individuals Do to Manage Conflict?
• Problem solving
• Developing overarching goals
• Smoothing
• Compromising
• Avoiding
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Conflict Resolution (6 of 8)
What Can Individuals Do to Manage Conflict?
• The choice of technique may depend on how serious the
issue is to you and your preferred conflict management
style. Additional techniques:
• Expansion of resources.
• Authoritative command.
• Altering the human variable.
• Altering the structural variables.
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Conflict Resolution (7 of 8)
Resolving Personality Conflicts
• A variety of factors lead to personality conflicts at work,
including the following:
• Misunderstandings based on age, race, or cultural
differences
• Intolerance, prejudice, discrimination, and bigotry
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Conflict Resolution (8 of 8)
Resolving Personality Conflicts
• Perceived inequalities
• Misunderstandings, rumours, or falsehoods about an
individual or group
• Blaming for mistakes or mishaps (finger-pointing)
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Conflict Outcomes
Three desired outcomes of conflict:
1. Agreement: equitable and fair agreements are the best
outcomes
2. Stronger relationships: when conflict is resolved
positively, this can lead to better relationships and greater
trust
3. Learning: handling conflict successfully teaches one how
to do it better next time.
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What is your style?
• https://psycho-tests.com/test/conflict-mode
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Negotiation (1 of 7)
• Negotiation is a process in which two or more parties
exchange goods or services and attempt to agree upon
the exchange rate for them.
• Within a negotiation, individuals have issues, positions,
and interests.
• Issues are items that are specifically placed on the
bargaining table for discussion.
• Positions are the individual’s stand on the issues.
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Negotiation (2 of 7)
Bargaining Strategies
• Distributive bargaining is a negotiation that seeks to divide
up a fixed amount of resources; a win-lose solution.
• Fixed pie is the belief that there is only a set amount of
goods or services to be divided up between the parties.
• Integrative bargaining is a negotiation that seeks one or
more settlements that can create a win-win solution.
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Negotiation (3 of 7)
Exhibit 9.3 Distributive v s Integrative Bargaining
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Bargaining Characteristic
Distributive Bargaining
Integrative Bargaining
Goal
Get as much of the pie as
possible
Expand the pie so that both
parties are satisfied
Motivation
Win–lose
Win–win
Focus
Positions (“I can’t go
beyond this point on this
issue.”)
Interests (“Can you explain
why this issue is so
important to you?”)
Interests
Opposed
Congruent
Information sharing
Low (Sharing information
will only allow other party to
take advantage)
High (Sharing information
will allow each party to find
ways to satisfy interests of
each party)
Duration of relationship
Short term
Long term
Source: Based on R. J. Lewicki and J. A. Litterer, Negotiation (Homewood, I L: Irwin, 1985),
p. 280.
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Negotiation (4 of 7)
How to Negotiate
Five steps to negotiation (DDCBA):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Developing a strategy
Defining ground rules
Clarifying and justifying
Bargaining and problem solving
Attaining closure and implementation
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Negotiation (5 of 7)
Exhibit 9.4 The Negotiation Process
Source: Based on R. J. Lewicki, “Bargaining and Negotiation,” Exchange: The
Organizational Behavior Teaching Journal 6, no. 2 (1981), pp. 39–40.
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Negotiation (6 of 7)
• BATNA is the best alternative to a negotiated agreement;
the outcome an individual faces if negotiations fail.
• The bargaining zone is the zone between each party’s
resistance point, assuming that there is overlap in this
range.
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Negotiation (7 of 7)
Exhibit 9.5 Staking Out the Bargaining Zone
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Individual Differences in Negotiation
Effectiveness (1 of 8)
• Personality Traits in Negotiation
• Moods/Emotions in Negotiation
• Gender Expression in Negotiation
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Individual Differences in Negotiation
Effectiveness (2 of 8)
• Negotiation in a Social Context
• Reputation
• Relationships
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Individual Differences in Negotiation
Effectiveness (3 of 8)
Personality Traits in Negotiation
• Negotiators who are agreeable or extraverted are not very
successful in distributive bargaining
– Extraverts are outgoing and friendly; they tend to
share more information than they should
– Agreeable people are more interested in finding ways
to cooperate rather than to butt heads
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Individual Differences in Negotiation
Effectiveness (4 of 8)
Moods/Emotions in Negotiation
• Do moods and emotions influence negotiation? They do,
but the way they work depends on the emotions as well as
the context.
• Relevant emotions include anger, disappointment, and
anxiety.
• Emotions—especially negative ones—matter to
negotiation.
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Individual Differences in Negotiation
Effectiveness (5 of 8)
Gender Expression in Negotiation
• Those who express as men or women are treated
differently by negotiation partners, and these differences
affect outcomes.
• Research indicates that women may experience a
backlash due to showing gender-stereotypical behaviours.
Gender discrimination was perpetuated by stereotyped
thinking about individual gender factors, family factors,
and socio-cultural factors.
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Individual Differences in Negotiation
Effectiveness (6 of 8)
Negotiations in a Social Context
• In organizations, many negotiations are open-ended and
public.
• There is a social component to the negotiation. You are
probably negotiating with someone you already know and
will work with again, and the negotiation and its outcome
are likely to be topics people will talk about.
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Individual Differences in Negotiation
Effectiveness (7 of 8)
Reputation
• When it comes to negotiation, having a reputation for
being trustworthy matters.
• In short, trust in a negotiation process opens the door to
many forms of integrative negotiation strategies that
benefit both parties.
• The most effective way to build trust is to behave in an
honest way across repeated interactions.
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Individual Differences in Negotiation
Effectiveness (8 of 8)
Relationships
• The social, interpersonal component of relationships with
repeated negotiations means that individuals go beyond
valuing what is simply good for themselves and instead
start to think about what is best for the other party and the
relationship as a whole.
• Negotiators who consistently act in a way that
demonstrates competence, honesty, and integrity will
usually have better outcomes in the long run.
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Third-Party Negotiations (1 of 8)
• Mediator
• Arbitrator
• Conciliator
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Third-Party Negotiations (2 of 8)
• A mediator is a neutral third party who facilitates a
negotiated solution by using reasoning, persuasion, and
suggestions for alternatives.
• Used in labour-management negotiations and civil court
disputes
• Participants must be motivated to bargain and settle and
the mediator must appear neutral and non-coercive
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Third-Party Negotiations (3 of 8)
• An arbitrator is a third party to a negotiation who has the
authority to dictate an agreement.
• Voluntary (requested) or compulsory (imposed by law or
contract)
• Always results in a settlement
• Conflict may resurface at a later time
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Third-Party Negotiations (4 of 8)
• A conciliator is a trusted third party who provides an
informal communication link between the negotiator and
the opponent.
• Informal link
• Used extensively in international, labour, family, and
community disputes
• Fact-find, interpret messages, persuade disputants to
develop agreements
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Third-Party Negotiations (5 of 8)
Conflict Resolution and Culture
• Differences across countries in conflict resolution
strategies may be based on collectivistic or individualistic
tendencies and motives.
• Collectivists are more likely to seek to preserve
relationships and promote the good of the group as a
whole. They will avoid direct expression of conflicts,
preferring to use more indirect methods for resolving
differences of opinion.
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Third-Party Negotiations (6 of 8)
Conflict Resolution and Culture
• Cross-cultural negotiations can also create issues of trust.
• A lower level of trust was associated with less discovery of
common interests between parties, which occurred
because cross-culture negotiators were less willing to
disclose and solicit information.
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Third-Party Negotiations (7 of 8)
Cultural Differences in Negotiating Style
• Negotiating styles vary across national culture.
• People generally negotiate more effectively within cultures
than between them.
• In cross-cultural negotiations, it’s especially important that
the negotiators be high in openness.
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Third-Party Negotiations (8 of 8)
Culture, Negotiations, and Emotions
• Research has shown that East Asian negotiators were
less likely to accept offers from negotiators who displayed
anger during negotiations.
• When confronted with an angry negotiator, Chinese
negotiators increased their use of distributive negotiating
tactics, whereas US negotiators decreased their use of
these tactics.
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Breakout Group Exercises (1 of 2)
Form small groups to discuss the following:
1. You and two other students carpool to class every day.
The driver has recently taken to playing a new radio
station quite loudly. You do not like the music or the
volume. Using one of the conflict-handling strategies
outlined in Exhibit 9.2, indicate how you might go about
resolving this conflict.
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Breakout Group Exercises (2 of 2)
2. Using the example above, identify a few BATNAs (best
alternative to a negotiated agreement) available to you,
and then decide whether you should continue carpooling.
3. Which conflict-handling strategy is most consistent with
how you deal with conflict? Is your strategy effective?
Why or why not?
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