BUS209: Organizational Behavior

Management of Conflict

• When determining how to manage conflict, we tend to utilize different styles depending on the situation:
  • Avoidance - Non-confrontational: walking away from the situation
  • Accommodation - Non-confrontational: setting aside your needs for the needs of the other party
  • Competition - Win/lose: your loss is the other party's gain; tactics include: forcing, low-balling, time constraints, deception, etc.
  • Compromise - Splitting the difference: (i.e. flipping a coin, cutting something in half)
  • Collaboration - Win/win: both parties mutually benefit, and creative alternatives are achieved.
    
    

Responding to Conflict

New Directions for Conflict Management

• Bargaining/Negotiation
• Third-Party Conflict Resolution
  
  

Bargaining/Negotiation

• Negotiation: an interpersonal decision-making process necessary whenever we cannot achieve our objectives single-handedly
• Ex. Buying a car; buying a house; things at work
• Integrative Bargaining
• Distributive Bargaining

Differences Between Distributive & Integrative Bargaining

Third-Party Conflict Resolution

• Managerial Conflict Resolution
• Outside Conflict Resolution
  
  

Managerial Conflict Resolution

Roles:

• Inquisitor
• Judge
• Advisor
• Motivator
• Investigator
• Restructurer
• Problem solver
• Procedural marshal
  
  

Outside Conflict Resolution

• Mediators - help parties facilitate the dispute but hold no decision power
• Arbitrators - makes binding decisions based on the proposals and arguments of the parties involved in the conflict

 This text was adapted by Saylor Academy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License without attribution as requested by the work's original creator or licensor.