BSAD 261

1
Managing Conflict

• BSAD 261
• Brad Long

2
Organizational Conflict

• Conflict arises when the goals, interests or
  values of different individuals or groups are
  incompatible. Achieving ones objectives is
  seemed to be at the expense of others.
• Conflict is common between
• Various stakeholders of a business
• Management and workers
• Departments competing over resources
• Individuals competing for promotion
• Etc.

3
The Roots of Conflict

• Incompatible goals and time horizons
• Overlapping authority, role incompatibility
• Task interdependencies
• Inequitable or competitive bases for evaluating
  and rewarding performance
• Scarce resources
• Lack of information, misinformation and/or
  uncertainty
• Status differences and favouritism
• Personal differences
• Differences in organizational cultures and values

4
Styles of Managing Conflict

• High
• Assertiveness
• Low

Competing Collaborating Compromising Avoid
ing Accommodating
Low
High Cooperation
5
Strategies for Reducing Conflict

• Focus on larger goals
• Improve communications
• Clarify job responsibilities
• Develop employees negotiating skills
• Use third parties as mediators
• Bring conflicting parties together to foster
  understanding and cooperation
• Separate the conflicting parties

6
Negotiation

• In negotiation, parties in conflict consider
  various alternatives to try to identify an
  acceptable solution.
• Two divergent approaches to negotiating
• Distributive negotiations competitive,
  adversarial, zero sum
• Integrative bargaining collaborative, partners,
  creative

7
Integrative Bargaining Strategies

• Emphasize superordinate goals that to which
  all parties can agree
• Focus on the problem do not personalize the
  conflict
• Focus on interests (why you want something)
• Be empathetic to the aspirations of the other
  party
• Invent creative solutions that satisfy all
  interests
• Focus on being fair and finding mutual agreement,
  not maximizing ones own objectives

8
Video Case Calgary Herald

• Case pertains to an 8 month strike, from Nov.99
  June00
• Identify the points of contention between each
  party (journalists and management).
• For each, clarify the source of conflict.
• What approaches to conflict management have been
  used to date? Discuss the success of each.
• What negotiation techniques could be used to
  reach agreement between the two parties?

9
Thank You! Questions?