Management and Organizational Behavior Dr. Leigh Stelzer

REFERENCE OUTLINE: Conflict Stress, and Negotiation, W&N Chap. 17

Conflict may serve as a negative (destructive) or positive (creative) force. While a little conflict may be OK, a lot of conflict tends to become destructive. Bosnia, Ireland.

Relate to cognitive dissonance (W&N:p. 328) and balance theory. Dissonance - substantial inconsistencies in thoughts and/or behaviors - leads to stress and discomfort. You're out of balance. What are you going to do?

Relate stress to systems theory. Conflict occurs when external demands exceed internal decision supply. Know conflict handling strategies.

Identify the sources of stress (p. 700) and ways of addressing stress both as a manager who can reorganize situations and as a potential object of stress.

Adopt a focus that eliminates work stressors and increases individual control (reducing uncertainty).

Conflict handling management strategies (W&N, pp. 691). Dimensions are degrees of assertiveness (satisfy your own concerns) and cooperativeness (satisfy the other).

To be assertive in this context is to want to satisfy your own concerns.

Note: compromise and collaboration are both assertive and cooperative strategies but compromise satisfies neither party.(failure of compromise to maximize individual or joint outcome)

Choice of style may be related to task v. socio-emotional goals(needs). Does accommodation reflect a greater concern for social harmony (people) than task accomplishment (production)? Accommodating styles provoke favorable evaluations by others but they suspect you are weak and submissive (WIMP!) Compromise can evoke favorable evaluations without the wimp tag. Compromise can be seen as a strength. Often the ability to compromise comes from strength. The weak fear to compromise. They hunker down and fight. Thus, should you try to strengthen your opponent's hand as a way to encourage him to compromise?

Interaction, feedback and communication tend to support cooperation, trust and win-win outcomes to negotiations. However, experienced betrayal is hard to overcome.

Dr. Martin Seligman ( What you can change...,1993) says anger has three components(p. 120): 1) Thought: AI am being trespassed against. 2) A bodily reaction in which muscles tense and brain chemistry goes into attack mode. 3) Attack directed at ending the trespass. What happens when you vent your anger? Seligman argues against venting anger. When a student [subordinate] bottles up his anger against a professor [supervisor], blood pressure goes down. And anger expression does not lower blood pressure for women; expressing hostility raises female blood pressure. In contrast, friendliness in reaction to trespass lowers it (p. 124).

Not only is it unhealthy. It may be the result of faulty perception and may be misdirected. Further, anger fuels violence and may depress observers. Seligman rejects that venting is cathartic. It amplifies aggression. Telling someone off typically makes you feel more hostile, not less hostile, toward the target (p. 130).

Between-group conflict results when groups 1)are interdependent (pooled, sequential, reciprocal); 2) have different goals, 3) have different perceptions (differentiation); 4) line-staff conflict (those who do the work v. Specialized advisors).

Structural design methods of conflict management:

a. linking-pin, liaison.

b. buffering with inventory.

c. decoupling.

d. dominance through position.

e. integrating department

Three negotiation styles

Distributive, win-lose.

Integrative, win-win. Collaborating

Attitudinal structuring. Change the ideas in the minds of your opponents.

Think about the ethical implications of these strategies.

Think about negotiating across cultures (W&N Table 17.3) comparisons. You have to "backdoor" disagreement with the Japanese and the Chinese because of issues of face. Strategies for winning in Latin America are different than in North America. Do you know anyone who uses emotionalism/excitability to win?

I am concerned about the ethical issues involved in cross cultural negotiation. Often, we do not share common assumptions. Americans make a terrible mistake when they think that foreigners are "just like US" and want the same things we do. Thus, can we really enrich others as we enrich ourselves? Did the Indians really want those beads they traded for Manhattan? The Indians did not have a glimpse of the idea of private property.

Negotiation: Those who have examined Japanese and Chinese negotiation styles say that for them negotiation is the beginning of business, the start of a relationship, and not the end of a transaction as it usually is in the West. Westerners can do business with strangers. Successful business can lead to a relationship.

Third party facilitation. What can a third party do to increase the likelihood of a decision?

Examine stress in the same way that you examine all organizational behavior. Stress comes out of the person-situation interaction. The worker brings to the situation his/her experience, training, commitments, perception, expectations about effort, performance and rewards. The situation is defined by opportunities, threats, rewards, and punishments.

The physical or psychological demands from the environment that cause stress are called stressors. Does the text emphasize the individual (personal, psychological) causes or is it balanced? I would emphasize the situational. Look to the mismatch of the person and the situation as a source of stress. The person is not prepared to deal with the environmental situation. What in the (1) person (2) situation could account for this lack of preparedness.

I believe that a major source of work related stress is the mismatch between what workers expect from work and the classic bureaucratic design that organizes most work. Herzberg, Maslow, etc., say people are motivated by "motivators". Yet most work places are designed as though all workers conform to Theory X expectations. Add downsizing that leads to over tasking, the expectation that managers and employees meet unrealistically high goals and role ambiguity, the situation in which the employee is uncertain about the assigned job duties and responsibilities. Are these the downside of empowerment?

Role ambiguity is not knowing what are the demands/expectations of your role. Is the wife role to nurture husband and children, assist husband to achieve business success, or stake out an independent career? Role conflict occurs when a person perceives incompatible messages from role senders. End up with multiple roles with conflicting goals. Generally, role conflict is associated with "inter-role conflict; having multiple memberships with competing expectations, i.e. work v. family, boss v. subordinates. My role as your professor (intra-role) is both to support and guide you (socio-emotional) and to direct your education and evaluate your performance (task). I answer to you and to (potential) employers and to future generations.

Goal conflict is when desired end states appear incompatible.

A stress management program aimed at eliminating or modifying work stressors would include: changes in workloads, structural reorganization, job redesign. Interpersonal relations in the organization can be a source of stress or a factor in reducing stress in organizations. Hardiness is described in the text as a personality style characterized by commitment, control and challenge. Hardy people are less likely to have a negative response to stressors.

Dr. Joanne Ciulla believes that we have oversold work. Work is work and you should not have so high an expectation. Most work cannot give meaning. Look to your family and community for fulfillment. While corporate support for families is the "in" thing to do, many workers are still finding little help or understanding from their employers in dealing with work/family conflicts. (A second theme is the importance of rules and structure to provide an ethical environment. Structure can lead to predictability and, thus, preparedness or programmed responses.) Uncertainty and the perceived lack of control heighten stress.