Exam 13: Conflict and Negotiation in the Workplace

Negotiators tend to be more effective when several team members are at the negotiation table listening and taking notes than when negotiators work alone.

NewTel is a telephone company with a policy of filling positions through promotions rather than hiring from outside.Until recently,the company had a strong engineering focus and tended to promote people into senior executive positions from the engineering areas.Consequently,almost all of the company's 14 senior executives joined the company over 20 years ago in junior engineering positions.There is increasing pressure on NewTel to become more marketing and service oriented,so four people were hired one year ago from consumer products and retail firms to fill new senior executive positions in marketing and service management.The external hires were necessary because employees were not sufficiently qualified.Now there are signs of tension among senior executives,particularly during budget deliberations where there is limited discretionary spending on new corporate activities.The four new hires have been frustrated in their attempts to have the company put more money into marketing and customer services instead of technology investment.What conflict management strategies could be applied at NewTel to minimize dysfunctional conflict among these senior executives?

Ambiguous goals are one of the main sources of conflict between baby-boomer and Generation-X employees.

Resolving differences the opposing party through direct communication is not as comfortably applied in collectivist cultures.

Constructive conflict is less likely to turn into socioemotional conflict when team members:

Which of the following sources of conflict is typically associated with mergers and acquisitions?

The five interpersonal conflict management styles are distinguished by their level of interdependence the other party.

In a purely win-lose situation,the bargaining zone states that the opposing parties:

Conflict begins when two parties experience manifest conflict.

Which of the following most likely produces the highest risk of conflict?

The potential for conflict between two employees would be highest under conditions of:

Two business units operate out of different buildings in a large city.They offer distinct products to customers and have their own budgets.However,they must share training facilities located at headquarters,also located in the city.This often creates conflict because both business units tend to want the training facilities at the same time.Describe the source(s)of conflict that are apparent in this situation and describe two potential solutions that would minimize this conflict.

Conflict is defined as:

Direct communication minimizes conflict by:

The compromising conflict management style has the highest win-win orientation and should be applied wherever the parties seem to have mutual interests.

Constructive conflict tests the logic of arguments and encourages participants to re-examine their basic assumptions.

Effective negotiators:

Two employees with divergent goals are less likely to experience conflict

The conflict process is really a series of episodes that potentially link together into an escalation cycle.

The conflict process begins: