Strategies of conflict resolution
Watch children at play with their peers. The subtleties that pass us by in adult life are writ large and clear for us to see when the stage is filled with children. Watch how they squabble over toys. The same processes will occur as if they were arguing over an international arms limitation treaty. They first start by vocalizing demands and subsequently move towards a position of agreement by a process of concession making or search for new alternatives. Or one bullies the other into submission. In the workplace, one actor may have demands such as a wage increase, benefits increase, disciplinary demands and so on. Both actors will want to maximize their gains whilst minimizing their losses.
If we assume that there is a fixed sum available – that is, one side’s gain is another’s loss – then conflict is inherent. Each side will set targets/desirable outcomes and ‘resistance’ points, past which no concessions will be made. Whilst the desirable outcomes will probably be explicitly stated, the resistance points will perforce be hidden from the other side. Where the settlement range overlaps, that is, where the resistance points overlap so that one side’s eventual compromise is acceptable to the other, a compromise may be eventually achieved and certaintly more than when the settlement range is negative.
Strategies of conflict resolution include:
Negotiation – where disputing parties achieve quid pro quo in their terms of exchange, acceptable to all parties. Negotiation is usually conducted face-to-face. The tactics employed may involve the use of industrial power including the threat of industrial action if a certain settlement is not reached.
Mediation – a third party helps resolve the conflict between the two parties, a strategy employed when negotiation has failed. The mediator aims to keep contact between the two factions and effect neutral communication between them.
Arbitration – the dispute goes to a third party, who has the power to formulate and implement a settlement which is binding on both parties. This is the kind of strategy used by trade unions when negotiations break down.
Within each of the first two of these strategies (negotiation, mediation) actors have three broad choices when it comes to reaching a settlement:
· to maintain their demand;
· to concede;
· to coordinate their demands is a mutually profitable way.
Certainly within the experimental situation, unless constrained by instructions to do otherwise, actors will behave in a manner consistent with how we are accustomed to think of industrial bargaining. Theirs is a ‘distributive’ approach, in that they single-mindedly defend their side’s claim, including exaggerating and disguising the truth of their position, whilst simultaneously attacking the basis of their opponent’s claim and conceding only reluctantly, if at all, after prolonged wrangling. In these cases the ‘integrative’ win–win potential of bargaining is overlooked.
The concept of ‘integrative bargaining’ has formed the basis of much subsequent research. Brown (1978) has found that a win–lose (distributive) approach leads to a neglect of any integrative options, and any such potential options are usually not even considered by either side. His 1978 study, for example, showed how different trade union groups preferred to focus on the differences between themselves rather than coordinate their claims for both joint gain and profit maximization.
Pruitt (1981) lists a number of integrative strategies, to wit:
· cutting the other’s costs, which may enhance the other’s benefit whilst not materially affecting one’s own;
· compensation in which the other side is indemnified in some way for losses incurred;
· log-rolling, in which concessions are exchanges on different items to the overall advantage of each party;
· bridging, in which new options are introduced which try and meet the demands of both parties.
For integrative strategies to work, all sides in a bargaining ‘game’ must be prepared to exchange information about the priorities and ‘real’ needs that underlie their demands. This can involve some serious soul-searching and may take time. Certainly trust is essential in this process. If one side does not trust the other to respect and not exploit such information, then any chance of an integrative strategy working is just about nullified. Research into the area of strategic supplier partnerships (SSPs), where supplier and buyer work collaboratively to the mutual goal of increased profitability of both parties, has clearly shown that mutual trust, and indeed, investment of time and resources in each other, are fundamentals to this process.
If one takes the position that trust is a critical factor, one can them argue that such trust is most often engendered by the existence of super-ordinate goals. Research into buyer–seller transactions has shown that experimental participants who were told to act as if they were members of the same organization discovered more integrative, profitable solutions than those who acted as members of different organizations (Schulz & Pruitt, 1978). Indeed, evidence has been found that the position of power that the negotiator has is directly influential (Carnevial et al., 1981). Under conditions of low accountability, more information was exchanged about priorities and more integrative solutions found than when the negotiator’s accountability to others was emphasized. In other words, the greater the positional power of negotiators (the higher up the organizational ladder) the more likely they are to work towards win–win solutions. SSP research bears this out. SSPs are dependent upon a high level of commitment for their success. As research into the psychological contract has shown (Arnold, 1997), how much power the other side has to ‘deliver’ on their promise is key to trust.
Looking at this from a more cognitive position, one could argue that instances of coordinative behaviour will be most in evidence when the motive to maintain demand (MD) and the motive to reach agreement (MA) are in balance, but only if the trust in the others’ cooperative intention is high
The value of MD will depend on factors such as how ambitious the demand is, the perceived importance of projecting the image of strength, amount of publicly expressed commitment to the claim and so on. MA is affected by factors such as the costs of failure.
What one may notice about this model is that it is a purely strategic interaction, rather than reflecting any indication of how issues are constructed by negotiators or of the key decisions that must be reached and how and at what points individual persuasion skills may influence outcomes.
There should be some emphasis placed on the importance of each party’s beliefs about conflict, as these beliefs shape their construction of the situation and are instrumental in the formation of expectations about possible outcomes. Inter-group attitudes and expectations affect the range of issues over which bargaining occurs and what outcomes are expected. Inter-group differentiation (that is, perceiving the other side as more opposed to one’s own view than in reality they are) may well lead to exaggeration of one’s own claims and position, resulting in reciprocal antagonism from the other side.
Interpretation of what happens in the interactive process is, of course, influenced by each side’s construction of the other’s motives and expectations. The process of negotiation may, indeed, confirm worst fears and lead to more aggressive, win–lose behaviour. However, coordinative behaviour and integrative agreements may also be used, if the process of information searching leads one to expect appropriate behaviour from the other side. Information search is prompted when the implications for behaviour are unclear in any respect. One may question the opponent or initiate information searches elsewhere and find new possibilities emerge that justify changes to one’s expectations. But it must be noted, referring back to the SSP and psychological contract literature, that the openness of mind to consider new information is not guaranteed and is critically dependent upon a degree of trust between the negotiators.
Usually, neither side is at first willing to compromise (unless the organizational culture is one of a unitary or neo-unitary type). In terms of the Magenau and Pruitt model, they are firmly located in the distributive region.
However, several commentators have suggested that negotiations progress through a series of stages that bear resemblance to Bales and Strodtbeck’s (1950) three stages of problem solving (orientation, evaluation and control; Allen & Stephenson, 1984). However, it does appear clear that the success of the negotiations is partly dependent upon the strength of the interpersonal relationships between the bargainers and that this relationship assumes increasing importance with time, especially in overcoming potential deadlocks. The better the interpersonal relationship, the more likely the participants are to search for integrative rather than distributive solutions.
Finally, we need to look at the role of leadership in the negotiation process. Leaders play a key role in establishing group norms and regulating competition within and between groups. In many respects one could argue that leaders act as negotiators within the organization. Our review of leader effectiveness in Chapter 4 indicates that good leaders spend much of their time building relationships within and between groups, aiding the commitment generation process to problem solving.
As Feather (1997) has shown in research into managerial progress, cognitive complexity is positively associated with management progression. He argues that the ability to think in abstract and complex ways aids the management (also known as leadership) process, in that greater breadth of information is sought and more novel ways of problem solving are constructed and investigated. The ability to represent one’s group in negotiations requires more than the ability to outwit the opponent, it requires having knowledge of the interests and values of one’s own and the opposition’s group members. Such knowledge and understanding facilitates the construction of more imaginative solutions, which satisfy three criteria:
· the requirements of one’s own group members;
· the requirements of the oppositions’ group members;
· they are workable and effective.
The building of close relationships seems therefore to be fundamental and serves two purposes. First, a rich source of information about what is really going on, which is only readily available if there is an extensive network of social relationships in place, both intra- and inter-group. This serves to inhibit stereotypical thinking. Equally importantly it creates the means whereby progress through the various negotiating stages can be effected. This point needs emphasizing because most theories of inter-group behaviour assume opposition.
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