Negotiation and Conflict Management - Literature review Example

NEGOTIATION AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Negotiation and Conflict Management Question 1 The type of conflict experienced between Emily and Ruhlman is interpersonal conflict, which happens between individuals within the place of work. The conflict in this case differs with the authority relationship among individuals (Emily and Ruhlman). The relationship between Emily and Ruhlman is evidently fragile, and Emily in this case feels pressured to continue working whilst harboring inauspicious attitudes towards Ruhlman (manager), whilst Ruhlman doubts if Emily is maximizing his ability. According to Calabrese (2000, p.461) bosses are always worried about the employees morale, for the reason that low morale may result in conflicts, that negatively impact the workers’ productivity as well as turnover. Interpersonal conflicts as per Cahn and Abigail (2007, p.79) will normally crop up in the place of work owing to the natural differences in human character, principles or ethics of the workplace. Workmates can differ over shared resources or ways of problem-solving, or workers can come in conflict with clients as well as customers. Managers (Ruhlman) and supervised workers (Emily) can as well fall into everyday differences over expectations at the workplace or style of management. Pseekos et al. (2011, p.64) posit that interpersonal conflict may result in reduced profits as well as productivity, but also there are ethical concerns that make interpersonal disagreement at the workplace challenging. Basically, interpersonal conflicts entail covetousness, antagonism, internal strife, ferocious gossip or threats that infringe ethical relationships with other persons. Yanadori (employer) hired Emily with the anticipation that she can complete the allocated job responsibilities, interrelate competently with customers and workmates, as well as dedicate her skills as well as energy to TransGlobal’s mission as well as goals. When the interpersonal conflicts turn out to be a central element of workers’ days at the work, it shrinks the amount of energy and time that employees have on hand to fulfill their responsibilities (Tanguy, 2013, p.105). Ethical setbacks as per French (2006) come up when employees go on receiving a normal benefits and paycheck when their skilled spotlight has weakened as a consequence of conflicts with their workmates. From time to time conflict leads to formal or informal mediation at the place of work in order that concerned parties may end up with a jointly satisfying solution, which is not forthcoming at TransGlobal. At TransGlobal, fairness has not been considered and so this led to conflict between Emily and Ruhlman, since Ruhlman saw Emily as a junior and youthful employee capable to handle extra workloads. Organizational culture as per Babcock (2003) may put pressure into the employer into taking manager's side while in conflict, and most of them fail to pay attention to the employees in establishing whether the supervised worker has been mistreated. Factors that may have contributed to those conflicts between Emily and Ruhlman included poor communication, intimidation, evading responsibilities, misplaced responsibilities, discrimination, and unaccountability. Lack of communication in this case surfaces when Ruhlman started seeing Emily as his personal assistant, and so failing to give her chance to express her views: when Emily made effort to talk to Ruhlman concerning her inflating workload and long hours. To set up a well-built business relationship, Kelly et al. (2011, p.268) posit that effective communication practices have to be instituted bearing in mind that scores of poor communication opportunities occur in any work setting. Regardless of how major or minor the lack of communication is, Yurur and Sarikaya (2012, p.459) maintain that poor communication may damage the organization productivity. Therefore, to solve the conflict between Emily and Ruhlman, being aware of these communication setbacks could be initial step toward resolving the conflict. Ruhlman failed to understand that skills for business communication can negatively impact the workers motivation and that a work environment that is extremely collaborative as well as communicative improves worker motivation, creativity, and productivity. Ruhlman must understand that if the manager’s communication skills are pitiable, workers lack gusto in performing their tasks and so will end up questioning their productivity (Watson, 2008, p.124). Conflicts that arise from communication setbacks skills can dishearten the workers since they will be compelled to overwork and do things out of their job description resulting in monotony as well as confusion. To Emily TransGlobal is an adversarial and territorial environment to be, and evidently this was worsened by Ruhlman’s poor attitudes concerning fairness and lack of understanding regarding worker rights. Yanadori should for that reason be proactive while handling conflicts in TransGlobal to steer clear of problems with workers (Schmidt, 2006, p.467). Question 2 The issues of role ambiguity in TransGlobal as written by Yurur and Sarikaya (2012, p.458) can be solved by far through a conversation titled clarification of roles and responsibilities. Importantly, this conversation has to be utilised to talk about precise roles of every worker and make clear their job description.  According to Crossman (2011, p.142), communication will by no means solve any conflict when a manager (Ruhlman) obstinately keeps hold of a role that belongs to another employee (Emily). Additionally, it does not succeeds to resolve the conflict if two individuals differ on the subject of who must carry out a certain role. In this case, Yanadori who is a third party have to join the conversation to offer elucidation and anticipations in relation to Emily and Ruhlman assignments. At this point, it is imperative to do away with emotion emanating from the conflict.  According to DeMarr amd De Janasz (2013, p.27) it is exceedingly widespread for workers to turn out to be overprotective, envious, patronizing, back-stabbing, controlling, and so forth, when fighting for responsibility or a role that they desire or believe fits in their position. If t Emily and Ruhlman prioritize the vital tasks within TransGlobal as well as share them, then they can both win, but if Ruhlman continues setting out to be successful and making sure is overloaded with extra tasks, then the existing conflict will intensify, and as a result, the quality and quantity of work will reduce. Therefore, as mentioned by Triandis (1995, p.9) the boss have to step up his authority and describe each individual’s role, since if the conflict intensifies productivity will drop quickly. Edwards et al. (2006, p.99) posit that negotiating for a pay raise is hardly ever simple. Emily could desire or even require extra money, but no employee gets enthused when asking for it.  Common sense definitely reads out that if an employee sees his/her company is performing poorly, it is perhaps not a good time to request for pay raise. However, Emily should understand that failing to ask Yanadori for a raise in pay may lead to serious effects in how she is seen by others. Crossman (2011) argue that failure to speak out while negotiating may make a person look unessential, but, nobody desires to be like a soft touch, or feel misused. It is a nail-biting issue, and every case is dissimilar, so Emily should know that while asking, for what she ought to have must be a clear-cut process. If Emily is actually interested with the pay rise, she should ask considering that it is completely acceptable and anticipated to negotiate from the initial offer. Yanadori will obviously be ready to negotiate from the current salary, and will characteristically leave himself some room for negotiation. Calabrese (2000, p.462)posit that if during negotiation one fails get a good deal he/she will probably leave riches on the negotiating table. Emily should frame her demand in regard to the potential of the future, and not based on her past performance. From a business’s point of view, the just reason for a person to be paid more is for the reason that he/she will in the future deliver more. Therefore, when requesting for pay rise, Emily should not base it on how hard she has worked for TransGlobal since her employment or her individual state of affairs such as buying a house. She should rather talk about what she can do to TransGlobal, and make clear her future plans concerning her position as a coordinator. Besides that, Emily should consider non-salary alternatives in case Yanadori is not in a position to raise her salary. So she should think of her compensation all together based on TransGlobal as well as work, she may as well attempt to see if she can raise her benefits package or inflate her vacation days. She can also ask for a title increase, which may come in request for pay rise, but in case she is intimidated to go over it, even though she receive what she desired the process will obviously annoy his boss. Therefore, she should request for pay rise rooted in what she can offer the company, and she should avoid at any cost making it a condition of her employment. Emily should show Yanadori that she is levelheaded and comprehend what TransGlobal offers her all together, and that income is part of the consideration. But most importantly, Emily must be ready for no from Yanadori and so she should keep her feelings in check concerning it (Edwards et al., 2006, p.102). References Babcock, L., 2003. Introduction: women don't ask. In Babcock, L. Women don't ask : negotiation and the gender divide. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press. pp.1-16. Cahn, D.D. & Abigail, R.A., 2007. Conflict styles, strategies and tatics. In Managing conflict through communication. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon. pp.77-94. Calabrese, K.R., 2000. Interpersonal conflict and sarcasm in the workplace. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs, vol. 126, no. 4, pp.459-94. Crossman, J., 2011. Negotiation. In Crossman, J. Business communication : for the global age. North Ryde, N.S.W: McGraw-Hill. pp.138-64. DeMarr, B.J. & De Janasz, S.C., 2013. The language of negotiation. In DeMarr, B.J. & De Janasz, S.C. Negotiation and dispute resolution. Upper Saddle River, New York: Pearson/Prentice Hall. pp.26-47. Edwards, R., Evans, D. & Smith, A., 2006. Wage Negotiations in the Asia Pacific: Does Globalization Increase the Wage Gap? Asia Pacific Business Review, vol. 12, no. 1, pp.95-108. French, J.R.P., 2006. Bases of social power. In Cartwright, D. Studies in social power. Michigan: Research Center for Group Dynamics, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. pp.150-67. Kelly, E.L., Moen, P. & Tranby, E., 2011. Changing Workplaces to Reduce Work-Family Conflict: Schedule Control in a White-Collar Organization. American Sociological Review, vol. 76, no. 2, pp.265-90. 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Managing Identity: Identity Work, Personal Predicaments and Structural Circumstances. Organization, vol. 15, no. 1, pp.121–43. Yurur, S. & Sarikaya, M., 2012. The Effects of Workload, Role Ambiguity, and Social Support on Burnout Among Social Workers in Turkey. Administration in Social Work, vol. 36, no, 5, pp.457-78. Read More