Corporate Conflict Management: Concepts and Skills by Leela Rout Eireneomiko Nelson

Author:Leela Rout, Eireneomiko, Nelson [Leela Rout, Eireneomiko, Nelson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Prentice-Hall of India Pvt.Ltd
Published: 2010-08-04T16:00:00+00:00

The ‘confrontational winner takes all’ approach reflects a misunderstanding of what negotiation is all about, and is short-sighted. Once a confrontational negotiator wins, the other party is not likely to want to deal with that person again. So the conflict becomes latent and will make one party happy whereas the other will be dissatisfied. It is also called ‘claiming value,’ ‘zero-sum,’ or ‘win-lose’ bargaining.

Distributive bargaining is important because there are some disputes that cannot be solved in any other way—they are inherently zero-sum. If the stakes are high, such conflicts can be very resistant to resolution. For example, if a budget in a government agency has to be cut by 30 per cent, and people’s jobs are at stake, then a decision about the extent to be cut is to be very difficult. If the cuts are so small that the impact on employees will be minor, the effect can be controlled. In all, disputes arising out of such distributive decisions can be more easily resolved. Labour-management dispute is a classic case of distributive bargaining.

The basic process of distributive bargaining can be explained through the bargaining zone model of negotiations (Figure 6.1). The negotiation process moves each party along a continuum with an area of potential overlap called the bargaining zone. This model illustrates that the parties typically establish three main negotiating points. The initial offer point is the team’s opening offer to the other party. This is usually its best expectation and a starting point. The target point is the team’s realistic goal or expectation for a final agreement. The resistance point is the point beyond which the team will make no further concessions [8]. This is purely a win-lose situation where one side’s gain will be the other’s loss.

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