Organisations and Conflict

Conflict is a process in which one party perceives that its interests are being opposed or negatively affected by another party.

Conflict is based on the technical skills of the parties involved and is independent of their perceptions.

Conflict can reduce the significance of organizational politics.

Organizations should eliminate conflict in order to be more productive

The most recent perspective on conflict is that an optimal level exists which is beneficial to the organization.

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

Organizations will be more responsive to the changing business environment if they have very little conflict.

Conflicts could result in stronger team cohesion when conflict occurs between the team and an outside source.

Constructive conflict refers to conflict between departments and their organizations.

Relationship conflict focuses on the other party as the source of conflict.

Relationship conflict is apparent when the conflict is explained in terms of differences of opinion regarding tasks or decisions.

When people experience relationship conflict, they tend to increase their reliance on communication with the other party.

When conflict reduces each side’s motivation to communicate, they rely more on stereotypes to reinforce their perceptions of the other side

Employees with high emotional intelligence are more likely to avoid the escalation of constructive conflict into relationship conflict.

Strong cohesion in teams leads to strong relationship conflicts.

Constructive conflicts tend to escalate into relationship conflict among employees in highly cohesive teams.

Conflict perceptions and emotions produce manifest conflict—the decisions and behaviors of one party toward the other.

The conflict model starts with the sources of conflict.

Poor communication is a part of manifest conflict.

Frank and Jorge are employees from different departments. They are evaluated on different performance criteria and compensated based on different reward systems. They are likely to experience conflict due to goal incompatibility.

The lowest risk of conflict tends to occur in reciprocal interdependence situations.

Resource scarcity is a potential source of conflict in organizations.

Conflict tends to be higher when rules and procedures exist.

People are more motivated to communicate and engage in exchanges when there is a perception of conflict.

The five interpersonal conflict management styles are distinguished by the level of interdependence between the conflicting parties.

The problem-solving conflict management style involves a high degree of assertiveness and cooperativeness.

The yielding style of conflict resolution involves making unilateral concessions and unconditional promises.

The forcing style of conflict management presents the highest risk of relationship conflict and it should never be used to manage conflicts in organizations.

The yielding conflict management style is preferred when both parties have equal power and enough trust to share information.

The yielding conflict management style can produce more conflict than it resolves

People from collectivist cultures tend to apply a forcing style of conflict with colleagues more than do people from individualist cultures.

Creating common experiences for all employees would help organizations reduce organizational conflicts.

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

Buffers tend to resolve conflict by reducing the level of interdependence between the conflicting parties.

Integrators have direct authority over the departments they integrate and they rely on legitimate power to manage conflict and accomplish the work.

Increasing resources and creating more precise rules for the allocation of those resources represent two ways to increase conflict.

Arbitration has a high level of process control but a low level of decision control.

Inquisitors control all discussion about the conflict and also choose the form of conflict resolution.

Mediation has a high level of process control but a low level of decision control.

Research suggests that managers tend to avoid the inquisitional approach to third-party conflict resolution.

Managers should arbitrate decisions when employees cannot resolve their differences alone.

Negotiation occurs whenever two or more conflicting parties try to redefine the terms of their interdependence.

According to the bargaining zone model, the parties should begin negotiations by describing their resistance point to each other.

The resistance point in the bargaining zone model is the team’s realistic goal or expectation for a final agreement.

When negotiators get closer to their time deadline, they become less committed to resolving the conflict.

Negotiators who make the first offer have the advantage of creating a position around which subsequent negotiations are anchored.

The best outcome you might achieve through some other course of action if you abandon the current negotiation is called the “BATNA.”

Skilled negotiators adopt a strong information-sharing style at the beginning of negotiations.

In negotiations, information is the cornerstone of effective value creation

One way to figure out the relative importance of the issues to each part in a negotiation is to make multi-issue offers rather than discussion one issue at a time

It is easier to negotiate on your own turf. Therefore, many negotiators agree to meet in neutral territory.

One way to reduce the win-lose mentality in a negotiation is to deliberately seat the parties face-to-face, so as to increase eye contact.

Skilled negotiators prefer using e-mail, videoconferences, and other forms of electronic communication when negotiating, rather than meeting face-to-face.

Negotiators tend to be more competitive and less willing to give concessions when their audience directly observes the negotiations.

Negotiators tend to avoid “hardline” behaviors when they know an audience is watching them.

Conflict is best defined as

The process in which one party perceives that its interests are being opposed or negatively affected by another party is called:

Conflict is ultimately based on:

Which of the following is an advantage of having moderate levels of organizational conflicts?

The “optimal conflict” perspective on organizational conflict is that:

Which of the following is a major advantage of having moderate levels of organizational conflicts?

According to the emerging view on organizational conflict, there are two types of conflict. They are:

According to the literature on organizational conflict, constructive conflict:

Constructive conflict:

Based on the characteristics of constructive conflicts, which of the following would help a manager create constructive conflicts during a debate?

Which of the following best describes relationship conflict?

Relationship conflict usually causes people to

Effective managers should

What is the relationship between emotional intelligence and relationship conflicts?

Which of the following statements is true of the relationship conflicts in a highly cohesive team?

When team norms encourage _____, team members learn to appreciate honest dialogue without personally reacting to any emotional display during the disagreements.

Which of the following precedes conflict outcomes in the conflict process?

Which of the following immediately follows conflict perceptions and emotions in the conflict process?

Salespeople at Widget Co. complain that they lose sales bonuses when the production department is out of stock of a particular item. This sometimes causes customers to buy from elsewhere rather than wait for the next production run. Meanwhile, production employees complain that salespeople don’t appreciate the need to minimize inventory costs, for which production staff is rewarded. This instance is an example of conflict due to:

Employees in engineering and marketing often disagree with each other in how to achieve a target mainly because they have unique backgrounds, experiences, and training. The most apparent source of conflict here is:

Which of the following sources of conflict is typically associated with mergers and acquisitions, where everyone wants the company to succeed, but they fight over the “right way” to do things because of their unique experiences in the separate companies?

Situations with both _______________ produce the highest risk of conflict.

The potential for conflict between two employees would be highest under conditions of _____ interdependence.

Which of the following factors leads to relationship conflicts in teams?

The problem-solving interpersonal style of conflict has:

Which of the following interpersonal conflict management styles represents a purely win-win orientation?

Which of the following conflict management styles is associated with low cooperativeness and low assertiveness?

You have resolved a conflict with another department by offsetting your losses by equally valued gains. Which of the following conflict handling styles is used here?

The yielding conflict management style should be used if:

Increasing inventories between sequential work units tends to reduce potential conflict by:

What is the major function of integrators in an organization?

Third-party dispute resolution activities are classified in terms of their:

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

Initial offer points, target points, and resistance points represent three elements in:

A BATNA: