Background
Robert, a director and union member, has requested an 8 percent raise for his work unit. His request is based on recent finance reports showing that his department has substantially contributed to a 15 percent profit increase for the organisation. He feels that his team should be compensated for the hard work and long hours they have put in over the last few years to achieve this outcome.
Kay knows the value of Robert’s team and readily acknowledges their achievements. However, she knows that the company has plans to expand and diversify. This new project will use up the majority of the profit increase for at least the next five years. She is willing to sit down with Robert and talk about how his team can get involved in the new project. There could be new job opportunities, some overseas assignments, and possible promotions to various leadership positions within the new project. Kay has flagged this with Robert; however, he is adamant that his team needs to be compensated with a monetary increase. He went as far as threatening to get the union involved if his request is unsuccessful.
Conflict-handling style
In this case study, one of the conflict-handling style used is competing. Robert demands that his request be fulfilled. He did not consider the offer that Kay gave and was adamant of the monetary increase. This style on conflict-handling would result in a temporary solution, and if he feels that him and his team deserves more, he would demand for more again. This would leave the organisation in a very difficult situation as other departments would see this an a possible opportunity to have their demands met too.
Bargaining approach
An integrative bargaining approach was used in this scenario. Rather than giving in to Robert’s demands, Kay gave an alternate solution for him and his team. She took into account the organisation’s interest and instead of a monetary increase, she offered job opportunities, overseas assignments, and possible promotions to various leadership positions within the new project. Her solution would create added value and maximize joint gains for Robert and his team and the organisation while ensuring that Robert and his team were rewarded for their time and effort that they gave for the organisation.
Interpersonal communication
There were many aspects of interpersonal communication that contributed to the poor working environment. There was a lack of clarification in the sense that Kay knew of the future plans of the company and did not disclose it. Robert might have taken up the offer if he knew about the plans to expand and diversify, this would ensure that him and his team has future opportunities as compared to the company not expanding.
However, Robert has lacked interest in what Kay has to say. He threaten to go to the union despite the possibility of a better future for him and his team. His actions may have serious repercussion in the future as it shows the lack of loyalty to the company.
Hall’s context model
In this scenario, Robert has a low-context culture. He has an uncompromising and dominating communication style, he made his case very explicitly clear that if there was no monetary increase for him and his team that he will get the union involved. His demands were very individualistic, and had no regard to the interest of the company. The fact that he threatened to get the union involved shows that his needs was of a higher importance than his relation to the company.
MGNT 102 
Hi Joash Chan, I quite pleased with your blog post. It is very simple, easy to understand, informative, and straight forward. I totally agree with part of your conflict-handling style where Robert is using competing to Kay. Where Robert try to adamant of the monetary increase while he did not consider an offer that Kay give to him. I also agree that Robert’s action may have serious repercussions in the future. We can see that Robert lacks loyalty to the company because he, not interests in what Kay wants to say. I agree that Robert has a low-context culture. Overall, your blog post is very good!
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Hi Joash, thanks for sharing your blog post with us. Firstly, I noticed that you answer directly to the questions with evidence. It was simple yet informative, making it an easy read. However, I noticed that you did not use any visuals to explain those what types of conflicting-handling style, bargain approach, interpersonal communication or Hall’s context model. I understand that we have learnt these during our lecture and we can always refer to our class notes but it would have been nice if you had photos or short explanations to make your blog more colourful and readers for the easy reference too.
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Hi Joash, your post is very straightforward and simply which helped me as a reader to understand it with ease. I do agree with you that an integrative bargaining approach was used in this scenario as we can clearly see that Kay is trying very hard to come to a win-win situation with Robert. It will be better if your post add more pictures or models so the post will be more interesting to the reader. Great post!
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Hi Joash! I mostly agree and share the same opinion with you. However, I feel that Robert is a high-context individual. I agree that he made his stance clear, but his emotions (eg: frustration, high-strung) were mainly felt through his body language (eg: he was adamant, threatening…). Additionally, it can be observed that his time sense is polychronic, because he demanded monetary increase immediately. This tells us he wants things to proceed at his own pace.
Overall, I felt you could have added in some pictures for humour, to add color, or to further explain your points. However, I also thought that it was pleasant to read your blog post as it was detailed and straight to the point with clear headings!
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Hi Joash, a nice blog post that you created. I found this post to be simple and straight to the point. The points that you have stated are very clear. However, I think it would be better to add more pictures or models to assist in explaining the points that you have made so that your readers might understand the models that you are trying to describe to us. Like, for example, the different conflict-handling styles, bargaining approaches and what the Hall’s context model is. Overall, I still found it an informative post. Keep it up!
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Hi Joash, I would like to say that you did a great job on analyzing the case study into great detail. I agree with most of your opinions about the characters involved in the scenario. For example with Kay adopting the integrative bargaining to be able to talk terms with Robert about his remunerations for him and his team. Also, the fact that Robert was unsatisfied with the proposal and not only did he not try to discuss it nicely with Kay, but also attempted to threaten her with the power of the union. Good point noting that his characteristics fitting into the low context category in Hall’s context model too. Overall, good analysis and keep up the great work dude!
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