Concept of Conflict and Negotiation

Question: Discuss aboout the Concept of Conflict and Negotiation. Answer: Introduction: Conflict is a process that begins when an organization perceives that another organization has created negatively affect after the negotiation agreement. As stated by Ada (2014), transition is a process thought which the organization avoids the conflict. It has been observed that there are three types of conflicts such as low to moderate level, high level and low level. As stated by Prenzel and Vanclay (2014), negotiation is a process which occurs when two or more parties decide to allocate scarce resources. The two organizations have used distributive bargaining and integrative bargaining to negotiate with each other. Relevance of negotiation to Project Management: It has been observed that five publishers have implemented the negotiation plan with Apple in January 2010 (bbc.com 2016). According to the negotiation plan the publishers had sold their e-books through Apples new product, the iPad. According to Robbins et al. (2013), the publishers have paid 30% of the profits as sales commission. However, it has been observed that the publishers had implemented their own pricing strategy for those e-books in the 2012 (Levine et al. 2013). It was observed that the publishers had increased the price of the ebooks in iPad library, but they still sold their e-books at a wholesale price in online retail stores like Amazon. It has been noticed that Apple users had paid more than $14.99 for an e-book. On the other hand, the same e-book was available in Amazon for $9.99 (bbc.com 2016). In that situation the Department Of Justice (DOJ) lawsuit had suggested that the e-book publishers had neglected the negotiation contract. Similarly five e-book publishers h ad failed to maintain the US antitrust law (bbc.com 2016). As stated by Prenzel and Vanclay (2014), the e-book publishers had neglected the negotiation rules and the agreement between the e-book publishers and Apple. In this case the negotiation is not relevant because the e-book publishers had implemented the negotiation contract with Apple. According to the contract, the e-book publishers had paid 30% of their profit to Apple (Ada 2014). Therefore, the sales and promotional plan of iPad was depending on the popular e-books. The e-book publishers had sold their books at a low price in Amazon. This negotiation strategy had affected the e-book publishers. The e-book publishers had paid less amount of commission to Apple (Lumineau and Henderson 2012). On the other hand, the customers started refusing iPads due to the high price of the e-books. Therefore the e-book publishers and Apple needs to observe ethical and legal implications. As stated by Gardi et al. (2013), Apple had reported the entire concern to the United States Department of Justice (USDOJ) (bbc.com 2016). The USDOJ had taken legal actions against the publishers for increasing the price of the e-books. Post this incident, three publishers were settled down their ethical discrimination with Apple. The other two publishers wanted to reconstruct the negotiation strategy with Apple. (Levine et al. 2013). Therefore, this re-negotiation strategy implementation was of much relevance to Apple because the organization has already faced much lack of trust regarding the e-book sales. Settlement is a true dispute resolution process: It has been observed that two organizations implement the negotiation process for improving their market share, profit and brand value. The settlement process is accepted by two organizations with the help of dispute resolution process. It has been noticed that 65% settlements had been implemented by the organization through the adjudicative process (Robbins et al. 2013). According to Levine et al. (2013), in adjudicative process, the judge or arbiters determine the outcome of the settlement. As argued by Ada (2014), the adjudicative process is not always beneficial for the affected organizations under the negotiation contract. Sometimes the settlement between two organization has affected one organization inspire of benefits of that organization. According to Apple and the e-book publishers incident, it has been observed that Apple had implemented the beneficial agreement between two industries. Later it was seen that the e-book publishers sold their books through the Apple iPad as well as the online retail shops (Borrini et al. 2013). Moreover, the price difference between the Amazon website and Apple iPad has affected Apples business. The publishers have sold those e-books at lower prices in Amazon as compared to the iPad library. Therefore Apple had reported about this offence to the United States Department of Justice (USDOJ). As argued by Prenzel and Vanclay (2014), the settlement contract between Apple and the e-book publishers were confidential. Therefore, Amazon was unable to gather knowledge about the contract and regulate the e-book price in their online retail website. On the other hand, the consensual settlement process is better for the organization because this settlement process is regulated by the collaborative law, mediation, negotiation and conciliation. As stated by Robbins et al. (2013), the benefits of the settlement process would be maintained by those laws or acts so that the affected company may obtain justice. As argued by Levine et al. (2013), if an industry fails to maintain the negotiation contract, then in that case other industries may take the legal action against them. As stated by Borrini et al. (2013), the negotiation process is beneficial for both organizations. If the Apple and the e-book publishers had implemented the settlement under collaborative law, mediation, negotiation and conciliation regulation then the settlement is required to be formal. Therefore, Amazon should be aware about the negotiation contract and regulate the e-book price in their website (Helms et al. 2012). Therefore the consensual negotiation process could be better than adjudicative process for Apple. As argued by Gardi et al. (2013), Apple had taken legal actions against them and made the settlements with three publishers. It has been noticed that that the settlement was not beneficial from the negotiation contract. On the other hand, Apple had continued the negotiation contract with two publishers and this may not be suitable for the organization. Conclusion: The negotiation process would be beneficial for both the organizations. However, it is not happening all time. With respect to the contact between Apple and the e-book publishers, it is understood that the e-book publishers had implemented some unethical strategies to collect maximum profit from the business. In the light of this Apple had taken the legal action against the e-book publishers. Consequentially, three e-book publishers had implemented the confidential settlement with Apple. Other two organizations had implemented another negotiation strategy with Apple. Therefore Apple was not perfectly beneficial from the legal judgment. Apple needed to implement the consensual settlement process so the negotiation will be formal and no organization will be interested to implement the negotiation strategy with those e-book publishers in future. References: Ada, A.J., 2014. Conflicts as constraints to effective management of tertiary institutions in Nigeria: the way forward.International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences (ILSHS),3, pp.45-52. bbc.com, 2016.US sues Apple and publishers over e-book prices - BBC News. [online] BBC News. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-17681137 [Accessed 31 May 2016]. Borrini-Feyerabend, G., Farvar, M. T., Renard, Y., Pimbert, M. 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