THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN NEGOTIATION

THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN NEGOTIATION

1. Answer questions with clarity.
2. Show depth and breadth to enhance the quality of your paper.
3. Search in our library to find some papers/articles to support your argument and show them in the reference list.

Submit your answers to the questions by the module due date. To do a concise, but thorough job in answering the questions, your assignment will probably need to be 3 to 4 pages in length.

SLP1

Imagine you are the owner of a small electrical company.  You have been penalized $14,000 by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for what you consider to be petty violations. You do not think you should have been cited for two of the three violations which were identified as “Serious” violations.

1. There was an open elevator shaft 30 feet from where your electrician was working.
2. Someone cut the grounding prong off of one of your extension cords.
3. Your electrician did not cover an open circuit breaker box that was energized, which exposed other workers to potential electrical shock hazards.

In addition, you consider your company’s safety program to be one of the best in the industry, having won several awards from the local Safety Council.  You also have not had a recordable injury for over 5 years.

You do not think you should have been cited for the elevator shaft, since it was not very close to where your electrician was working (so the employee wasn’t really exposed to the hazard).  He didn’t even have a reason to go near the shaft, and it wasn’t your company’s responsibility to put up a guard rail (the carpenters are supposed to do that).

You do not think you should be cited for the electrical cord because you have repeatedly instructed your workers not to do this, and you have a program to check for ground prongs daily (though your foreman sometimes forgets to do this).

You decide to set up an informal settlement conference to try to settle the case with the Area Director. You heard conflicting stories related to her willingness to negotiate in good faith, however.

A framing contractor (who is admittedly a bit of a ‘hot-head’) stated that the Area Director is ‘a jerk’ and that she ‘has it in’ for construction contractors.  He stated, “I showed her how her inspector was clearly wrong and all she would do was give me a 20% penalty reduction.  She wants to put us all out of business”.  A roofing contractor stated, however, that you just need to get on her good side.  He stated that the Area Director was very accommodating and that she withdrew two out of four serious citations tied to an inspection conducted at one of the roofer’s sites.  He ended up with a 65% penalty reduction overall.

In this scenario, you are the business owner and are obviously entering into a negotiation with a federal manager to reduce the penalties issued against your company.  You really do not know what to expect.  For this assignment, please:

Outline the key tenets of emotional intelligence and discuss how an awareness of emotional intelligence and the human element can be useful going into such a negotiation.

The following book chapter will be your primary reading for this module:

Benoliel, M. (2014). Chapter 10: Personality and Negotiation. Negotiation Excellence: Successful Deal Making. Hackensack, NJ: World Scientific Publishing Company. [EBSCO eBook Collection]

Here is an additional reading that you may use in formulating your responses to your Case Assignment and SLP assignment.  You don’t need to understand the statistics, but the introduction, literature review, and discussion at the end may be of some value:

Kim, K., Cundiff, N. L. A., & Choi, S. B. (2014). The influence of emotional intelligence on negotiation outcomes and the mediating effect of rapport: A structural equation modeling approach. Negotiation Journal, 30(1), 49-68. Retrieved from Trident University Library.

Here is another paper that deals with the concept of emotional intelligence to provide you with some additional insight into Emotional Intelligence applications in a business setting:

Meisler, G. (2014). Exploring emotional intelligence, political skill, and job satisfaction. Employee Relations, 36(3), 280-293. Retrieved from Trident University Library.

Here are a few helpful articles to help you with your SLP:

Busick, Jennifer, M.P.H., I.H. (2012). Contesting an OSHA citation. Safety Compliance Letter, (2538), 5-6. Retrieved from Trident University Library.

This one is rather old, but is still entirely relevant (except for a mention of the Clinton Administration):

Sand, R. H. (1994). Pragmatic suggestions for negotiating reductions in OSHA citations. Employee Relations Law Journal, 20(1), 153. Retrieved from Trident University Library.