BUS600 Week 5 Discussion Forum 1

Introduction

As stipulated in the article Five conflict management strategies, people who do not benefit from body language and other unexplained clues utilizing e-mails may be prone to misunderstandings which may not happen during face-to-face conversation (Eckhardt & Keim, 2007). E-mail discussions can also grow faster than face-to-face interchange, because writing meaningful or angry is much easier than saying something directly provocative to someone’s face. Another individual can calm a stressful situation with something so easy as staring in his eyes. It’s about recognizing that on the opposite side of the screen is a human being.

Using technology to rectify issues

Video conferencing might be of use, as it offers more socially and emotionally viable communication possibilities than telephone, but it cuts off the likelihood that the physical presence of one or both people is intimidating.

In high conflict situations, it can be difficult to find out what actually matters, on the phone. Thus, employing a video link, in which each of the contentious parties can be seen in addition, gives them new possibilities for recognizing the deep concern of the parties about different topics.

Video conferencing solutions players exchange fewer information at a time. While text-based methods of communication can lead to extensive communications crammed with information, a video conversation encourages users to debate and process one single topic at a time (Dong & Fu, 2012). This could seem obvious, but in view of stressful negotiations or even little confrontations, it is necessary to be aware of this. Text-based solutions may offer the illusions of courteous discussion, but instead of really connecting we often toss enormous pieces of information at each other. This isn’t necessarily the ideal way to get together.

References

Dong, W., & Fu, W. T. (2012). One piece at a time: Why video-based communication is better for negotiation and conflict resolution. Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, CSCW. https://doi.org/10.1145/2145204.2145232

Eckhardt, A., & Keim, T. (2007). Conflicts and conflict resolution mechanisms in remote collaboration via videoconferencing. Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1109/HICSS.2007.143