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Your project is to provide a comparison shopping service to the consumer. You are to provide the lowest cost for an item at any other store in a definable area near the store you are in, and any source from the Internet. The consumer scans the bar code and asks the phone/PDA, using speech, to provide comparative prices. Using GPS capability in the phone/PDA, a map is displayed showing the store with the best price. After searching the Internet, you are given also the best price from the Internet. You also are given the capability to purchase this item at the lower price, and ask for delivery or schedule a pick-up time.

If you have any ideas about a better business model for retail shopping, describe them in this last answer.

Retailers and advertisers have found great strategic value in social networks and “friendvertising” (Walker 28). They accomplish this with a mix of strategic vehicles, including targeted social ads and sponsored stories. Retailers have “gotten hip to the idea that most of us say we’re less influenced by ads than by our trusted friends. The new goal is to convert our trusted friends - or at least people we know - into an advertising medium” (Walker). Friendvertising coupled with RFID enabled comparison shopping could become a powerful value-added service for brand management and loyalty. Walker purports that brands are dead due to the short attention spans of the buying public. This advertising benefit of the technology may just be “murketing” (Walker’s term for murky marketing – an obliteration of our old advertising paradigms) but social shopping can be harnessed to clearly drive cross-channel and repeat business while maintaining brand awareness.

In the next decade, shoppers will increasingly rely on themselves - and the opinions of each other - to make purchasing decisions rather than wait for help from in-store sales associates. A combination of new technology and the next wave of mobile devices will give the in-store shopping experience a significant boost. “Fitting rooms may soon be outfitted with digital shopping assistants; touch screen and voice activated kiosks that will allow shoppers to choose clothing items and accessories to complement, or replace, what they already selected. Once a shopper makes his/her selections, a sales associate is notified and will gather the items and bring them directly to the fitting room” (IBM). Shoppers could snap photos of themselves in different combinations and email them to friends and family for approval (anecdotally, this student has already taken pictures of items to purchase for the home and emailed them from the store to his better half for purchase approval – what a wonderful world). Shoppers can access product ratings and reviews from fellow consumers and download money-saving coupons and instantly apply them to their purchases. While credibility of customer reviews on sites like eBay or Amazon can always be questioned, the trusted circle of family and friends lends a measure of reasonableness to the intention and objectiveness to the opinions. This corroboration will create greater success for social shopping in the RFID enabled comparison shopping model.

Your project is to provide a comparison shopping service to the consumer. You are to provide the lowest cost for an item at any other store in a definable area near the store you are in, and any source from the Internet. The consumer scans the bar code and asks the phone/PDA, using speech, to provide comparative prices. Using GPS capability in the phone/PDA, a map is displayed showing the store with the best price. After searching the Internet, you are given also the best price from the Internet. You also are given the capability to purchase this item at the lower price, and ask for delivery or schedule a pick-up time.

Comment about the savings realizable in labor and space in the new store model.

In a retail store today, companies need a great deal of physical space to store and display products. The average Wal-Mart supercenter covers about 205,000 square feet of display space (AP). Without the requirement for overstock units being displayed with the item for sale, less space will be required (or, a greater variety of single display items could be deployed). Using an average loaded cost of $10 per square foot, a dramatic reduction in retail cost for space can be realized by using single item displays in conjunction with the RFID enabled comparison shopping system. The labor to stock the shelves would also be eliminated. Reduced square footage translates to lower energy and upkeep costs. Such reductions may be offset by the price matching element of the comparison shopping system but the increased revenue should restrict that risk over the lifetime of the system.

With the RFID enabled shopping model, fewer shopping and checkout clerks will be needed. If a retailer could reduce the amount of necessary clerks by half, he/she would realize significant savings. The customer could handle many of the administrative tasks involved in sales transactions directly, thus becoming an avoided cost for the retailer. Specialty retailers (Apple, for example) could use the comparison shopping system as mobile sales tools; retail sales associates could be empowered with a real-time handheld inventory and selling system. Handheld sales assistants provide associates with strategic information to convert a sale without ever leaving the customer. This technology allows for guided selling (Ariely), providing the salesperson with the up-to-the-minute inventory available to sell and suggests alternative products. It is integrated to company-wide stock information to ensure that every customer opportunity is maximized. In addition, salespeople can use the handheld assistants to access customer online browsing history as well as cross-channel purchasing history. Such a system allows retail clerks to offer greater level of service for less cost and potentially recover lost sales.

Your project is to provide a comparison shopping service to the consumer. You are to provide the lowest cost for an item at any other store in a definable area near the store you are in, and any source from the Internet. The consumer scans the bar code and asks the phone/PDA, using speech, to provide comparative prices. Using GPS capability in the phone/PDA, a map is displayed showing the store with the best price. After searching the Internet, you are given also the best price from the Internet. You also are given the capability to purchase this item at the lower price, and ask for delivery or schedule a pick-up time.

What would be the pros and cons of using this capability for the prepackaged items in a grocery store?

In arguing for implementation of the comparison shopping service in a grocery store, we must define the type, cost per unit, marketing practice, and longevity of products sold by these retailers. In terms of type and longevity of products, grocery stores specialize in the sale of perishable food stuffs augmented by other hard line products such as cleaners and paper products. For prepackaged items, if assumed to be products with a longer shelf life, an argument in favor of using the comparison shopping service presented in this case study is that the consumer’s shopping cost is reduced virtually to zero making this service a substantial value add. However, if the consumer is not tendered the lowest price at the store in question or the item is not available in sufficient quantity for purchase by all those who may desire it, the shopping cost may rise for the consumer who has to travel to another grocery store to obtain the item. When a consumer is induced to shop with a grocery store offering such a service as a value add, advertisement costs can be reduced to offset the technology and data improvements required for the new service. Customers will be drawn to a grocery store when they can be assured they are getting the lowest possible price for prepackaged goods.

One aspect working against wide spread adoption of RFID is cost. Research shows grocers are enthusiastic about the technology because they believe it will mean savings across the industry but are concerned about the cost (Best) and they have been waiting for the tipping point in cost for the RFID chips to come down to an acceptable level. RFID technology is still too expensive to be used by any retailer en masse. The Electronic Privacy Information Center estimated the 2006 cost per electronic tag stood at about 30 cents apiece, but was expected to fall to as little as three cents by 2009. “RFID tags will probably not become pervasive until the per-chip cost dips below one penny. Retailers will still have to purchase sensors to read the tags, which can cost $1,000 each” (EPIC).

Another negative aspect of RFID enabled comparison shopping facing consumers is the threat to privacy. Many retailers currently use discount or loyalty cards to offer bargain pricing and then use the cards to keep tabs on what consumer’s purchase, how often they shop, and what their buying preferences are. In return for giving up this information, loyalty card customers enjoy discounted prices, special coupon offers, and rebates towards airline tickets or shopping sprees. Shoppers are becoming increasingly aware that loyalty cards are being used to compile profiles of their shopping habits for later use, and that this data can be farmed out to business partners, telemarketers, and direct-mail solicitors. What is not public knowledge, however, is how often discount card programs themselves are outsourced to other companies. “The data collected about your buying habits can be used for everything from custody hearings to psychological profiles to decisions regarding employment. Buying condoms? Must mean you are sexually active, and possibly an unfit parent or health risk. Buying weight-loss diet pills? You may end up with a higher health insurance premium or unexpected physical evaluation at your job” (Bosworth). Aggregation of data for these purposes may not be worth the cost of cheaper cereal.

Lastly, the human element must be considered by grocers who wish to employ RFID-enabled comparison shopping systems. This particular student abhors the prospect of spending valuable time grocery shopping (Maslow’s generalized hierarchy of needs notwithstanding). Most times the preference is to get in and out of the store as rapidly as possible. I question the value such a system would have for the mother who is in between pickups of her children from soccer to dance lessons, running into the store to purchase a few items for the evening dinner. The mother may not have sufficient time to allow a comparison system to find the lowest price or to haggle with the grocery clerk, who will undoubtedly not want to honor the price without preconditions or validation. This example demonstrates a diminishing return to the consumer. Oftentimes, the limitations placed on a consumer’s potential to save money outweigh the value of expediency. This student sees significant value in such a system for high cost items or comparisons for the sake of feature or function but not to the marginal utility of saving an additional 29 cents on a box of cereal.

Your project is to provide a comparison shopping service to the consumer. You are to provide the lowest cost for an item at any other store in a definable area near the store you are in, and any source from the Internet. The consumer scans the bar code and asks the phone/PDA, using speech, to provide comparative prices. Using GPS capability in the phone/PDA, a map is displayed showing the store with the best price. After searching the Internet, you are given also the best price from the Internet. You also are given the capability to purchase this item at the lower price, and ask for delivery or schedule a pick-up time.

What technologies are required?

To transform Internet based sources into a searchable application the new model could employ a virtual database. Much of the product and price data lies outside relational databases (RDBMS) scattered across Web sites, file systems, nonrelational databases, and legacy applications. These data sources differ in the way they organize data, in the definitions they use, and in their data-access or query mechanisms. These differences make it difficult to combine data from multiple sources. Virtual database (VDB) technology makes external data sources act as an extension of an enterprise’s relational database system. Using VDB technology, comparison shopping applications can make powerful queries of data scattered over a variety of sources. The VDB gathers, structures, and integrates the data from these disparate sources, and provides a single, unified RDBMS. VDB technology is particularly effective in enterprise settings when combined with data warehousing. “Using VDB technology, corporations can include data from nontraditional sources (files in directory systems) and external sources (World Wide Web) in the data warehouse, enabling key decision support applications such as data mining and online analytical processing for pricing data” (Rajaraman).

The database application could operate on a unified schema, issuing Structured Query Language queries through the Open Database Connectivity Application Programming Interface (API); the application itself is built using standard tools such as PowerBuilder, Visual Basic, or similar Java toolkits. For speed and high availability, virtual tables in two modes could be used: dynamic and warehoused. In dynamic mode, a query to a virtual table results in one or more queries to the underlying data sources. In warehoused mode, the system is set up to periodically refresh a snapshot of the virtual table created in the local relational data store, and queries to the table go to the local store.

The GPS component of the proposed solution will require an interface with a geographic information system. On the most basic level, GIS is used as computer cartography. The real power in GIS is through using spatial and statistical methods to analyze attribute and geographic information. The end result of the analysis can be derivative information interpolated from the location and pricing of products desired. In recent years, web mapping services have begun to adopt features more common in GIS. Services such as Google Maps and Live Maps allow users to annotate maps and share them with others. Google exposed an API that enables users to create custom applications such as product locators. These toolkits commonly offer street maps, aerial/satellite imagery, geocoding, searches, and routing functionality.

Your project is to provide a comparison shopping service to the consumer. You are to provide the lowest cost for an item at any other store in a definable area near the store you are in, and any source from the Internet. The consumer scans the bar code and asks the phone/PDA, using speech, to provide comparative prices. Using GPS capability in the phone/PDA, a map is displayed showing the store with the best price. After searching the Internet, you are given also the best price from the Internet. You also are given the capability to purchase this item at the lower price, and ask for delivery or schedule a pick-up time.

What is bad about it from a business perspective?

While new methodologies allow retailers to redefine the customer experience, improve merchandising, overcome inventory challenges, capture lost opportunities, take advantage of real-time demand information and achieve operational efficiencies never before possible, the case example of comparison shopping can offer some challenges to retailers. In-store comparison shopping is an example of a disruptive technology that may transform the nature of both electronic and physical commerce. “With consumers able to find the best price regardless of where they shop, the physical retailer is left at a distinct disadvantage” (Brody 50). Even with the cost reductions offered by just-in-time distribution, the brick and mortar retailer will always be a middleman in the value chain. Price matching is the most critical issue in this scenario. A retailer who makes it easy for the consumer to find the lowest possible price or deal while offering to match that deal may be securing revenue at the cost of losing margin. A large retailer like Wal-Mart can drive supplier costs down so that it can have “always low(est) prices.” It is not certain that such a comparison shopping apparatus is sustainable for small or mid-range retailers who are unable to secure the same deep discounts from suppliers.

Vertical searches, endemic to the product types sold by the retailer, can be extremely useful to the consumer. Those same searches may be limiting for the retailer’s ability to offer increased incremental or cross-sell purchases. “Exhaustive aggregation of all content in that vertical search is important to the customer. If it’s not exhaustive, it’s not fulfilling its promise” (Taulli). At the same time, vertical search in comparison shopping is limiting the retailer in terms of lost opportunities to sell other items, attached items, or to gain the most complete picture of a customer’s buying habits. From a technical standpoint, many times a customer is comparing items that, while similar from a big picture point of view, differ completely in their technical or physical specifications. The logic to process and present those differences elegantly is not exactly black and white. Often times the difference is much more complex than a straightforward comparison. “It’s often apples to oranges on some features” (Taulli).

Comparison shopping services would not charge users anything to use the site in any channel. Instead, they are funded through payments from other retailers who wish to be listed on the site. Depending on the particular business model of the comparison shopping site, retailers will either pay a flat fee to be included on the site or pay a fee each time a user clicks through to the retailer web site or pay every time a user completes a specified action. Comparison shopping sites obtain large product data feeds covering many different retailers from affiliate networks such as LinkShare and Commission Junction (Kramer). Such a business model may not be cost effective for smaller retailers not leveraging the long tail effect of e-commerce. The economy at this scale may drive the price up or further squeeze the margin to cover the shared cost of the search.

conditions: First, two or more people must be involved in a professional relationship in which there exists a high survival value for the people in the organizational setting to maintain the status quo, and, second, an incongruent injunction or directive which asserts an action to be completed or discontinued or blocks the receiver from compliance in some manner with the injunction. The essential feature of the double bind is that choice is implied when there really is not choice to be had.

The double bind creates a situation of constraint for the participants of a communication transaction by way of a paradox resulting from the communication or the situation of the relationship. This student recalls the fictional Yossarian and his struggle with Doc Daneeka’s satirical explanation of a “Catch-22” from the Heller novel – a double bind of circular logic preventing a flyer from avoiding combat missions. Indeed, a specious argument grounded in fiction but nonetheless applicable to understanding the paradoxical nature of the transaction. The psychological double bind is sometimes misunderstood to be a simple Catch-22 situation, where the victim is trapped by two conflicting demands, as Bateson, et al, explains in the journal Behavioral Science:

While it is true that at the core of the double bind are two conflicting demands, the difference lies in how they are imposed upon the victim, what the victim’s understanding of the situation is, and who imposes these demands upon the victim. Unlike the usual no-win situation, the victim is largely unaware of the exact nature of the paradoxical situation he or she is in.

This is because someone they regard with respect imposes a demand upon them, and the demand itself is inherently impossible to fulfill. The double bind is not a true logical paradox (as in antiquity, to wit: Epimenides, the Cretan, claims that all Cretans are liars, et cetera) but its essential conditions create a pragmatic paradox. It is a behavioral or psychological contradiction arising from an incongruent relationship of the elements of the communication transaction and the logical content in context.

In Dr. DiPrimio’s study of Double Binds in Natural Employment Situations, the respect is elicited from the dependency on a subordinate/supervisor relationship where the employee is dependent on the job situation for economic reasons. His study of the stress symptoms resulting from the constant exposure to double bind situations has led to advances in rectifying dysfunctional behavior in the context of the organization.

Your project is to provide a comparison shopping service to the consumer. You are to provide the lowest cost for an item at any other store in a definable area near the store you are in, and any source from the Internet. The consumer scans the bar code and asks the phone/PDA, using speech, to provide comparative prices. Using GPS capability in the phone/PDA, a map is displayed showing the store with the best price. After searching the Internet, you are given also the best price from the Internet. You also are given the capability to purchase this item at the lower price, and ask for delivery or schedule a pick-up time.

What is good about it from a business perspective?

Augmented commerce has the potential to offer retailers significant benefits. Today, business owners bear the associated costs of displaying and answering questions about the products in their stores to the consumers. In the case example, consumers will still be able to ask detailed questions (directly to the retailers or through social networks) and even handle the products they wish to purchase, but make their purchase through RFID scan-enabled comparison shopping. After the purchase is completed, the online shopping store from which the customer bought the product deposits a payment in the retail store’s account. The cost to handle money or a physical transaction is reduced substantially.

Before RFID-based comparison shopping, the retailer put great efforts and resources into acquiring products at a low price, securing a warehouse in which to store stock, and bearing the logistical costs to maintain the inventory. With augmented commerce, the retailer is relieved of all these incidental expenses. “Lower order and fulfillment costs by improving merchandising and inventory management, streamlining fulfillment processes through distributed fulfillment capabilities, implementing intelligent order routing and shipping cost optimization are benefits which can be realized from aligning augmented commerce with the traditional channels” (Kramer).

With ubiquitous mobile computing, customers are capable of “anytime, anyplace computing,” (Lee and Seo 290) enabling them to sway online and offline markets to their advantage with comparison shopping. From a business perspective, retailers can leverage existing consumer platforms such as the Apple iPhone or an Android-capable device. With no hardware devices or consumer training to invest in, retailers can focus on software development to provide synthetic synergy with their in house systems and a robust customer experience through multiple channels. Such software development for customer-owned devices yields significant avoided costs for retailers and distributors.

Another business benefit is aggregate historical information analysis. Product search history information can be used to drive inventory levels, types or categories of items, and new ideas of what consumers desire. Supporting customers’ search behavior may lead to more satisfied customers and increase purchase intention among the patrons. It is, therefore, imperative to know the objectives and past histories of consumers when they visit a web site or a storefront. “Understanding customers’ objectives when they visit a store is of vital importance to assist the individual consumer effectively by offering support that is in accordance with the customers’ specific needs” (Ariely 235).

Your project is to provide a comparison shopping service to the consumer. You are to provide the lowest cost for an item at any other store in a definable area near the store you are in, and any source from the Internet. The consumer scans the bar code and asks the phone/PDA, using speech, to provide comparative prices. Using GPS capability in the phone/PDA, a map is displayed showing the store with the best price. After searching the Internet, you are given also the best price from the Internet. You also are given the capability to purchase this item at the lower price, and ask for delivery or schedule a pick-up time.

In a world where choice is abundant and consumers have become less knowledgeable but more “knowledge-able” (epistemologically, to be knowledge-able is to possess greater understanding of knowledge based searching for facts or answers), shopping agents represent the next logical extension for comparison shopping in a just-in-time retail environment. Comparison shopping agents “help people find the products and services they want at the best price automatically” (Brody 41). Handheld devices will bridge the gap between electronic and traditional commerce as consumers become more comfortable with e-commerce and less attached to higher priced brick and mortar shopping (ibid.). Under the existing shopping patterns, consumers must visit several stores to compare prices and terms and search for items at online retailers separately. The addition of a ubiquitous computing environment (Smartphones connected to the internet, etc.) will allow integration of the physical and cyber shopping worlds to shave costs for both retailers and consumers.

Scalable comparison shopping agents embedded as expert systems in advanced retail stores represent a new breed of commerce called “augmented commerce” (Holtjona 748). A customer will find an item of interest, scan in its barcode, and search for a lower price among a set of local and online retailers. The device or software allows customers to physically inspect products while simultaneously shopping comparatively online where prices are often lower. Such decision support systems (DSS) will provide “fine-grained information for decisions that enable the firm to coordinate both internal and external business processes precisely” (Laudon 486). There is no better place than a retail storefront to integrate a customer DSS that supports aggregation of disparate information sources to aid buying decisions.

The kind of store described in the case exists today in a form ready to be optimized by augmented commerce. “Wal-Mart has honed the hub-and-spoke distribution strategy which provides one of its key operational competitive advantages” (Selko). Cost savings are a large factor in Wal-Mart’s distribution and logistics functions as it employs a method called cross-docking. Products are received on one side of the warehouse and leave out of the other side, virtually eliminating the storage of goods. “A form of just-in-time distribution, merchandise flows through the distribution center to the customer in the shortest time possible” (Bergdahl 58). This is a step behind the case’s description of “driving around back to the delivery area” to have the purchases placed in a car but it is no less viable for the proposed optimization. With technology like embedded RFID chips (Radio Frequency Identification) and VSAT systems (Very Small Aperture Terminal – satellite transmitted real time point of sale data), the movement of products and inventory turnover is dramatically increased through ease of tracking and automated fulfillment. Integration of pervasive comparison shopping agents as a customer DSS service is inevitable as retailers attempt to find value added services to set them apart from their competition, align with customer expectations, and further reduce transaction and logistics costs. “Against this backdrop, online and offline markets will no longer be distinct as they are now,” (Lee and Seo 290) and increased competition through comparison shopping will happen in an optimized marketplace.

The concept of context is critical to creating and sustaining the double bind situation. No communication is impervious to the application of the perception of the receiver to unintentionally create double binds. The content of the message is not the driving element for the double bind. The relationship of the message to the surrounding context sustains the double bind. The situation can be separated into four interrelated variables – all of which serve to impact the breadth and depth of a double bind.

The significance or importance of the relationship between the involved parties is the first distinct variable of context. A person may place more importance on familial relationships than those with their employer. In the context of business an employee may place high value on their jobs to the point that all communication transactions enter into double binds. The second variable involves the intensity or strength of the relationship. The greater importance a person places on their role of their job would translate to a more intense relationship to the employer.

The dependency or extent to which the individual sees the relationship as essential to survival is the third variable composing the context of a double bind. When an employee needs a job to pay his mortgage and feed his family, the context of this relationship is very strong. The final component is the extent of intimacy involved in the transaction. The freedom from control in a relationship translates to the extent of intimacy a person feels in the context of that communication. All four variables exist to some degree in all double binds – shifting the focus from the message to the created perception.

Context can be transmitted on many levels – be it the overall context of the work situation, to the direct cause of the double bind (vis-à-vis, the incongruent directive (injunction), delivered and accepted in the overall context), or even the granular context directly relating to the delivery of the message (tone, body language, or facial expression). The inclusive context creates and potentially aggravates the conflict. “The essential hypothesis of the double bind theory is that the ‘victim’—the person who becomes psychotically unwell—finds him or herself in a communicational context, in which messages contradict each other, the contradiction is not able to be communicated on and the unwell person is not able to leave the field of interaction”(Gibney 49).

While Gibney’s journal article reiterated the pathology of the double bind in the familial realm, it provided insight into the importance of context and the three levels of injunctive paradox in organizational communication. He goes further to describe the operant context of power of one party over another as an imperative for the double bind condition to exist. It is the existence of the context that creates the double bind and the perception of the implied power over the distressed employees in the bind. The sine qua non of the double bind being the person is not able to leave the field of interaction; i.e, is forced into the double blind by the extant condition of organizational context and the paradoxical injunction applied to the context.

When two or more parties negotiate, they are competing for a more favorable position or terms in the outcome of the negotiation. Every competition involves stratagems to win – winning here to be defined by obtaining the most favorable position at the end of the negotiation. If any party is able to dictate terms for an agreement, there is no negotiation. Regardless of tactic, the most important aspect of negotiation is superior critical listening skills.

An overall strategy that can be used throughout the negotiation process is to offer alternative proposals to counter opposition. Instead of countering a proposal, a skilled negotiator will offer an entirely new proposal; this will throw the other negotiator off and allow for different styles of thinking to emerge in the negotiation. If countered or rejected, the option remains to the negotiator to offer an entirely new proposal, and so on.

An interesting tactic which has been used by less experienced negotiators is called splitting the difference. By allowing a negotiator the option to choose between what was offered and rejected versus another option that is halved in some way (benefitting the other negotiator’s position), the new counter proposal allows all parts the opportunity to decide what is best for their constituency. Using this “what-if” strategy is effective in all types of negotiations.

When a buyer is making an opening bid (similar to eBay auctions), the best position is to start with the lowest possible acceptable bid price. The opening offer strategy establishes the bidder’s base terms. Another tactic is to precondition the offer. By setting the conditions of the negotiation in advance of the sale or setting of the terms, a skilled negotiator can preset the conditions in her favor. In the case of the sale of a car, for example, the buyer may attempt to precondition the seller by commenting that the condition of the brakes is poor or the tires need to be replaced (costs that would be incurred by the buyer if the he were to purchase the car). This preconditioning presents concern to the seller even before an opening bid is tendered, and, perhaps, such a lessened bid will be met with agreement of terms due to that tactic.

No OCMP is perfect and the CMP’s derived from their actions could fail. There are a myriad of reasons applicable to such failures – human nature, emotion, failure of logic – all of these can thwart the best of intentions. The latter, failure of logic, can be pinpointed as a major failure point evidenced in the following examples.

An OCMP could fail to ascertain the seriousness of the conflict during the stages of discovery. The team may fail to relate the seriousness of the conflict at the onset of the situation. If not discovered soon enough, dysfunctional effects could plague the entire process even after all players have committed themselves to their roles.

An OCMP may fail to completely investigate the full causes of the conflict. An inadequate or rushed investigation to quickly solve the problem can lead to an incomplete understanding of the nature of the conflict and the players involved. Management mandate could prematurely end a conflict or, worse, a perfunctory investigation could lead to a reduction in depth of the conflict. Without the possibility of bringing these issues to light at the time the conflict is realized there can be no complete resolution.

A rather obvious (and egregious) failure is not considering the global impact of the conflict at the onset of the analysis of the OCMP. As described above, the deliverable of the first stage is to recognize all of the parties attributable to the given conflict. When only part or parts of the stakeholders have their concerns mollified, other stakeholders may not be addressed. While the conflict may appear to be settled, management may find their localized solution was not fully optimized for all parties. The conflict will resume if the disaffected parties believe they were treated unfairly.

Learning is a set of changes or behavioral modification through experience or conditioning through time. More generically, learning is the process of developing a skill or of acquiring knowledge and understanding of a subject. In order for learning to occur there must be a repeatable context.

Context is the situation, conditions, and background surrounding the situation in which individuals are engaged in a communication transaction - the circumstances relevant to something under consideration or in discussion. Our text discusses double binds (and the resultant employee distress) in the context relative to the business environment and the communication transactions contained therein.

Organizational Communication Management Programs (OCMP) can be used to solve organizational conflict management situations.  On numerous occasions throughout the text and from this student’s study of conflict from personal observations and scholarly work, indications persist presenting similarities between small group development and the stages of development of a conflict situation.  The text draws a further analogy between these and the stages of a conflict management program (CMP).

A CMP consists of two stages that are further delineated into seven steps for the later stage.  In stage one, participants explore and analyze the situation.  They are aware of the opposition attempting to thwart the outcome desired.  In light of this awareness, the OCMP team engaged identifies the participants in the conflict directly as well as ancillary parties who may maintain a stake in any outcomes of a conflict situation.  (In this student’s current employ, a contract negotiation persists and a strike of the union work force looms.  The exemplar used throughout the text of the union/management negotiation is presently all too real.)  The OCMP must uncover all stakeholders who would be affected by any outcome of the analyzed conflict.

Further, the level of involvement and the extent of interest of each party must be assessed and reported.  Usually all parties are classified as internal or external to the conflict and the interfacing relationships (be they temporal, corporeal, or ancillary) are determined.  Meetings with each of these parties are held were practical to ascertain the perceptions and realities of each party’s position in light of the conflict.   The fruits of this labor are born directly in the subsequent stage.

The OCMP team will follow a formal planning process to formulate a plan to resolve the conflict at this point in the engagement.  Stevenson recommends a seven-step approach in his text Production/Operations Management.  The first step to the plan formulation stage involves identifying the problems and causes of the underlying conflict.  While difficult, this step is bolstered by the foundational exploration undertaken by the OCMP to determine the perceptions of the involved parties.  Weeding out superfluous and inaccurate reasons will be imperative at this step as confusion of the reasons will not lead to a satisfactory result for all involved.  The second step requires the OCMP to specify the objectives and criteria for choosing the solution.  The criteria for overall success must be fixed at this step or there will be no way to determine the outcome of the conflict situation.  The third step of this stage is critical; without an exhaustive list of alternative approaches to resolving the conflict, the resolution may fall short of expectations since all options were not considered.  The fourth step involves a consideration of all the alternatives.  By describing the facets of each solution, quantitatively determining factors such as consequences, outcomes, and likelihood of success can be discussed and decided.  At the fifth step, the OCMP shares the results of the prior step and asks the participants to select the best alternative solution to the conflict situation.  Naturally, when this is complete, the process would move the sixth step of implementing the selected solution on a mutually agreed timeline.  Finally, the OCMP must monitor the conflict situation to determine if the solution has resolved the conflict.

     Organizational identity is a group of standards, beliefs, values, and attributes that are publically associated to an organization. These variables set apart one organization from the others. It is important to organizations that the public perceives its stance on social, environmental, and ethical issues as aligned with their own attitudes. A cynical view of organizational identity is one that sees the actions or attitudes of an organization as a façade presented to the public – a managed view that is not truly what identifies it but what it wants the public to believe.

     Organizational identity can be harmed by tragic events not under its control. The text cites examples of accidental chemical discharges and medication that harmed pregnant women – both tragic cases that the companies paid restitution without admitting complicity. The key to the examples was the way the organizations reacted to the events by covering facts or denying culpability. Something as simple as a interactive voice response system in lieu of a human being answering the phone can damage a company’s reputation.

     A company can minimize harm or even boost its good image and identity by focusing on the customer. When the public sees a company taking care of its employees or buying more expensive raw materials from local providers that support the community, the organization will have a favorable image. Clever marketing or unlinking unfavorable images or stigmas can be used to make the public believe the organization has their best interests in mind in the course of the company’s business. A company can merge with another organization whose image is stronger than their own. Creating an entirely new image through this fresh start allows the new organization to create new standards or, at least, the perception thereof for the public.