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Understanding Conflict Management Systems and Strategies in the Workplace: a Pilot Study Nova Southeastern University NSUWorks CAHSS Faculty Articles Faculty Scholarship Summer 7-19-2013 Understanding Conflict Management Systems and Strategies in the Workplace: A Pilot Study Neil H. Katz Nova Southeastern University, [email protected] Linda T. Flynn Nova Southeastern University Follow this and additional works at: https://nsuworks.nova.edu/shss_facarticles Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons, and the Communication Commons NSUWorks Citation Katz, N. H., & Flynn, L. T. (2013). Understanding Conflict Management Systems and Strategies in the Workplace: A Pilot Study. Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 30 (4), 393-410. https://doi.org/10.1002/ crq.21070 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at NSUWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in CAHSS Faculty Articles by an authorized administrator of NSUWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ARTICLES ticlesUnderstanding Confl ict Mana gement Systems and Strategies in the Workplace: A Pilot Study Neil H. Katz Linda T. Flynn In today’s business environment, workplace confl ict is a signifi cant issue. Research in the confl ict management discipline says that confl ict in the workplace is on the rise and will continue to go up; however, many leaders and managers are not fully aware of structures and processes available to manage it. Th is article presents the results of a pilot study conducted in Broward County, Florida, of workplace leaders’ and man- agers’ awareness, perception, and use of confl ict management systems and strategies. Th e fi ndings refl ect the lack of a clear defi nition of the issue, the absence of integrated confl ict management systems within most organizations, and dissatisfaction with antiquated grievance sys- tems. Th ere is substantial opportunity for additional research. onviolent, collaborative confl ict resolution methods such as facilita- Ntion, negotiation, mediation, and consensual decision making are part of a long history in many regions of the globe, including sub-Sahara Africa, India, Iceland, and the Roman Empire. However, these proven con- fl ict resolution methods were not well known in the United States until the 1980s, when developments in various areas converged to expose these methods to a wider audience. Among the most important of these initia- tives were widely popular books such as Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agree- ment without Giving In (Fisher, Ury, and Patton 1981) and Th e Mediation Process: Practical Strategies for Resolving Confl icts (Moore 2003); national Conflict Resolution Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 4, Summer 2013 393 © Wiley Periodicals, Inc. and the Association for Confl ict Resolution Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/crq.21070 394 KATZ, FLYNN organizations providing conferences and networking services, including the National Conference on Peacemaking and Confl ict Resolution; and institutes such as the Th eory and Practice Research and Educational Cen- ters funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, including uni- versity centers such as the Harvard Negotiation Project, the Program for the Analysis and Resolution of Confl icts at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Aff airs, and the Dispute Resolution Pro- gram at the Kellogg Business School of Northwestern University. Th roughout the 1990s, interest in collaborative confl ict resolution techniques continued to accelerate in academia, training organizations, and numerous sectors of society such as business, education, family, and religious institutions. Substantial support of these methods existed among people and institutions of great infl uence, including the US Congress, which passed the Administrative Dispute Resolution Act in 1990 authoriz- ing and encouraging federal agencies to use alternative dispute reso lution (ADR), and the presidency: In 1993, President Bill Clinton signed Execu- tive Order 12891 mandating that all US federal agencies form labor- management partnership councils and undergo training in interest-based negotiation, as well as other confl ict resolution and collaborative decision- making methods. By the late 1990s, hundreds of colleges and universities and training organizations off ered theory and practice in confl ict resolution techniques: facilitation, negotiation, advanced communication skills, confl ict and com- munication styles, and mediation and arbitration. Prominent private sector fi rms such as General Electric, Prudential, Johnson and Johnson, and Alcoa were developing in-house mediators, arbitrators, ombudspersons, and other confl ict resolution specialists. Large federal agencies such as the US Postal Service, the Department of the Interior, and the Departments of the Navy and Air Force trained many of their own employees to become ADR special- ists. Th ese trained staff handled cases of workplace confl ict eff ectively and effi ciently in terms of cost, settlement satisfaction, durability of the agree- ment, and overall satisfaction with the process (Lipsky and Seeber 2006). By the turn of the century, optimism that these dispute resolution practices were becoming the norm in communities, groups, families, and workplaces took hold among many scholars and practitioners. William Ury’s Th e Th ird Side (2000) promotes the belief and promise that nego- tiation will take over as the norm in settling international disputes, with military interventions becoming more and more obsolete. Jack Gordon’s Conflict Resolution Quarterly • DOI: 10.1002/crq Confl ict Management Systems and Strategies 395 Th e Pfeiff er Book of Successful Confl ict Management Tools (2003) gives readers access to dozens of ideas, strategies, inventories, questionnaires, surveys, and experiential learning activities to manage confl ict more eff ectively at the individual, team, and organizational levels. In a major study of private sector workplace confl ict systems by schol- ars of the prestigious Institute of Confl ict Resolution at Cornell Universi- ty’s School of Labor and Industrial Relations, Lipsky, Seeber, and Fincher (2003) noted the broadening acceptance and institutionalization of pro- cesses such as mediation, arbitration, fact fi nding, and ombudspersons and wrote, “Research strongly suggests that ADR is fi rmly institutionalized in a majority of United States corporations, at least for employment and com- mercial disputes” (xvii). Th e Cornell study authors optimistically con- cluded their book by referring to Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point (2002) phenomenon to characterize the incredible growth and bright future for confl ict management practices in the workplace. Th e authors predicted that “growth will get to social and behavioral epidemic proportions where ‘everyone will be doing it’ and confl ict management processes and systems will become as essential to organizational life as other features of Human Resources such as benefi ts, compensation and hiring” (139–40). Th is article summarizes the results of a pilot study conducted in Bro- ward County, Florida, designed to gauge the awareness, perception, and use of confl ict management methods and systems. Th e study fi ndings, of a mixed-method design, highlight the results of in-depth interviews with leaders from a cross-section of public, private, and nonprofi t organiza- tions and employee surveys from those organizations. Th e study gathered leader and employee views of workplace confl ict, perceived value of the systems, and awareness of and satisfaction with existing confl ict resolution practices, including how the system “consciously or unconsciously exposes and resolves dissatisfaction” (Constantino and Merchant 1996, 22). Th e results of this study, funded under a local grant requiring a community engagement focus in Broward County, cannot easily be generalized to a larger population. Th e pilot study fi ndings do, however, reveal some important challenges for consideration by scholars and practitioners, including a distinct lack of awareness of the value of eff ective confl ict management systems and strategies, a potential need for the confl ict man- agement fi eld to improve public education and communications with business communities, and identifi cation of areas for future research and exploration. Conflict Resolution Quarterly • DOI: 10.1002/crq 396 KATZ, FLYNN Work and Confl ict: Yesterday and Today To provide a context for the study, we provide a brief review of the litera- ture, which lends evidence to the belief that workplace confl ict is a signifi - cant variable in workplace productivity, eff ectiveness, and overall success. Scholarship on workplace confl ict has experienced several transforma- tions. While early twentieth-century classical organizational theorists such as Max Weber and Henri Fayol viewed organizational confl ict as unpleas- ant, hostile, and senseless (Alghamdi 2011), most scholars today recognize the inevitability of workplace confl ict, defi ned as “members engaging in activities that are incompatible with those of colleagues within their net- work, members of other collectivities, or unaffi liated individuals who utilize the services or products of the organization” (Roloff 1987, 19). Moreover, contemporary theorists, including Taylor (1992), and Rahim (2001), Lam (2005), Wilmot and Hocker (2007), and Ritzer (2008), not only admit the inevitability of confl ict as a natural occurrence in organizational life but also argue that confl ict can serve a positive function in the workplace environ- ment.
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