Review of Seminar 4 - The management of workplace conflict structures, systems and strategies (Queens University Belfast 18 th April 2013)

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1 Review of Seminar 4 - The management of workplace conflict structures, systems and strategies (Queens University Belfast 18 th April 2013) Dr Richard Saundry, Institute for Research into Organisations, Work and Employment (irowe), University of Central Lancashire. This paper provides a summary and analysis of the key themes that emerged from the fourth seminar of the series held at Queens University Belfast on the April It is intended to inform, and provide a link to, the rest of the series. It is important to note that the contents reflect the views of the author and not necessarily the views of those presenters and contributors referred to below. Please do not cite or reproduce without the express permission of the author. Introduction aims and objectives This seminar examined the potential of different strategies designed to manage conflict and increase organisational capability to resolve disputes. In doing so, it aimed to explore the implications of changes in HR structures and roles and the development of high involvement work practices for workplace conflict. In particular, the seminar included keynote presentations from leading US scholars, Alex Colvin and Ariel Avgar who looked at the development of innovative approaches to conflict management and dispute resolution in the USA. This provided the context for assessing the potential of integrated conflict management systems for workplaces in Ireland and Great Britain. Specifically, the seminar addressed a number of important questions: Is there evidence of organisations developing innovative responses to workplace conflict? What is the role of mediation and ADR within such approaches? To what extent is conflict a strategic issue for organisations? What are the prospects for more integrated approaches to conflict management? What can policy-makers and organisational stakeholders do to improve workplace conflict management? Evidence of innovation the role of mediation The seminar heard from a range of speakers as to the extent of innovation in conflict management in Ireland, Great Britain and the USA. It is generally assumed that the USA has been the centre of new approaches to managing conflict and resolving disputes. For example, the use of workplace mediation is much further developed than in Europe and Australasia. However, according to Alex Colvin (Cornell University) even here the diffusion of innovative approaches is uneven and context specific. This is partly explained by the lack of any central policy framework or steer from central or state government. Moreover, within 1

2 unionised organisations, workplace mediation has been widely used as an alternative to traditional forms of grievance arbitration, particularly where levels of conflict and disputes are seen to be very high. In broad terms, the evidence as to the impact of workplace mediation suggests relatively high levels of satisfaction and resolution with some authors, such as Lisa Bingham (in her work on the US Postal Service s REDRESS programme) pointing to broader impacts in terms of improved employment relations climate as result of the use of transformational mediation. However despite this, the spread of mediation has been relatively limited and traditional forms of arbitration remain dominant. Perhaps the greatest growth in innovative conflict management in the US has been found in the non-union sector. Colvin argued that there were essentially three main reasons for this. Firstly, conflict management strategies were a way of substituting for, or avoiding trade unionisation. In some senses this was exacerbated by the US system of all or nothing union recognition. Secondly, in light of the high cost of potential legal action, organisations had a great incentive to invest in alternative approaches. It is important to note that this is not a function of an extensive of an extensive array of employment rights but the conflictual nature of US litigation. Certainly, Colvin argued that increased interest in ADR had mirrored an increase in litigation and growing complexity, cost and delay in employment cases. During the 1990s (in some way reflecting the experience of the UK) there had been a 270 per cent increase in employment cases. A notable difference however between the USA and the UK is the scale of potential damages with median damages of $176,000 in federal court cases which compares with between approximately 5,000 and 9,000 (depending on jurisdiction) under the UK s employment tribunal system. This is particularly interesting given the current UK government s attempts to reduce employment protection but also restrict access to the employment tribunal system which it could be argued to could choke off any incentive to innovate. Thirdly, in some organisations, conflict management strategies have been introduced as part of a broader move towards high commitment human resource strategies. A good example of this has been the adoption of systems which emphasise the use of nonmanagerial decision makers within disputes processes. For the most part in Ireland and Great Britain, decisions over individual employment disputes remain firmly within existing managerial prerogative. However, in the USA peer-review systems have been developed, primarily by non-union firms as an alternative to traditional grievance procedures. A panel made up of three peers and two managers make up a workplace jury to decide grievances. As Alex Colvin noted, these systems are frequently used and are seen to be effective being popular with workers and scoring highly in terms of perceived procedural justice. Nonetheless they also require significant organizational commitment and perhaps for this reason, they tend to be found in settings alongside other high involvement work practices. Interestingly, peer review tends to be more likely to be used among blue-collar workers. In Great Britain and Ireland, while the use of workplace mediation has undoubtedly increased in recent years, this would appear to be limited to a relatively small minority of workplaces. Indeed the Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2011, revealed that just 2

3 mediation had been used to resolve a dispute (in the past 12 months) in just 7 per cent of GB workplaces (Van Wanrooy et al., 2012). Evidence presented at the seminar by Professor Bill Roche (University College, Dublin), Paul Teague and Liam Doherty (Queens University, Belfast) suggested that innovation beyond the use of workplace mediation was very limited. For example, Teague and Doherty s study of 83 non-union multi-national companies (MNCs) in Ireland found that while mediation was used by around 40 per cent of organisations, arbitration was used by 18.5 per cent, peer review by just 6 per cent and just 6.2 per cent used an ombudsperson. Instead, organisations almost universally relied on conventional grievance procedures and informal line management led approaches to conflict management. A more integrated approach to conflict management? One of the main themes to have emerged during the series to date has been the extent to which conflict resolution and management have been seen as strategic priorities for organisations. Alex Colvin argued that a key lesson from US experience was not only the value of comprehensive and integrated conflict management systems but the extent to which this was co-ordinated with HR systems and strategies. From a practitioner prospective, David Liddle (TCM Group) also made a strong argument that businesses needed to adopt a holistic and strategic approach to conflict management. However, the evidence presented to the seminar was at best mixed. Much attention in the USA has focussed around the introduction of integrated conflict management systems (ICMS). Bill Roche (University College Dublin) set out the main components of such systems. These generally include a combination of interest-based and rights based processes and procedures. However, it is generally thought that interest based options such as mediation should be given priority over rights based disciplinary and grievance procedures although the latter are arguably crucial in providing an option for handling disputes which cannot be resolved by other means. Furthermore authors such as David Lipsky (Cornell) have argued that ICMS should have multiple points at which they can be accessed by users, avoiding the linearity of procedures that have tended to dominate organisational practice. Therefore, it should be possible to loop back or forward to different processes in order to pursue resolution. In addition the literature reflects a significant theme that has emerged in the series to date principally, the importance of proactive line and supervisory engagement in the management of conflict. Interestingly, Bill Roche also argued that in examining the impact of the features of conflict management systems on organizational outcomes, supervisory management engagement in conflict resolution appeared to be the main positive factor, underlining its importance. However, certainly evidence from GB and Ireland suggests that line manager capability and confidence in dealing with these issues is often inadequate. However, as Roche pointed out in his presentation, there is relatively limited academic evidence of the existence and scope of CMS. The most recent survey in the USA, of Fortune 1,000 companies conducted by David Lipsky and colleagues (2013) found that around a third of organisations claimed to have at least some of the features associated with ICMSs. A similar picture emerged in Ireland with Bill Roche and Paul Teague finding that 3

4 approximately 30 per cent of firms in Ireland with 50 or more employees had some combination of rights and interest based conflict management practices for dealing with collective and/or group conflict. However, they could not find evidence of systems of conflict management practices for handling individual grievances. This gap was also identified in the research conducted by Doherty and Teague discussed above. Perhaps more worryingly, Doherty and Teague found a deep antipathy to the notion of managing conflict. Respondents saw no need for conflict management to be part of an overall strategic approach to managing human resources and were generally resistant to the argument that there was a business case for innovative workplace conflict management practices. Moreover, HR managers were hostile to any idea that the discourse of conflict should be accepted as an unavoidable part of organisational life. Indeed, conflict was seen as deviant and dissident and Doherty and Teague found attempts to expunge conflict from the vocabulary of the organisation. Thus, even the use of the grievance procedure was seen by one respondent as a sign that the individual concerned did not want a future in the organisation. There are undoubtedly examples of innovation and good practice. David Liddle discussed two organisations that had developed integrated approaches where the creation of inhouse mediation capacity had been used to resolve conflict within the workplace but also disputes with customer and user groups. Critical to success was the engagement of stakeholders again reflecting a recurring theme of the series including line and operational managers and trade union representatives. Furthermore, mediation was embedded within existing HR policies and practices and also informed management development programmes building increased managerial competence. In one case, Liddle argued that mediation principles had underpinned attempts to inculcate more compassionate management and leadership practices. Nonetheless, such an approach inevitably involves a fundamental commitment at an organisational level and the empirical evidence to date questions the extent to which organisations engage with the notion of conflict as a strategic issue. Certainly, compared with other central HR functions, conflict management is often not seen as important or worthy of attention and investment. Instead as Doherty and Teague explained, many organisations see it as an additional (and generally unwanted) tool to be used only as a last resort and in exceptional circumstances. Prospects for a more integrated approach to conflict management The evidence presented at the seminar along with contributions from the floor therefore emphasised the challenges facing academics, practitioners and policy-makers in making the case for organisations to see conflict as a strategic issue. One problem in building the case is the relative dearth of authoritative evidence. As Bill Roche argued in his presentation, there is clearly a need for further research into the operation and outcomes of conflict management systems. In addition to case studies of innovative conflict management practice there was a need for more detailed and sophisticated quantitative investigation to explore outcomes associated with the operation of innovative approaches to conflict management and of the complementary use of rights and interest based conflict resolution 4

5 processes. Nonetheless, there was general agreement among speakers and delegates that not only was workplace conflict unavoidable but there was evidence that addressing and dealing with conflict could have significant organisational benefits. For example, research presented by Ariel Avgar (University of Illinois) found clear evidence that the avoidance of conflict can have a negative impact on the generation of social capital which it could be argued is fundamental in underpinning collaboration, co-operation between staff and effective organisational performance. His detailed quantitative casestudy of a large medical establishment in the USA found a positive relationship between conflict resolution and social capital. Furthermore, these relationships were most strong where informal processes of resolution were employed, particularly through informal supervisor-worker dialogue. This again puts a focus on the importance of line manager capability but also on the role of trust a central ingredient in social capital. Andy Charlwood (University of York) in addressing an earlier seminar in the series highlighted the need for a focus on developing ways of building trust as opposed to a focus on formal procedures. Avgar s research not only suggests that the informal sphere and the role of supervisors is crucial but that the way in which conflict is resolved can itself help to breed trust, mutuality and reciprocity. In some respects, this points to a broader argument for the pro-active management of conflict and from developing managerial confidence and competency. There is arguably a danger on focussing on what David Liddle called the bottom line costs of conflict management while underplaying the human benefits that more innovative approaches offer. Liddle argued that a fundamental problem with existing organisational approaches was the focus on grievances as opposed to resolution. He argued that individuals and organisations found themselves trapped in a spiral of conflict which not only had cost implications for organisations but fundamentally undermined trust and eroded the psychological contract. Moreover, existing dispute resolution systems if anything reinforced this dynamic. Not only are they reactive, but, he suggested, they tended to polarise the opinions of the parties, deepening difference and mistrust adversarial procedures if anything undermined the psychological contract and created a grievance, entitlement or litigation culture. One way of developing the conflict management agenda, suggested by Liam Doherty and Paul Teague was to see innovations in conflict management in terms of organisational citizenship behaviour (Bowen and Ostroff, 2004). In short, conflict management is a means by which the social system of an organisation is shaped. Perhaps this points to a need to broaden the debate over conflict management from cost-effectiveness to issues of equity, fairnesss and voice. In this way, it could be argued, conflict management becomes central to HRM strategy. This is based, to some extent on a view from the USA that the spread of alternative approaches to dispute resolution can help to develop a new social contract at work by diffusing ADR practices to solve workplace disputes (Lipsky et al., 2003) and that a recognition that conflict is an inevitable part of organizational life can underpin employee commitment (Bendersky 2003). Conclusions 5

6 The seminar developed a number of themes that have emerged through the seminar series to date. While there is evidence of innovative approaches to conflict management being used by some organisations in both Ireland and Great Britain, this is far from the norm. In fact, the relatively limited evidence that we have points to significant scepticism as to the strategic centrality of conflict. Furthermore, there are worrying suggestions that organisations may be unwilling to engage with a discourse of conflict which is seen as antithetical to notions of commitment, engagement and high performance. From this perspective, there is a danger that conflict management becomes ghettoised as a process of last resort a tool to turn to after all else fails. It could also be argued that the experience of the USA would suggest that current policy within the UK will, if anything, reduce incentives for further innovation. In the USA, new approaches to conflict management have been driven in part by high cost and complexity of employment related litigation. Attempts by the UK government to reduce the risk of employment litigation and the costs exposure faced by organisations, while welcomed by business, may paradoxically reduce the importance of managing conflict and disputes in a proactive manner. This suggests a need to broaden the argument away from the simple business case for conflict management. There is evidence of organisations in the USA adopting ADR as part of a wider strategy of high involvement work practices, yet in the UK, conflict management does not feature in debates over improving organisational performance, despite a growing body of evidence over its impact. Rather than placing emphasis on the relative efficacy of alternative approaches to dispute resolution, perhaps greater attention needs to be paid to the extent to which (as Liam Doherty and Paul Teague suggest) innovative approaches to conflict management shape the social systems within organisations and contribute to the development of trust, collaboration and workplace justice. References Bendersky, C. (2003) Organizational Dispute Resolution Systems: A Complementarities Model, Academy of Management Review, 28:4, Bowen, D.E. and Ostroff, C. (2004) Understanding HRM-Firm performance linkages: The role of the strength of the HRM system, Academy of Management Review, 29:2, David B. Lipsky, Ariel Avgar and J. Ryan Lamare. (forthcoming) Conflict Resolution in the United States, in William K. Roche, Paul Teague, and Alexander Colvin (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook on Conflict Management. Lipsky, D., Seeber, R. and Fincher, R. (2003) Emerging Systems for managing workplace conflict: Lessons from American Corporations for Managers and Dispute Resolution Professionals, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Teague, P. and Roche, W. (2012) Line managers and the management of workplace conflict: evidence from Ireland, Human Resource Management Journal, 22:3,

7 Van Wanrooy, B., Bewley, H., Bryson, A., Forth, J., Freeth,S.,Stokes, L. and Wood, S. (2013) The 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Study :First findings, the-2011-workplace-employment-relations-study-first-findings1.pdf 7

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