Deborah M. Kolb

Strategy and the Tactics of Mediation

Labor mediators see the achievement of a settlement as their objective. From this point of convergence, mediators will differ on the strategy to be used to achieve this end. Tactics refer to the specific actions mediators take in the service of these strategic ends. Based on a participant observation of 10 mediators on 16 cases, the strategies and tactics of mediators from a state agency are contrasted with those used by mediators from a federal agency. The state mediators use a building strategy and emphasize directive tactics to gather information, assess priorities, and encourage parties to move the parties on discrete issues. In contrast, the federal mediators favor a narrowing strategy and emphasize tactics to encourage the parties to continue to meet and progressively refine their proposals in order for an acceptable package to emerge. Mediators from both agencies see their strategic approach as responsive to the parties they serve.

Corporate Ombudsman and Organization Conflict Resolution

The position of corporate ombudsman is intended to serve as a voice-giving mechanism for employees. The broad guidelines of the ombudsmans job and the novelty of this function mean that ombudsmen have considerable latitude to structure the forms this dispute-processing mechanism takes. This article, based on interviews with ombudsmen in six organizations, using case-based data, describes some of the ways this role is enacted. The ombudsmans role has inherent tension built into it between the desires to help claimants and to protect the organization. Ombudsmen resolve this tension by emphasizing one facet of the role, both in their approach to cases and in the type of cases they get. “Helping” ombudsmen invent individualized solutions to the problems people present, whereas “fact-finding” ombudsmen investigate whether proper procedures were followed and if there are plausible explanations for a complaint. Whether ombudsmen help or fact-find seems to be related to their embeddedness in the organization. The ombudsmans function and the helping and fact-finding forms suggest a quiet and harmonizing approach to organization conflict resolution.

Waiting for outcomes: anchoring a dual agenda for change to cultural assumptions

This article argues that strategies to promote gender equity in organizations need to focus on assumptions in the organizational culture that underpin work practices and behaviors. An analytic case is used to demonstrate the importance of bringing cultural assumptions to the surface during the organizational change process and examining their implications for both gender equity and organizational effectiveness. Initial efforts aimed at changing work practices were disappointing. However, the understanding that cultural assumptions had unintended consequences for both gender equity and organizational effectiveness provided a foundation for the organization to continue to experiment after the initial intervention. The article argues that linking changes in work practices and processes to underlying assumptions provides a basis for the organization to engage in an on‐going and iterative process of inquiry, experimentation, reflection, and learning that can generate surprising and positive outcomes over time.

Enhancing the Capacity of Organizations to Deal with Disputes

ConclusionConflict is a pervasive fact of organizational life. Enhancing members capacities to understand their disputes in new ways, to feel free to express differences and know they will be heard, and to have multiple channels available makes for more humane and, perhaps, more productive organizations. While unlikely to reduce the frequency of disputes in organizations, dispute systems, if broadly construed, can contribute directly and indirectly to this end.In designing these systems, however, we need to attend to the informal, behind-the-scenes, interstitial and nourishing forms of disputing. These interactions are often unnoticed and devalued in organizations. However, from a fuller appreciation of informal and formal modes of conflict management and the interplay between them comes the potential for enhancing the capacity of organizations to deal with differences and diversity. This—not prevention—is the real service which dispute interventionists can offer.

Dealing with organizational conflict: Implications from theory

In organization theory, particularly in its management wing, conflict used to be something of a dirty word. Most observers viewed conflict as an inevitable problem or detraction from what otherwise would be cooperative systems; conflict was something that needed to be contained and managed in order for goals and objectives to be attained. It is true that early theorists always alluded to the positive functions of conflict, particularly the ways that conxad flict between groups can enhance intraxad group cohesion and energize efforts. Yet these positive functions were often outweighed by perceptions of the negxad ative and wasteful aspects of conflict observed in decreased motivation, diminished flexibility, and psychologixad cal stresses and strains. Given these perceptions and values, it is not surprising that a considerable body of work in the management literxad ature focuses on ways to assist managxad ers in the diagnosis and management of conflict. Three major themes domixad nate this literature: definition, diagnoxad sis, and models of resolution.