Jean Poitras

Challenges to the use of consensus building in integrated coastal management

Abstract An electronic forum involving 15 coastal managers was conducted in order to identify and explain the challenges involved in using consensus-building methods to resolve coastal management issues. The forums participants generated a list of ten challenges. Getting participants committed to the consensus-building process was identified as the major problem. Participants reported four factors that may affect negatively the willingness of participants to commit to the process. These factors are the novelty of consensus building, the lack of incentive to seek a compromise, the apprehension of having to negotiate and the uncertainty of the outcome. The paper concludes with proposed strategies to overcome these factors.

Dispute resolution patterns and organizational dispute states

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of conflict management on conflicts at work. Design/methodology/approach – A total of 148 post‐graduate students in management responded to a questionnaire online. Two cluster analyses were performed to identify dispute resolution patterns and organizational dispute states. Then, cross tabulation between the two clusters was performed (Pearsons chi‐square coefficient and Sommers D statistic). Findings – Cluster analyses identified three styles of dispute resolution pattern – interest‐based, based on controlled power, and power‐based – and three different organizational dispute states: harmony, dissonance, and conflict. Finally, the influence of resolution patterns on dispute states was been confirmed by the cross tabulation. Research limitations/implications – Firstly, Ury et al.s theoretical typology should be revised, especially for the rights‐based approach. Secondly, the results of our cluster analysis indicate that it might not be nec...

The strategic use of caucus to facilitate parties' trust in mediators

Mediators’ impartiality and empathy are two classical factors in the parties’ trust in mediators. However, mediators are often torn between being impartial and being empathetic. After all, it is difficult to be empathetic without appearing to take sides in joint sessions. This study empirically tests the strategic use of caucus to improve the interaction between impartiality and empathy by splitting them into two phases: impartiality in joint sessions and empathy in caucus. The strategy did create significant synergy between impartiality and empathy with the main impact of reducing the time needed to reach an agreement.

Meta-Analysis of the Impact of the Research Setting on Conflict Studies

Research studies conducted in a university setting were compared to other research conducted in workplaces. The purpose of this paper is to determine the importance of research setting in conflict research design. A meta-analysis of 28 related papers was conducted to compute effect sizes of the linkages between task conflict, relationship conflict, satisfaction and performance. The impact of the research setting (i.e., university vs. workplace) as a moderator was also tested. The research setting was found to be a significant moderator of the linkage between task conflict and satisfaction, task conflict and performance as well as relationship conflict and performance. In each case of moderation, the effect sizes were much greater when research was conducted in the workplace than in a university setting. Our findings suggest that research conducted in a university setting likely underestimated the impact of conflicts on the level of satisfaction and the degree of performance as compared to research conducted in a workplace setting.

Changes in relationship conflict as a mediator of the longitudinal relationship between changes in role ambiguity and turnover intentions

Purpose – This study aims to clarify the relationship between changes in role ambiguity and turnover intentions. The authors propose that increases in role ambiguity over time can bias employees’ interpretations such that they come to view more relationship conflict at work. Because of the importance of social relationships at work, the authors propose that these increases in perceptions of relationship conflict mediate the positive effect of increases in role ambiguity on turnover intentions. Design/methodology/approach – This study is a two-wave longitudinal analysis of survey responses obtained from 146 employees working in the health-care sector over a three-year period. Structural equation modeling of cross-lagged correlations was used to test the hypothesized model. Findings – The positive relationship between increases in role ambiguity and turnover intentions over time is mediated by increases in relationship conflict. Results provide an integrative explanation of the phenomenon, uniting role theo...