Richard E. Walton

A Problem-Solving Workshop on Border Conflicts in Eastern Africa.

Six participants each from Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya met on neutral turf and participated in a two-week workshop to search for solutions to the border disputes between Somalia and her two neighbors. The workshop was a social invention based on ideas and techniques generated by the behavioral sciences. This pilot venture, admittedly a mixture of successes and failures, can provide the basis for improvement and extension of the concept. In particular, we can draw implications for the composition of participant groups, duration, location, and goals in organizing future workshops; and for the techniques, groupings, and pacing utilized during the workshop.

Social Choice in the Development of Advanced Information Technology

Application of advanced information technology willprofoundly effect the nature of clerical, professional and managerial work. When these consequences are unplanned, they sometimes are positive and sometimes negative, in human and organizational terms. Referring to the range and importance of these impacts, the author argues why social criteria should be employed in the design and implementation of this new technology. Then, based on the increasingly flexible nature of the technology and its cost profile, he argues why social criteria can be applied without economic sacrifice. Turning to trends in social values, theories of management, and interests of trade unions, the author concludes that social criteria probably will be applied increasingly in the development of information technology in the United States. Finally, the paper reviews some of the methodological issues which will arise in the process.

Innovating to compete : lessons for diffusing and managing change in the work place

Examples from shipping, steel, auto, computer, and other industries show how organizationsplants, companies, national industries, or entire countriesdevelop the capacity to compete successfully. Compares innovative change in eight countries to uncover factors affecting the capacity for innovation.

Interpersonal Confrontation and Basic Third Party Functions: A Case Study

This study centers on a conflict between directors of two interdependent groups in a government agency and interventions by a third party consultant who helped them confront their intergroup and interpersonal differences. The third party (a) enhanced the parties willingness to confront each other, because they perceived him as possessing skills which could prevent the process from deteriorating; (b) synchronized the parties readiness and efforts to confront, because of the signal value of his presence and his limited availability to them; (c) increased their candidness in expressing views about the issues and reactions to each other, because each party associated the consultant with a prior experience in which openness had been normative. In addition, the third party (d) increased their feelings of social-emotional support and (e) helped clarify and diagnose the issues. A significant aspect of this episode is that because of the nature of the third partys professional identity and the clients prior experience with persons in the profession, his presence by itself tended to provide emotional support and reinvoke some of the behavioral norms which were instrumental to the conflict confrontation and resolution process. The confrontation helped the parties clarify the intergroup issues and partly resolve their interpersonal issues. In turn, the improved rapport between the directors enabled them subsequently to handle the intergroup issues more effectively.

Frontiers Beckoning the Organizational Psychologist

One frontier for research and action focuses on the linkages between an organization and external groups, such as consumers and ecological neighbors. The various communities affected by a firm or a government agencys decisions increasingly expect to be able to influence these decisions. A second frontier is the organizations internal community, which will be reformed and transformed into a community with a more livable organizational ecology, an extended bill of individual rights, and a new morality. The third frontier is the development of mechanisms to achieve collaboration among organizations-mechanisms that cross the traditional boundaries of agencies, firms, industries, and levels of government and bridge the private and public sectors.

Renegotiating labor Agreements; Alternatives to the New Owner Strategy

The new, more competitive forms of industrial relations are designed to increase quality and decrease unit labor costs, t)pically by increasing flexibility and worker participation and by lowering or constraining increases in wages and benefits. Many competitive situations are such that only by adopting the new model can labor and management ensure the survival and prosperity of the enterprise and preserve the jobs involved. In such circumstances, new entrants into the market, such as mini mills in steel and upstart airlines, can only be successful when they utilize the new model. Over the past decade, many companies across a wide spectrum of industries have established the new model (often referred to as a high commitment work system). While the introduction of this new approach has presented a number of challenges, we have learned how to implement it in a new facility We know less about transforming an existing operation. Why is the renegotiating of the terms of existing employment relationships much more difficult to implement than establishing similar terms in new locations? Why is it much more difficult for such parties as GM and the UAW to reform an established plant than to introduce the new forms in a new or newly renovated plant? Stated in the language of this journal, why is it so difficult for parties to renegotiate employment terms when new terms would be in the best long-term interests of the majority of the stockholders? Why is it so often the case that the only solution to the stalemate that develops in existing employment relationships is for the business to be sold and for the new owner (as in airlines) to use the leverage involved (walk away power) to require changes in the work system? If we can answer these questions, we can begin to identifY the negotiating approaches that must be developed to deal with the many situations today that require a restructuring of the terms and conditions of the employment relationship. The difficulties inherent in renegotiating terms in established situations derive from a number of factors: (a) aspects of the power relationship; (b) problems leaders experience in justifYing negotiated outcomes to their members; (c) the diversity ofinterests within the union (that are intensified by the political dynamics of the union as a democratic institution); and (d) the complex social psychological nature of the employment relationship. Power. The first explanation relates to the power equation. In a newly found