Managers Handling Disputes: Third Party Roles and Perceptions of Fairness

• NCJ Number: 117613
• Author(s): R Karambayya; J M Brett
• Date Published: 1988
• Length: 30 pages
• Corporate Author: Northwestern University
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS. Dispute Resolution Research Center, Working Paper No. 32

Annotation

This study investigates how managers resolve disputes in organizations.

Abstract

Previous research on the roles managers take in dispute resolution has been largely qualitative and descriptive. Managers, unlike judges or mediators, may have a hierarchical relationship with the disputants that extends beyond the dispute setting. Their legitimate authority is an important source of reward or coercive power over the disputants, that may be used to encourage resolution of the conflict. This study compares a typology of managerial third party dispute resolution behavior drawn from prior research to the behavior of management students playing a third party in a dispute resolution simulation. The subjects were 69 MBA students who were taking an elective course on managerial negotiations. Three different simulations were used to provide a variety of situations for managers to play third party roles. The simulations were not experimentally calibrated and no hypotheses were developed as to differences between them. This study shows that mediation is a fair alternative. Compromise solutions were most likely when the third party played a mediation role. Compromise solutions enhanced perceptions of distributive justice, and both compromise solutions and mediation enhanced perceptions of procedural justice. 22 references, 2 footnotes, and 5 tables. (Author abstract modified)