Why Are Subordinates Less Satisfied with Mediation? The Role of Uncertainty

This study explores the influence of hierarchical position on both mediation satisfaction and uncertainty about the mediation. As parties involved in hierarchical conflict typically behave differently and have different perceptions and experiences, we think it is most likely that hierarchical position will affect the mediation process and its outcomes. In this article, we investigate the influence of hierarchical position on both uncertainty about the mediation and satisfaction with the mediation and its potential moderating role on the relationship between uncertainty and satisfaction. To test our hypotheses, we use data from fifty real mediation cases dealing with hierarchical labor conflicts in the Netherlands. As expected, uncertainty has a stronger negative effect on subordinates' satisfaction with the mediation than it does on the supervisors who were involved in mediation. Implications for mediation theory and practice are discussed.     

Managerial Mediation Competency: A Mixed‐Method Study

Managerial conflict resolution skills such as mediation have often been poorly defined and measured. We used a mixed‐method design to develop a managerial mediation competency scale. In our first study, we used semistructured interviews to identify managerial mediation skills and attitudes, from which we derived a framework for measuring managerial mediation competency. In our second study, we developed scale items and used a quantitative survey to test the scale's psychometric qualities and to gain insight into the theoretical structure of managerial mediation competency. Our managerial mediation competency scale can be used in research questionnaires or organizational surveys as a training, research, and theory development tool.     

The Paradox of Accepting One's Share of Responsibility in Mediation

Mediators generally avoid the issue of whether parties accept their individual share of responsibility for a conflict. But the results of this study demonstrate the important role that taking responsibility for the conflict can play to encourage the emergence of cooperation within the mediation process. In this article, the author first explores the role of responsibility within the context of various mediation approaches and styles. Next, he reports the results of a quantitative study that examined the attitudes of disputants involved in workplace conflict mediations. His results indicate that acceptance of responsibility can play a parodixical role in the mediation process: it seems to be effective only when both parties jointly acknowledge responsibility. When responsibility is acknowledged unilaterally, it seems to have a negative effect on the emergence of cooperation. Finally, the author proposes an intervention strategy for mediators that is designed to encourage the joint acceptance of responsibility and thus facilitate the emergence of cooperation in mediation.     

Sport Mediation: Mediating High‐Performance Sports Disputes

Conflicts in high‐performance sports (HPS) are typically tense and emotionally charged experiences for the athletes, coaches, and sports organizations involved. Such disputes raise intriguing challenges for the mediators handling them. These disputes typically involve multiple parties who often have intensely competitive personalities negotiating a volatile mix of high‐stakes win/lose issues. Mediators typically confront numerous process challenges and must operate within the rigid policy parameters of the various governing organizations involved. Mediation can successfully manage and resolve these challenging disputes, often in creative ways that repair and preserve the parties’ relationships. To be successful in this environment, however, mediators must adapt to and confront the unique dynamics of sports disputes described here. In this article, I examine multiple case studies of mediations conducted through the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada (SDRCC) with the goal of identifying successful mediation strategies for HPS disputes. The centre, which has made mediation mandatory for almost all cases, had an overall settlement rate over a twelve‐year period of 46 percent, with rates as high as 94 percent for mediations voluntarily requested by the parties. Mediation has been used only sparingly elsewhere in the world for resolving HPS disputes to date, although, I argue, it is a successful tool that should be increasingly used both nationally and internationally. In recognition of mediation's potential role, the Court of Arbitration for Sport introduced updated mediation rules in 2016 and is moving to increase the use of mediation in international sports disputes.     

The Short‐Term Effects of Mediation on Low‐Intensity Civil Wars

International diplomacy, to the extent it is effective, should not only prevent escalation of low‐intensity conflict, but should also facilitate de‐escalation. This article focuses on the short‐term effects of managing low‐intensity civil wars through third‐party mediation. Specifically, we compare the efficacy of third party‐mediated direct (face‐to‐face) and indirect talks in low‐intensity civil wars from 1993 to 2004 using the Managing Intrastate Low‐Intensity Conflict data set. We argue that a focus on short‐term success is valid because of the relationship among mediation, short‐term success, humanitarian aid access, and peacebuilding. We also assess the roles of mediator identity, mediation strategy (behavior focus versus incompatibility focus), peace agreements, war type, per capita gross domestic product, level of democracy, and conflict duration. Our overarching finding is that direct forms of mediation in which all parties meet face to face were the most likely to yield short‐term success in the sample of civil wars that we analyzed.     

Beyond the Thomas–Kilmann Model: Into Extreme Conflict

This article discusses an extension to the Thomas–Kilmann conflict mode instrument (Thomas and Kilmann 1977) designed specifically for conflict situations in which strong negative emotional relationships are at play. The Thomas–Kilmann (TK) model is widely used to help participants (disputants and mediators) identify how two basic conflict characteristics interact to influence how stakeholders shape their actions with regard to their interests. Essentially the TK Model is built on the premise that the two salient conflict variables are the relative importance of the relationships at hand and the substantive issues being discussed. These variables are illustrated with a simple matrix that shows how each party will interact with the other based on the relative importance it places on these variables. Graphically illustrating where the behaviors fall on the matrix can explicate parties' behaviors to add a new perspective that may change the dynamic of the conflict. But the TK Model does not address scenarios in which individuals have very negative or destructive relationships, and sabotage, blocking, and exclusion are behavioral norms. Hence, we developed the Baumoel–Trippe (BT) Extension to the TK Model to address the highly negative and often identity‐based conflicts that are often found in the world of family business. Accordingly, the BT Extension to the TK Model explores conflicts in which the relationships are not merely unimportant or uncooperative, but where they become negative to downright vengeful. There is so much at stake for family business stakeholders that the family relationships may become so adversarial that the very business and family harmony all parties value are at risk. With our extension of the TK Model, we seek to provide insight into how decisions might be made when stakeholders are in highly negative, conflictual relationships.     

Making the Most of the First‐Offer Advantage: Pre‐Offer Conversation and Negotiation Outcomes

Why do some negotiators benefit from making the first offer during negotiations while others do not? This study explores the contents of conversations that take place before negotiators make their first offers in order to learn more about the differences between ultimately successful first offers that benefit from anchoring effects and ultimately unsuccessful ones in which negotiators apparently derive no benefit from making the first offer. In‐depth qualitative analyses of the conversations that role players engaged in prior to their first offers were conducted in simulated negotiation exercises. Their analysis identified five different conversational tactics that negotiators employed in one‐on‐one negotiations to gain power in the negotiation, or what they call here “power conversation tactics.” Their findings suggest that the negotiation outcome (i.e., net value) was related to how the negotiators employed and combined these tactics during the pre‐offer conversation. Based on these findings, they conceptualized four types of power‐gaining/power‐losing pre‐offer conversation scenarios and explored the link between negotiation outcomes and each of these types of pre‐offer conversations. This study further develops the literature on power dynamics and conversations in negotiations as well as the literature on the anchoring effect of a first offer.     

The Culture of Interest: A Proposed Addition and Revision of the Three‐Culture Model

Negotiation and conflict resolution theorists have classified world cultures according to three types for the purpose of describing and predicting some of the ways in which individuals and groups within broad, geographically based cultural groups behave in conflict and negotiation‐related situations. These three broad categories, called “cultural syndromes,” have described these cultures according to the relative value they place on these three concerns: honor, face, and dignity. Based on our examination of the literature on the cultural dimensions of negotiation and conflict management, our own practice, and an analysis of literature and practice pertaining to the place and utility of the honor, face, interest, and dignity attributes within and between cultural groups , we propose a reformulation of this typology. Our reformulation would replace the broad “dignity” category with a new category that we call “interest,” which we believe better characterizes Northern European and North American cultures. We also argue that a cultural orientation toward dignity is universal and not geographically unique and is thus shared by all three cultures. This new formulation, we believe, more accurately characterizes the global range of orientations toward negotiation and conflict resolution and would, if adopted, help scholars and practitioners better understand culturally divergent conflict orientations and behaviors as well as the ramifications of such differences for negotiation and conflict resolution practice.     

Conflict Management in Public–Private Partnerships: The Case of the London Underground

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) have become common inter‐organizational arrangements associated with “new public management.” Discussion about their effective operation has often focused on successful management methods, with less discussion about how these arrangements specifically overcome obstacles and problems. In this article, we seek to address this deficiency in the literature by analyzing the conflict management system employed within the London Underground PPP (when it was still in operation). We conclude by identifying several lessons from this case that we believe should inform the design of such systems, one of which is the role of knowledge management.     

Influencing Negotiation Willingness in the Middle East: The Potential Contributions of Private Actors

Numerous efforts to solve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict through diplomacy have taken place over the last four decades. To shed light on this dilemma in this article, the role that private actors and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) can play to enhance the negotiation willingness of nonstate armed groups was examined. It was argued that the NGOs in particular could play key roles in promoting the negotiation willingness of nonstate actors and also in influencing their internal dynamics and increasing their cohesion. Specifically, we examine two pairs of efforts to resolve the conflict in Israel and Palestine: the “Road Map” and the track two Geneva Initiative of 2003, and the Olmert Peace Plan and Jimmy Carter's visit to the Middle East in 2008. In the first pair, NGO efforts yielded unexpected results. The Palestinians were ready to compromise even though the deal offered by the Israelis did not seem very generous. In the second pair, the reaction of the Palestinians to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's generous peace offer seemed especially puzzling, illustrating, the internal dynamics between the Palestinian factions. Negotiation willingness was closely related to cohesion, and that cohesion plays an important role in conflict negotiations. President Jimmy Carter's efforts in 2008 to enhance cohesion among the Palestinians illustrated the potential that NGOs have to complement official negotiations.     

Negotiators as Mediators: The Case of 1987–1995 Korea–United States Bilateral Trade Negotiations

Despite their widely recognized benefits, integrative approaches to negotiation have seldom been effectively used in interorganizational negotiations. This study analyzes the 1987–1995 Korea–United States Trade Negotiations, identifying elements in those talks that could have moved the negotiations in a more integrative direction. The role of building relationships — especially between key negotiators — is examined. Informal negotiations between the key negotiators from both sides were crucial in building such relationships, which helped both sides create solutions for mutual gains. This process was realized, inter alia, by the dual role that the key negotiators took on as negotiators and as mediators.