Firms and Innovative Conflict Management Systems in Ireland
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.2009.00774.x |
| Author | Paul Teague,William K. Roche |
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
| Published date | 01 September 2011 |
Firms and Innovative Conflict
Management Systems in Irelandbjir_774436..459
William K. Roche and Paul Teague
Abstract
This article examines the practices adopted by firms in the Republic of Ireland
to manage conflict involving groups of employees, focusing in particular on
the uptake of ‘alternative dispute resolution practices’. The article reveals that
conflict management practices take the form of ‘systems’, and it estimates the
incidence of innovative conflict management systems, incorporating alternative
dispute resolution (ADR) practices, as involving about 30 per cent of firms. A
series of influences are shown to be associated with innovative, ADR-based
conflict management systems, especially commitment-oriented HRM practices
and whether unions are recognized.
1. Introduction
Workplace conflict, how it manifests itself and how it is managed, is a core
part of the industrial relations discipline. A number of important themes
have emerged from the studies that have been carried out on the topic
recently. First of all, it is recognized almost everywhere that large-scale
industrial disputes involving strikes and other forms of collective action,
apart from occasional annual spikes, have sharply declined in advanced
industrial countries (see Dix et al. 2008). Second, it is equally widely accepted
that the decline in strike action should not be read as the end of workplace
conflict. Instead, workplace conflict should be seen as manifesting itself in
different forms. Sometimes, it takes a more individualized rather than a
collective form. In other cases, in more indirect ways, such as a rise in labour
turnover or sickness and absenteeism work. Yet in further cases, conflict
takes a covert form, with employees only complying minimally with organi-
zational objectives or in some extreme cases becoming involved in sabotage
activities.
A third theme in the literature focuses on the practices and procedures used
to address workplace conflict. A comprehensive survey of workplace conflict
William K. Roche is at University College Dublin. Paul Teague is at Queen’s University of
Belfast.
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8543.2009.00774.x
49:3 September 2011 0007–1080 pp. 436–459
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2010. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
management practices in the USA found that new alternative disputes man-
agement practices were diffusing widely in organizations (Lipsky et al. 2003).
One interpretation of this survey is that the use of alternative dispute reso-
lution (ADR) practices is contributing to the rewriting of the traditional
social contract at work with the effect of weakening rules for conflict reso-
lution based on independent collective representation that once governed the
employment relationship (Lipsky and Seeber 2003). Some even suggest that
ADR-style conflict management practices are part of a wider anti-union
posture adopted by some employers determined to undermine collective
action by employees (Stone 2004). A view that appears at odds with the above
argument is that from the standpoint of the employee, a number of positive
developments can be detected in relation to the management of workplace
conflict. Colvin (2003), for example, suggests that some innovative conflict
management practices, introduced by certain non-union organizations, enjoy
the confidence of employees, which in turn is reflected in their willingness to
use these to advance workplace grievances.
A fourth theme in the literature is that traditional collective procedures
need upgrading so that they are in line with the demands of modern high-
performance workplaces. This literature suggests that problems should be
less adversarial and more based on the principles of interest-based bargain-
ing. This approach emphasizes the use of co-operative techniques and pro-
cesses that lead to settlements that incorporate the interests of all parties
(Barrett and O’Dowd 2005). However, the possibility that new conflict man-
agement practices may be adopted in some firms in alignment with or as a
change to traditional practices and in conjunction with unions has received
little empirical attention. Research undertaken in this area comes mainly
from the USA. Successive waves of a survey of management and union
negotiators in bargaining units over the period from 1996 to 2003 show a
high degree of familiarity with interest-based bargaining and considerable,
through at the end of period waning, use of related bargaining and dispute
resolution techniques (Cutcher-Genshenfeld et al. 2007).
Although covering different themes, the recent literature on workplace
conflict suggests that important changes are occurring in this arena. Yet
outside the USA, there is limited empirical evidence to assess the extent to
which firms, particularly unionized firms, are staying with tried and tested
collective methods of conflict management, or whether these arrangements
are being modernized in one or another. Against this backdrop of little
empirical evidence in the general area, the purpose of this article is to
improve our understanding of the contemporary character of practices con-
cerned with managing conflict involving groups of employees in organiza-
tions in the Republic of Ireland. The article is organized as follows. Section
2 reviews the multiple influences that may be impacting in some way on
conflict management practices in firms. Section 3 explains the research
methods used to collect the data for the investigation. Section 4 sets out the
variables and the various empirical procedures used to conduct the analysis.
This section also outlines the main findings of the analysis. Section 5, the
Innovative Conflict Management Systems in Ireland 437
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