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Conflict and resistance on the part of employees assigned to teams have accompanied the recent increase in the use of work teams in organizations. Previous empirical research identified several sources of employee resistance including violations of fairness, increased work‐load concerns, uncertain manager support, unclear role definitions, and lack of team member social support. From a literature review, we identified additional sources of employee resistance including trust, cultural values, and low tolerance for change. Empirically, we conducted a content analysis of 1,060 open‐ended comments of employees in two Fortune 50 organizations who were newly assigned to self‐managing work teams (SMWTs). The results suggest that employees' concerns did reflect issues of trust and low tolerance for change, but not cultural values. We discuss the implications of our findings for conflict management scholars as well as managers who are charged with handling increased conflict due to employee resistance to teams.

Justice research has established that voice enhances procedural justice—a phenomenon known as the ‘voice effect’—through both instrumental and non‐instrumental mechanisms. However, limited research attention has been devoted to the underlying motivational bases for the operation of one or the other explanatory mechanism in a given situation. We report the findings of two laboratory studies examining situational, motivational, and attributional underpinnings for the voice effect. We found that motivation to voice varied with characteristics of the authority to whom a grievance is directed. In both studies, an interaction revealed that non‐instrumental motivation for voice is more important when instrumental motivation is lacking or unavailable. In Study 2, we introduce the role of social attributions into research on the voice effect, finding that grievants' judgments about their objectives in using voice vary with the attributions they make about the motives behind the authority's actions. We discuss implications of our findings for both theory and practice.

In a field study, we build on previous research examining employee theft, which has focused on the influence of job dissatisfaction and pay inequity (distributive injustice). In a survey of employees at 18 fast food restaurants, where employee theft was a problem, we examine the relationship between employee‐observed theft and justice perceptions (distributive, procedural, and interactional justice), employees' job satisfaction, and judgments regarding the deviancy of theft. As expected, perceptions of procedural justice and employees' judgments regarding the deviancy of theft explained a significant amount of variance in employee‐observed theft; the other predictor variables did not. Theoretical and practical implications for managing employee theft are discussed.

In a study consisting of 202 currently‐employed undergraduate students, we examined relationships between employees' perceptions of organizational justice and the styles they use for managing conflict with their supervisors. Regression analysis of questionnaire data indicated that distributive, procedural, and interactional justice were generally positively related to the use of more cooperative conflict management styles (i.e., integrating, obliging, and compromising). Two 2‐way interaction effects were observed as well, such that higher interactional justice was related to greater use of the integrating style primarily when distributive justice was low and procedural justice was high. Additionally, distributive justice was positively related to use of the avoiding style. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Although cross-cultural research tends to compare deeply held values across nations, different cultures can exist within nations, as evidenced by clashes of cultures in Israel, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. We refer to multicultural teams (MCTs) to reflect our interest in team dynamics involving people from varying cultures (which may or may not include people of different nationalities). MCTs are likely to be characterized by “cultural value diversity,” or varying cultural values among members, and we present data in support of the hypothesis that MCT performance is influenced more significantly by cultural value diversity than by the aggregated level of any particular cultural value or demographic diversity within the teams.

The paper aims to investigate why organizations often opt to reject Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)-sponsored mediation of employment disputes (in contrast to employees who tend to readily agree to it). It is guided by recent research associated with Shapiro and Kirkman’s (1999, 2001) theory of “anticipatory justice”, whereby (in)justice is anticipated, or expected, when people think about an event they have not yet experienced whose likely fairness they are questioning. In contrast, “organizational justice” reflects people’s retrospective assessments of how fair they have been treated to date.

The paper relied upon data made available by the mediation program administered by the US EEOC. The EEOC provided the names and contact information for the officially designated EEOC contacts for each dispute. The authors distributed surveys to each of these organizational representatives and received completed surveys from 492 organizations (a response rate of 85.8 per cent).

The authors tested the extent to which organizational representatives’ decision to accept or reject mediation as a means of settling discrimination claims is influenced by representatives’ expectation of more versus less fair treatments – by the opposing party as well as by the third-party mediator – during the mediation procedure. The pattern of findings in the study support all hypotheses and, thus, also the expectation-oriented theories that have guided them.

The study relies on self-reports. However, this concern is somewhat lessened because of the salience and recency of events to the time of surveying.

The paper provides new insights on the need for organizations to implement rules, policies and procedures to constrain decision-maker choices consistent with organizational goals. The authors offer specific procedural proposals to reduce this organizational tendency to reject mediation.

Employee grievances are costly to organizations in terms of finances, reputation and to the emotional climate of the organization. Moreover, it is similarly costly to employees. This study provides new insights to better understand why employees (as opposed to organizations) are almost three times more likely to elect mediation of employment disputes. As such, it offers some promising ideas to narrow that gap.

The paper investigates a little-studied phenomenon – the differential participation rate of employees versus organizations in EEOC-sponsored mediation.

In this paper, findings from the negotiation literature are tested in the context of mergers. Firms' relative threat capacity, surveillance by constituents, accountability to constituents, and the attractiveness of initial offers are shown to predict management's resistance to mergers in a manner consistent with theories in the negotiation literature. The pattern of predicted two‐way and three‐way interactions support speculations and findings previously reported in the negotiation literature as well. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

In 1991, the Academy of Management Review (AMR) published a special issue whose focus was on the dearth of internationally oriented management theory and studies addressing this. The management literature was filled with theories formulated primarily by scholars from the United States or other Westernized areas of the world and with studies whose samples were generally, also, from these Western areas. After noting the trend toward international diversity in the “American workforce,” AMR special guest-editors Doktor, Tung, and Von Glinow (1991) noted that the need for theory that tests the international-applicability of management theories was – not only desirable, but – urgent.