Organizational justice and conflict management styles: Teaching notes, role playing instructions, and scenarios

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to provide a set of role playing exercises for teachers that demonstrates to their students the relationship between organizational justice and conflict management.

Design/methodology/approach

The objectives are achieved by presenting two scenarios that illustrate a manager who conducts a performance review and is highly sensitive to organizational justice issues and a manager who conducts a performance review and disregards organizational justice issues. Students are allowed to role play several conflict management styles adopted by these two managers, and observe the effects these styles might have on the organization, the employees, and the outcome of the performance review.

Findings

The article proposes that a student will learn the value of organizational justice and discover the negative consequences for the manager who fails to attend to both the social and structural elements of the just and fair treatment of employees. Students will learn new techniques for handling conflict; in particular, the conflict that arises during performance reviews.

Originality/value

The relationship between organizational justice and conflict management has received very little attention in the literature. The exercises in this article will expose the student to a new way of viewing management decisions and treatment of employees. The hope is that these insights will carry over into real‐world practices that benefit the employees, the managers, and the organization.

Citation

Tatum, B.C. and Eberlin, R.J. (2006), "Organizational justice and conflict management styles: Teaching notes, role playing instructions, and scenarios", International Journal of Conflict Management, Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 66-81. https://doi.org/10.1108/10444060610734181