Treating Conflict: The Adoption of a Conflict Management system in a Hospital Setting
Managing and Resolving Workplace Conflict
ISBN: 978-1-78635-060-2, eISBN: 978-1-78635-059-6
Publication date: 19 July 2016
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter explores the adoption and implementation of a conflict management system (CMS) in a hospital setting. In particular, it uncovers the different motivations and challenges associated with a CMS across various stakeholders within the organization.
Methodology/approach
The chapter is based on qualitative research conducted in a large American hospital that adopted and implemented a CMS over the course of 15 months. The author conducted extensive interviews with stakeholders across the organization, including top management, union leaders, middle managers, clinicians, and frontline staff. Findings are also based on an array of observations, including stakeholder meetings and conflict management sessions.
Findings
The case study demonstrates the centrality of underexplored, generalizable, and industry-specific pressures that may lead organizations to reconsider their use of traditional dispute resolution practices and to institute a CMS. It also highlights the inherent organizational ambivalence toward the design and adoption, initiation and implementation, and routine use of a CMS and it documents the different types of outcomes delivered to various stakeholders.
Originality/value
The chapter provides a nuanced portrait of the antecedents to and consequences of the transformation of conflict management within one organization. It contributes to the existing body of research exploring the 30-year rise of alternative dispute resolution and CMSs in a growing proportion of firms in the United States. The use of an in-depth case-study method to examine this CMS experience offers a number of important insights, particularly regarding different stakeholder motivations and outcomes.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank Ryan Lamare and David Lipsky for their very helpful input and feedback. Thanks also to WonJoon Chung for his terrific research assistance. Last but not least, sincere thanks to “Ohio Medical’s” employees, union leaders, and administration, and to their extremely dedicated ombudsman. A portion of this chapter appeared previously in Avgar (2011).
Citation
Avgar, A.C. (2016), "Treating Conflict: The Adoption of a Conflict Management system in a Hospital Setting", Managing and Resolving Workplace Conflict (Advances in Industrial & Labor Relations, Vol. 22), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 211-246. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0742-618620160000022009
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016 Emerald Group Publishing Limited