Search results

Like conflict in general, budgetary conflict is perceived by conflicting parties as a zero-sum game or distributive: one party's gain is the other party's loss. We identify an organizational culture that promotes this view as “traditional.” We propose that changing certain elements of organizational culture is sufficient to produce more integrative, nonzero-sum outcomes. We call this changed organizational culture “empowering.” We propose and test the effects of an empowering organizational culture (EOC) in contrast to the traditional organizational culture (TOC). We hypothesize that an EOC would produce more integrative conflict resolution than the typical TOC. Based on our review of the literature, we identify two elements of the EOC that are essential in producing more integrative solutions to budgetary conflict. The two elements that we simultaneously manipulate are the superior's empowering style (or lack thereof) as reflected in encouragement to freely negotiate, and the superior's intervention process in failed negotiations (a process that encourages the search for integrative solutions and avoids imposed compromises that dampen the desire to negotiate). Using a laboratory experiment, 84 subjects forming 42 dyads negotiated the allocation of discretionary budgets face-to-face. The results of the experiment confirm our hypotheses that the EOC produces more integrative budget negotiation outcomes, greater convergence, and greater satisfaction with the outcome than TOC.

Industrial relations, organizational behavior, and human resource management scholars have studied numerous aspects of internal workplace conflict resolution, ranging from the design of conflict resolution systems to the processes used for resolving conflicts to the outcomes of the systems. Scholars from these specialties, however, have paid considerably less attention to external workplace conflict resolution through litigation. This chapter analyzes certain areas of such litigation, focusing specifically on workplace conflicts involving issues of managerial and employee misclassification, independent contractor versus employee status, no-poaching agreements, and executive compensation.

Leading recent cases involving these issues are examined, with particular attention given to the question of whether the conflicts reflected therein could have been resolved internally or through alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods rather than through litigation.

Implications of this analysis are drawn for workplace conflict resolution theory and practice. In doing so, I conclude that misclassification disputes could likely be resolved internally or through ADR rather than through litigation, but that no-poaching and executive compensation disputes could very likely not be resolved internally or through ADR.

The chapter draws on and offers an integrated analysis of particular types of workplace conflict that are typically treated separately by scholars and practitioners. These include misclassification conflicts, no poaching and labor market competition conflicts, and executive compensation conflicts. The originality and value of this chapter are to show that despite their different contexts and particular issues, the attempted resolution through litigation of these types of workplace conflicts has certain common, systematic characteristics.

In this paper, we draw from our own empirical data on worker organizing and identify important concepts that bridge social movement (SM) and industrial relations (IR) theory. In a context of traditional union decline and a surge of alternative types of worker mobilization, we apply SM and IR concepts related to the mobilizing structures and culture to cases of labor organizing via worker centers and community–labor alliances in the United States and China. From an analytical perspective, we argue that the field of SMs and IR can both benefit from this type of cross-discipline theorization.

The introduction of performance-related pay with performance management in the state school sector of England and Wales represents a considerable change in the school management system. After 2000, all teachers were subject to annual goal setting performance reviews. Experienced teachers were offered an extended pay scale based on performance instead of seniority, and to gain access to the new upper pay scale, teachers had to go through a ‘threshold assessment’ based on their professional skills and performance. This paper reports the results of a panel survey of classroom and head teachers which started in 2000 just before implementation of the new system, and then after one and after four years of operation. We find that both classroom and head teacher views have changed considerably over time, from initial general scepticism and opposition towards a more positive view, especially among head teachers by 2004. We argue that the adoption of an integrative bargaining approach to performance reviews explains why a growing minority of schools have achieved improved goal setting and improved pupil attainments as they have implemented performance management. Pay for performance has been one of the measures of organisational support that head teachers could bring to induce changes in teachers’ classroom priorities. We argue that the teachers’ case shows that a wider range of performance incentives than previously thought can be offered to employees in such occupations, provided that goal setting and performance measurement are approached as a form of negotiation instead of top-down.

Understanding how dyadic negotiations and group decision processes evolve over time requires specifying the basic elements of process, modeling the configuration of those elements over time, and providing a theoretical explanation for that configuration. We propose a bead metaphor for conceptualizing the basic elements of the group negotiation process and then “string” the beads of behavior in a helix framework to model the process by which group negotiations evolve. Our theorizing draws on the group decision development literature (e.g. Bales, 1953; Poole, 1981, 1983a, b; Poole & Roth, 1989a, b) as well as on the negotiation process literature (e.g. Gulliver, 1979; Morley & Stephenson, 1977). Our examples are from our Towers Market studies of negotiating groups.

The purpose of this theoretical chapter is to rework a promising but limited theory of the foundations of reciprocity. Reciprocity is often attributed to an “internalized norm of reciprocity” – a deeply felt moral obligation to help those who have helped us in the past. Leifer's theory of local action develops a radically different and compelling foundation for reciprocity – one in which the impetus for reciprocity is a thinly veiled battle for status. We rework the theory to offer a new one that addresses its limitations. The key idea is that the impetus for reciprocity is the desire to signal that one intends to create joint value rather than to capture it from the counterparty.

Our analytical approach rests on close examination of a puzzling and underrecognized feature of social exchange: people who initiate social exchange routinely deny giving anything of value (“it was nothing”) while the receiver inflates their indebtedness to the giver (“this is too much!”). We refer to this negotiation strategy as reverse bargaining and use it as a window into the logic of social exchange.

We develop a more general theory of how people manage the threat of opportunism in social exchange that subsumes local action theory. The key insight is that people who initiate social exchange and seek reciprocity must balance two competing objectives: to ensure that the person receiving a benefit recognizes a debt she must repay; and to mitigate the receiver's suspicion that the giver's ulterior motive is to capture value from the receiver.

The employee-organization relationship (EOR) has increasingly become a focal point for researchers in organizational behavior, human resource management, and industrial relations. Literature on the EOR has developed at both the individual – (e.g. psychological contracts) and the group and organizational-levels of analysis (e.g. employment relationships). Both sets of literatures are reviewed, and we argue for the need to integrate these literatures as a means for improving understanding of the EOR. Mechanisms for integrating these literatures are suggested. A subsequent discussion of contextual effects on the EOR follows in which we suggest that researchers develop models that explicitly incorporate context. We then examine a number of theoretical lenses to explain various attributes of the EOR such as the dynamism and fairness of the exchange, and new ways of understanding the exchange including positive functional relationships and integrative negotiations. The article concludes with a discussion of future research needed on the EOR.

This chapter concentrates on sales negotiation and reveals that negotiating agreements on goods and services among the Igbo traders involves demystifying many complexities – such as nature of persuasion, trust and communication patterns between traders, among other concerns. To aid our understanding, the authors surveyed three Igbo-dominated markets including Computer Village, Ikeja – dealing in the sales of phone accessories; Tejuosho Market – dealing in the sales of clothing materials; and Ojuelegba Market – dealing in the sales of vehicle spare parts. The authors concluded that the negotiation pattern and approach adopted by the Igbo trader often depends on several variables, including the product, the market, the buyer, the individual trader and other invisible circumstances surrounding the bargaining process. When negotiation breakdown arises, the Igbo traders have a well thought-out strategy that can be adopted to address the situation and persuade future bargains.

Labor management cooperation, and the adoption of high-performance work systems (HPWS), are central topics in recent industrial relations research, with much emphasis given to “best-practice” success stories. This paper uses a case study analysis, relying on conventional, and oral history interviews, to explore why managers, union leaders, and workers in two Maine paper mills rejected the cooperation and the HPWS model. It explores how local history and culture, regional factors like the dramatic International Paper (IP) strike in Jay, Maine, instability in industry labor relations, management turnover, and instability in corporate governance contributed to these two mills’ rejection of Scott Paper Corporation's “Jointness” initiative during the period from 1988 to 1995. The study argues that intra-management divisions blocked cooperation on the management side, and that the Jay strike created a “movement culture” among Maine's paper workers, who developed a class-conscious critique of HPWS as a tactic in class warfare being perpetrated by paper corporations.

A “new” interpretation of Section 7 in the National Labor Relations Act could serve as the basis of union renewal, in enabling and supporting non-majority, non-exclusive representation as an alternative to the difficulties of union certification. One potential shortcoming of this form of representation is interunion conflict associated with ongoing competition between unions trying to attract each other's members in the same bargaining units. However, interview evidence collected from union executives in New Zealand, where non-majority, non-exclusive representation already exists, suggests that such conflict is normally limited. Focusing representation on areas that make the most sense (for both unions and workers) and following union federation protocols, when conflicts occur, have both contributed to the overall low conflict level. Lessons for US unionism are explored.