Introduction to Part 2

At the core of conflict management in organizations are the various practices and procedures through which organizations seek to resolve and sometimes prevent conflict in the workplace. The contributions to this section examine the major ways in which organizations handle conflict management, whether arising from individual grievances or collective disputes. Both conventional approaches reliant on standard grievance and dispute resolution procedures are considered, as is a series of alternative dispute resolution approaches that seek in different ways to depart from conventional practices and sometimes seek to provide an alternative to civil litigation or resort to administrative agencies established to administer employment laws. Practices have also evolved that combine conventional “rights-based” procedures with innovative “interest-based” options, especially as exemplified by the influential concept of conflict management systems. The chapters in the section cover grievance procedures under collective bargaining, third-party processes, interest-based bargaining, grievance procedures in non-union firms, workplace mediation, the organizational ombudsperson, line managers and workplace conflict, and conflict management systems.