Conflict Resolution in the Workplace: What Will the Future Bring?

• Author: Susan Kee‐Young Park,David Brubaker,Cinnie Noble,Sharon Press,Richard Fincher
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21104
• Date: 01 July 2014
• Published date: 01 July 2014

C R Q, vol. 31, no. 4, Summer 2014 357

© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. and the Association for Confl ict Resolution

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/crq.21104

ARTICLES

Con ict Resolution in the Workplace:

What Will the Future Bring?

David Brubaker

Cinnie Noble

Richard Fincher

Susan Kee-Young Park

Sharon Press

Collaborative processes to resolve confl ict in the workplace have perme-

ated organizations in North America over the past thirty years. Media-

tion and arbitration processes made the earliest inroads in organizations,

joined more recently by confl ict coaching and organizational ombudsr y.

Concurrently, law schools and other graduate schools expanded their

alternative dispute resolution (ADR) off erings and confl ict resolution

programs.  is article charts the trends in workplace confl ict manage-

ment and ADR education and proposes where the fi eld may be heading

in the coming years.  e authors note growing demand for workplace

mediation, coaching, and ombuds offi ces, and they call for broader

adoption of integrated confl ict management systems.

Collaborative processes to manage and resolve confl ict in the workplace,

such as confl ict coaching and mediation, have permeated organiza-

tions in North America and beyond over the past thirty years. In all three

organizational sectors (for-profi t, nonprofi t, and governmental), leaders

have experimented with internal and external mechanisms to reduce the

relational and fi nancial costs of unresolved confl ict. Many larger organiza-

tions, particularly corporations, governments, and universities, have incor-

porated the role of organizational ombudsman to assist organizational

members in choosing and pursuing one or more of the confl ict manage-

ment options that were becoming available. Concurrently, confl ict scholars

358 BRUBAKER, NOBLE, FINCHER, PARK, PRESS

C R Q • DOI: 10.1002/crq

and practitioners encouraged the development of integrated confl ict man-

agement systems to combine interest-based, rights-based, and power-based

confl ict resolution options in one ideally seamless system (Constantino

and Merchant 1996; Lipsky, Seeber, and Fincher 2003; Ury, Brett, and

Goldberg 1988).1

As organizations and communities adopted interest-based approaches

to resolve and manage confl ict, law schools and other graduate programs

expanded their off erings to meet the perceived growing demand for prac-

titioners. Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) courses and programs

proliferated in law schools as graduate programs in confl ict analysis and

resolution mushroomed in most American states and Canadian provinces.

According to Brian Polkinghorn (pers. comm., 2014) of the Center for

Confl ict Resolution at Salisbury (Maryland) University, there are now

more than 115 university-based graduate programs in the United States

and Canada that grant degrees in peace studies, confl ict resolution, or

ADR.

But as workplace confl ict resolution processes and university-based

confl ict studies programs have ballooned over the past generation, many

wonder where the fi eld is headed next. At the October 2013 Association

for Confl ict Resolution (ACR) Conference in Minneapolis, practitioners

gathered to “look into the crystal ball of workplace ADR.” Following the

presentation, Confl ict Resolution Quarterly editor Susan Raines proposed an

article summarizing trends that are emerging in four critical areas: confl ict

coaching, mediation and arbitration, organizational ombudsry, and gradu-

ate education (particularly in law schools).  ree panel members—Cinnie

Noble, an internationally known leader in the confl ict coaching fi eld; Rich-

ard Fincher, an experienced labor mediator and arbitrator based in Phoenix;

and Sharon Press, a professor of law at Hamline University—contributed

to this article. Another participant in the mini-plenary, Susan Kee-Young

Park, an experienced organizational ombudsperson, was invited to be the

fourth contributor. I (David Brubaker, associate professor of organizational

studies at Eastern Mennonite University) compiled the article.

All four contributors are highly experienced practitioners in their

respective fi elds. Two of them (Park and Press) work for large universities,

and the other two (Noble and Fincher) are successful independent prac-

titioners. Following are the substantive sections from these contributors

addressing their respective areas of practice and how they envision their

discipline intersecting with workplace confl ict resolution in the foresee-

able future. In the concluding section, I off er a brief summary of each