The Future of Conflict Management Systems

• Author: David B. Lipsky
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21133
• Published date: 01 December 2015
• Date: 01 December 2015

C R Q, vol. 33, supplement 1, Winter 2015 S27

© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. and the Association for Confl ict Resolution

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/crq.21133

The Future of Con ict Management Systems

David B. Lipsky

 is article acknowledges Chris Merchant’s contribution to the devel-

opment of the concept of a confl ict management system (CMS). It dis-

cusses the relationship between a CMS and a closely related concept,

an integrated confl ict management system (ICMS), which is a more

comprehensive or integrated approach to confl ict management.  e

article reports on surveys of Fortune 1000 corporations that show that

the implementation of a CMS in these corporations rose from 17 per-

cent in 1997 to about 30 percent in 2011. Chris Merchant expressed

optimism about the future of confl ict management systems. Although

her vision of the future of confl ict management systems has not yet been

fulfi lled, one can hope that if these systems provide not only organiza-

tional effi ciency but also workplace justice, her optimism will one day

be justifi ed.

In 1996 Chris Merchant and Cathy Costantino published Designing

Confl ict Management Systems: A Guide to Creating Productive and Healthy

Organizations, a book that has become a classic in the fi eld of confl ict

resolution. In their book, Costantino and Merchant (1996, xiii) noted,

“Typically, organizational leaders do not view the management of confl ict

as systematically as they do information, human resource, and fi nancial

management systems. Rather, confl ict in organizations is viewed and man-

aged in a piecemeal ad hoc fashion, as isolated events . . . that are rarely

examined in the aggregate to reveal patterns and systemic issues.”

As much as anyone else I know, Chris Merchant, through her classic

book and her life’s work, changed the way organizational leaders view

 anks to Traci Morse for assistance in preparing this article.