Title: Designing Conflict Management Systems: A Guide to Creating Productive and Healthy Organizations
by Cathy A. Costantino and Christina Sickles Merchant
Publisher: Jossey-Bass; ISBN: 0787901628
From the Publisher
As organizations restructure and social stresses escalate, conflict in the workplace is on the rise. Whether in response to organizational goals such as resolving disputes with customers and clients, systemic problems in hiring and promotion practices, or interpersonal issues between managers, employees, and co-workers, businesses and government agencies are finding it increasingly more productive – and more cost-effective – to be proactive in designing systems to manage conflict.
Professionals in organizations development (OD), human resources (HR), and alternative dispute resolution (ADR) are responding to this important challenge by leading the way in designing integrated conflict management systems to help effectively manage conflict both internally and with external stakeholders.
Designing Conflict Management Systems presents a practical, step-by-step approach that uniquely integrates OD, ADR, and dispute systems design principles into a working model to help OD, HR, and ADR professionals and management consultants assess conflict and evaluate processes within an organization – to either improve them or implement new ones.
The authors use three composite case studies form the health care, government, and manufacturing sectors, along with numerous charts, checklists, and tables to shoe how to get the programs launched, deal with organizational resistance and constraints, learn the do’s and don’ts of conflict management training, make sure the design fits the larger organizational culture, motivate people to actually use the system, and evaluate if the system is really working.
Contents
Part 1: Coping with Conflict in Organizations
How organizations and individuals respond to conflict
Recognizing conflict management as a system
Managing conflict effectively: Alternative dispute resolution and dispute systems design
Involving the stakeholders: Interest-based conflict management systems
Part 2: Designing and Improving Conflict Management Systems
Entry and contracting: Starting the systems design effort
Organizational assessment: Looking at the big picture
Design architecture: Constructing conflict management models
Training and education: Building the knowledge and skill base
Implementation: Introducing the new system
Evaluation: Measuring program effectiveness
Part 3: Making the System Work
Incentives and rewards: Creating support for the system
Resistance and constraints: Having tea with your demons
Changing the culture: Accepting conflict and encouraging choice
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