CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION    Background of the Study

Conflict is a human factor that is pervasive in organisations. It is neither destructive nor constructive, however, it would depend on how it is managed or practiced in organisational settings. Thus, organisations ought to search for the means of managing conflict in such ways that conflicts can be useful for solving organisational problems, strengthening employee relationship and developing them. Accordingly, Teague, Roche and Hann (2012) assert that organisational conflict, how it shows itself and how it is managed plays an integral role in managing employment relationship. The reason is that, organisations are likely to be affected adversely when organisational disputes are not settled fairly and effectively. Industrial action may lead to lost days, high rates of absenteeism, and employer–employee relations could be strained if not resentful as a result of conflict. Disputes can obstruct organisations from creating adaptable mechanisms to thrive in the modern business setting (Bendersky, 2003). Nonetheless, organisations that adopt efficient conflict management measures are most often than not, prone to have workers who feel they have self-respect and justness at the workplace and are more devoted to the mission and vision of the organisation (Costantino & Sickles Merchant,1996). It is quite uncertain what a good and effective conflict management system is made up of, although an effective conflict management system is likely to depend on a number of factors for instance, the type of the disputes in existence in the organisation, the rights and interests of the parties involved and perhaps most important of all, the quality of the conflict management processes (Bingham & Nabatchi 2003).

Conventional personnel management generally used an unemotional, calm and phlegmatic attitude to settle organisational conflict (Teague et al, 2012). One common practice was for Human Resource (HR) managers to play a problem-solving role inside the organisation by

interacting with trade unions to solve either small-scale problems or to prevent imminent large- scale industrial unrest (Legge, 1995). In this situation, the employee was never included in the process, thus his interest was not properly addressed. A distinct group of conflict as well as innovative approaches to resolving and even preventing conflict in the business setting. These distinct practices are usually termed alternative dispute resolution commonly known as ADR practices.

Whereas conventional approaches to conflict management frequently involved the exercise of power play between disputants, in which a party (usually the employer) tried to levy their willpower on the other (usually, the employee), or involved using measures to ascertain rights under collective agreements, company policy or the law, ADR practices seek to resolve conflict wherever possible on the basis of the parties seeking to discover jointly beneficial and acceptable means of furthering their ‘interests’ (Costantino & Sickles Merchant, 1996; Ury, Brett & Goldberg, 1993).

ADR practices are not entirely new and date back to the 1960s, but the topic started gaining popularity in the 1980s when HR personnel in big organisations hunted for means to curtail the considerable rise in courtroom litigation on organisational problems (Goldberg, Green & Sander 1985; Teague, 2006). ADR practices were generally perceived as stalling the litigation process or completely keeping organisational disputes out of the courts and enabling their resolution inside the organisation a concept which was readily embraced by organisations that constantly found themselves in litigation. In recent years, the relatively new notion of ADR has gained widespread attention in the organisational conflict management literature and even for some, it signifies the basis of a high quality conflict management system since it seeks to empower parties involved in a dispute to use mutually beneficial processes to settle their differences to their satisfaction (Cropanzano, Bowen &Gilliland, 2008). These practices may include but not limited to the operation of formal open-door procedures, where employees with

grievances seek access to any manager in search for a solution, skipping over their immediate manager or supervisor if they believe this is warranted by the nature of the grievance which concerns them (Ewing, 1989).

Also among the ADR group are ‘hotline’ or email-based ‘speak-up’ systems which can disclose information to employees, answer to problems or refer employees to other processes for resolving grievances in firms, without the stringent old methods (Lewin, 2011; Rowe & Baker 1984). Mediators; both external an internal, conciliators or other experts may also be used to determine disputes. Again, another common procedure linked with ADR is the adoption and use of review panels comprised of managers or employees’ peers (to understand both sides) and the use of arbitrators in a binding arbitration process as a final stage in dispute resolution (Teague et al 2012). A standard approach more or less, is for HR managers to co-manage organisational procedures with line managers to handle disciplinary and grievance issues (Folger & Cropanzano 1998).

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