Emerging Systems for Managing Workplace Conflict: Lessons from American Corporations for Managers and Dispute Resolution Professionals - Hardcover

by David B. Lipsky (Author), Ronald L. Seeber (Author), Richard Fincher (Author)

Emerging Systems of Managing Workplace Conflict presents illustrative real-life examples as well as cutting-edge methods and tools for integrating systems of dispute resolution into standard corporate procedures. This vital resource investigates the systems organizations have developed to manage common and costly workplace conflicts involving supervisor-employee relationships; race, age, and gender discrimination complaints; sexual harassment; occupational safety and health; reasonable accommodation of the disabled; and wrongful termination as well as other problems stemming from governmental regulations and court actions.
Drawing on the authors' vast research and frontline experience with a wide variety of corporations and organizations, this important book examines successful responses to universal workplace problems and conflicts. In addition, the book is filled with illuminating case examples and stories from organizations, such as Brown and Root, Kaufman and Broad, Warner Brothers, Universal-Studios, Kaiser Permanente, the United States Postal Service, Johnson & Johnson, Shell, Prudential, and others, that have instituted systems of dispute resolution in response to ongoing destructive conflict, expensive litigation, and crippling settlements. This book offers an enormously useful approach for the application of the most up-to-date systems of organizational conflict resolution and shows how this approach can work in specific situations to save time and money.

Back Jacket

Innovative Tools for Managing Conflict Resolution at Work

Emerging Systems for Managing Workplace Conflict presents illustrative real-life examples as well as cutting-edge methods and tools for integrating systems of dispute resolution into standard corporate procedures. This vital resource investigates the systems that organizations have developed to manage common and costly workplace conflicts involving supervisor-employee relationships; race, age, and gender discrimination complaints; sexual harassment; occupational safety and health; reasonable accommodation of the disabled; and wrongful termination, as well as other problems stemming from governmental regulations and court actions.

"Lucidly written and thoughtfully researched, Emerging Systems for Managing Workplace Conflict is a perfect resource manual for CEOs and managers interested in learning about alternative dispute resolution in the workplace."
--DAVID A. HART, CEO, Association for Conflict Resolution

"This book makes a major contribution to the expanding body of empirical information about how alternative dispute resolution techniques are being used in American corporations. It is practical and specific and should be read by everyone with an interest in reducing the cost of conflict in the workplace."
--ROBERT C. BARRETT, director, California Dispute Resolution Institute, University of San Francisco

"Managing conflicts is so much a part of corporate and institutional life--and is so often handled without creativity. The authors offer a comprehensive picture of conflict management--its history, current practice, and future prospects. As you move through their work you are struck by the need to shape a culture that supports win/win outcomes and uses processes, like ADR, only after the individual stakeholders have thoughtfully executed the spirit of conflict resolution through their daily behavior."
--HAROLD W. BURLINGAME, senior executive advisor, AT&T Wireless, and former executive vice president, Human Resources, AT& T

Author Biography

THE AUTHORS

DAVID B. LIPSKY is professor and director of the Institute on Conflict Resolution, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, at Cornell University.

RONALD L. SEEBER is associate professor and associate dean of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University and executive director of the Institute on Conflict Resolution.

RICHARD D. FINCHER is an arbitrator, mediator, attorney, and managing partner of Workplace Conflict Resolutions in Phoenix, Arizona.