An investigation of managerial interventions in employee disputes

Abstract

Seventy four university managers described up to six recent conflicts and reported on their intervention strategies. Findings show that managers use a range of strategies, including overlooking, as interventions for employees’ disputes, instead of favoring the use of any particular one. Choices of intervention strategies were influenced by the type of issue being disputed, the seriousness of the dispute, and managers’ self-efficacy with mediation. Specifically, managers most frequently used mediation to resolve task-related disputes, and tended to use a variety of different strategies to intervene in personality conflicts. When managers perceived conflicts to be highly serious, they most frequently used mediation, followed by arbitration, offering incentives, and lastly, overlooking. Managers with a high degree of mediation self-efficacy more frequently mediated employees’ disputes, whereas managers with a low degree of mediation self-efficacy more frequently overlooked employees’ disputes. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.