Abstract
Organizational bullying and harassment constitute severe adversaries inducing trauma in their targets. As their occurrences began to proliferate alarmingly in the postmodern era, they started attracting academic and practitioner interest due to their implications for individual health and organizational productivity. More recently and coinciding with the adoption of facilitative conflict mediation methodology in organizations, incivility has increasingly been explored through the growth its consequences can potentially trigger in individuals. Thus far, conflict research has abounded in studies of e.g. mediator style, mediation process phases, disputant behavior and conflict types, while the longer-term influences of conflicts and the related mediation have attracted less research attention. This empirical investigation explores the negative undercurrents in team communication through their underlying causes and impacts on individuals. Second, it presents workplace conflict mediation as an instrument restoring team harmony and disputant egos. Finally, it analyzes the positive outcomes associated with conflict mediation and the way it changes individuals’ interaction styles. The findings are based on a qualitative investigation of conflict disputant perceptions, adopting participant observation (n=58) and a qualitative survey (n=42) of disputant perceptions to analyze expectations placed on mediator style and the socio-emotive load experienced during the mediation process. The results corroborate earlier findings indicating that the nondirective mediator style is frequently associated with discomfort in the conflict solution situation and less frequently with immediate satisfaction with the mediator style. Fortunately the nondirective style entails positive and longer-enduring organizational outcomes. Generally the findings confirm the key tenet of the restorative paradigm, describing the facilitative approach as an instrument promoting individual growth and organizational learning. Thematically, such renewal materializes as motivation for self-growth and skilling in self-reflective ability and communication.
Highlights
Psychological capital has recently taken center stage in the study of working life as a reservoir accounting for positive organizational behavior [1, 2]
The correlates of negative emotions elicited in the workplace have been under examined, or harmful effects have been examined merely as enduring moods or generalized attitudes, instead of discrete and distinct expressions [5]
On an even more accentuated note, this study identified evidence for the instrumental role of restorative mediation for deep individual and organizational learning
Summary
Psychological capital has recently taken center stage in the study of working life as a reservoir accounting for positive organizational behavior [1, 2]. While positive psychology has accumulated convincing evidence for the effects of an individual’s positive psychological states on cognition, work performance and physical health [3, 4], research linking socio-emotive load and organizational outcomes is scarce. The correlates of negative emotions elicited in the workplace have been under examined, or harmful effects have been examined merely as enduring moods or generalized attitudes, instead of discrete and distinct expressions [5]. Negative emotions and their overt display have, alarmingly, become more prevalent due to the growingly diverse human mosaic and subsequently more complex team interplay in today’s workplaces. They force employees to regulate their emotional displays in compliance with their work role [9], and on the other, negative affective responses expose teams to interpersonal friction [10]. Conflicts presently constitute an omnipresent and undeniable dimension of organizational interaction [11], with far-reaching financial, social and emotive consequences [12]
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