Resolving Intractable Conflicts Through Third-Party Facilitation: A 14-Year Study

Intractable conflicts between two individuals within an organization can be particularly detrimental, exerting ripple effects that affect other individuals, entire units, or the organization as a whole. This study extends previous research on third-party consultation interventions by exploring trust and other variables that facilitate intractable conflict resolution, while examining several outcomes over time. Data for this 14-year study in an operating room came from self-reports by the participants, behavioral observations by hospital administrators, and hospital records. Results include statistically significant improvement in trust measures, individual and group effectiveness, increased availability of surgical supplies and equipment, reduced physician abuse of scheduling privileges, decreased verbal abuse of nurses by physicians, the elimination of nursing turnover, and a decision by the surgeons to not build an outpatient surgical center. From a methodological standpoint, our quasi-experimental design using longitudinal panel data provide strong evidence for the effectiveness of organization development interventions on intractable conflicts, including not only how resolutions and positive outcomes occur but also how they can endure over time.

TUG OF WAR: EVALUATIVE VERSUS FACILITATIVE MEDIATOR

Mediation can be defined as a process where a neutral third party seeks to facilitate communication between the disputing parties to help them arrive at an amicable solution of their disputes culminating in a win-win situation for the parties. Though ‘... there is no single limiting definition of mediation, in part because mediators function in accordance with different philosophies and in statistically different ways’, the most commonly accepted definitions of mediation incorporate two essential elements: ‘(1) third-party facilitation of dispute settlement, and (2) lack of third-party power to determine the resolution of the dispute.’ The central focus of mediation is based on the principle of parties’ self-determination. To further this basic principle, the role of a mediator must be well defined. Looking at mediation from a historical perspective, mediation was confined to the facilitative role of a neutral third party. Gradually, however, there came a sharp divide amongst the existing mediators as regards the scope of intervention by a mediator in the mediation proceedings. At one end of the broad spectrum of a mediator’s role, lies his or her active role as an evaluator and at the other, that as a facilitator of communication between the parties. These two positions are, however, in contrast with each other and hence, the debate as to the most suitable role of a mediator’s intervention in the process. In part II(a) of the present paper I attempt to portray the distinction between mediators and decision-makers. Because of the emergence of evaluative forms in mediation. In part II(b) I sketch the differences between the approaches taken by the facilitative and the evaluative mediators. In part III I try to indicate the dangers posed when mediators strive to put on the evaluative cloak and finally and in part IV I sum up the paper with an appropriate conclusion.