Future Directions and Conclusions About CMS and Organizing
Much of the CMS literature has documented a paradigm shift in the way we understand conflict and the type of conflict strategies that organizations select due to changes in the environment within which organizations operate.
We have shown that environmental influences operate in conjunction with the objects, attributes, and internal relationships within organizational systems to create CMS frameworks. A law-based CMS framework focuses on developed disputes about rights and takes a retrospective, adversarial approach to assigning blame. New non-court procedures such as arbitration or peer review aim to decrease the time and financial costs associated with judging and eliminating organizational conflicts. A m anagement-based CMS frames the conflict in terms of interests and addresses a wider range of conflict issues. Strategies such as mediation and open-door policies aim to prevent and contain the conflict at the lowest possible level to enable an organization to maintain and protect its own interests. A participation-based CMS engages all stakeholders and creates opportunities to contribute to organizational planning and problem solving using procedures such as focused conversations or facilitation. Its aim is to empower stakeholders and to foster ongoing relationships. We do not advocate one framework that will work for every organization but instead that organizations select an appropriate CMS framework mindfully and consider how combining elements from diverse frameworks will have an impact on the system as a whole.The systemic perspective, moreover, is valuable from a theoretical as well as applied perspective, as it shows that CMS research cannot treat organizations as contained entities. As the NWH case demonstrated, we need to conceptualize CMS as systems within broader organizational systems, which contain multiple subsystems and have permeable boundaries.
Not only are organizational boundaries increasingly blurred, but the types of interrelationships among overlapping systems are also becoming more complex. The prevalence of interorgani- zational collaborations that combine organizational systems and CMS and communities of practice that create extraorganizational specialist groups with common interests and goals create new challenges for CMS research. It would also be fruitful to integrate organizational research about the tensions between organizational CMS and wider professional systems, as professional bodies act as an extra- organizational resource. Specifically, while research has investigated what CMS might look like in for-profit and government settings, we need to investigate how nonprofit organizations use CMS. We also need to consider the effects of corporate and government partnerships, for-profit and nonprofit collaborations, and nonprofit and government initiatives on CMS design.Furthermore, the spatial and temporal dimensions of processes and procedures within the CMS have also become more fluid. The evolution of online dispute resolution and its impact on law-based, management-based, and participation-based CMS also merits investigation. Online communities may expand the number of stakeholders in participation-based systems, for instance, and need to be carefully integrated with face-to-face conflict management strategies. We also suggest that media have played, and continue to play, an important role in the ways in which CMS are designed, implemented, and evaluated. The role of media—and in particular the implications of social media for CMS—need to be interrogated further. Finally, and in line with best practice understood as flexibility and adaptability, we call for further research in a range of cultural and organizational settings that show how CMS respond to the needs of diverse populations and address local issues and dynamics.
The case reinforces the principle that each CMS has strengths and weaknesses depending on the type of conflict and the organizational systems and environment within which the conflict is embedded.
Nonetheless, much of the current discussion about CMS focuses on the adoption of a specific set of best-practice strategies. Lipsky et al. (2003) described the current environment as one in which we are searching “for the dominant model” (p. 22). We suggest that implementing off-the-shelf solutions to CMS design is problematic. The paradox of best practice is that the more one prescribes how CMS ought to operate, the more inflexible systems become. To avoid system atrophy, implosion, or explosion, system designers need to consider whose rights, interests, and voices are privileged and to what extent these are flexible in a system. Best practice, then, means having the courage to look at all the approaches on offer and decide, or even develop, approaches that meet the needs of the stakeholders involved at that particular moment.Note
1. The Auckland Health Board and the Auckland office of the Department of Health merged in 1988 to form the Auckland Area Health Board, which was subsequently responsible for National Women’s Hospital.