Participation-Based CMS

Trends in flatter organizational structures, team-based work, and changing workplace diversity and a broader conceptualization of organizational stakeholders all influence the nature of participation in organizations as well as approaches to conflict more specifi­cally.

If we take the view that democratic par­ticipation is participation of “the managed” in “management” (Arnstein, 1969), then par­ticipation implies a cooperative relationship between the managers and the managed. Thus, at the heart of participation-based CMS is a focus on relationships and an underlying assumption that such participation has ben­efits at personal, organizational, and societal levels. Maintaining a collaborative culture within the organization will enhance the sys­tem and the quality of life for those within it. Because of the multitude of differences among and within organizations, participation-based frameworks recognize that there are mul­tiple ways for an organization to achieve its goals and to manage conflict at interpersonal, intraorganizational, and interorganizational levels—the principle of equifinality (Hall & Fagan, 1968).

One major influence on participation in organizations has been the increase in aware­ness of “stakeholders,” which may be broadly defined as any group who will affect or be affected by an organization’s decisions, actions, or strategies, including the “nomi­nally powerless” (Bryson, 2004, p. 22). Their contributions can alert the organization to factors, issues, and concerns that management fail to see.

A second influence is the increasing recog­nition that conflict and conflict management within organizations are not discrete episodes erupting outside of the norm but rather result from ongoing tensions among organizational goals, stakeholder issues, and a changing sociopolitical environment. Thus, the orga­nizational culture has to not only allow but also enable and encourage stakeholders to be involved and initiate change at different stages of the conflict process. Conflict prevention begins with involvement in determining and agreeing on the overall purpose of the organi­zation so that different stakeholders are clear about how the work that they do contributes to the organizational mission. Such participa­tion may include “focused conversations” (e.g., Stanfield, 2000) or “strategic conver­sations” (van der Heijden, cited in Bryson, 2004) that seek to understand different view­points on the issue at hand before moving to decision and action.

A third influence on participation in orga­nizations, and in particular conflict manage­ment, concerns the capacity of the organization to promote self-regulation at different levels of the system: (a) interpersonal; (b) group, team, and department; (c) organization; and (d) external relations. Such capacity is influenced by organizational culture, organizational goals, and systemic infusion of resources and programs that enable employees to develop appropriate interpersonal conflict manage­ment skills at a group or individual level (e.g., McCrane, Wilson, & Cammock, 2005). Trainers for a World Health Organization Healthy Communities initiative, for example, aimed to encourage stakeholders to express their own opinions and views using a dialogic model, yet without direction and guidance participants milled about in confusion and apparent apathy (Zoller, 2000).

Several practitioners have advocated facili­tated group methods for meetings, teams, and large groups of people who rely on each other to achieve specific goals (Schwarz, 2005; Stanfield, 2000). Since such methods rely on an identified facilitator who man­ages the group process and attends to the relational dimensions of the group, group facilitation (Schwarz, 2005) and facilitative mediation (Littlejohn & Domenici, 2001) emphasize developing understanding and the co- or reconstruction of a conflict situation (e.g., Harris, 2008; Putnam, 2004). Similarly, large-group interactive methods engage a wide range of stakeholders to increase the amount of information about key concerns and to build commitment to solutions (Bryson & Anderson, 2000). These methods are not specific to conflict management, but by focus­ing on common issues, they serve to build a relational foundation that allows conflict to be addressed as it emerges. Facilitated mediation, for example, has powerful effects on groups in conflict by enabling them to exchange points of view and reach a solution independently. Facilitative approaches also encourage par­ticipants to recognize the value of agreement, which confers long-term mutual benefit and reduces postcrisis tensions (Beardsley, Quinn, Biswas, & Wilkenfeld, 2006).

Organizations can adopt or adapt these process models, but there must be compat­ibility between the outcome and relational goals of the models and the organizational system. Rabinovich-Einy’s (2007) analysis of Israeli hospitals, for example, found that the information gathering needed for participa­tory problem solving, systemic improvements, and organizational learning left hospital staff vulnerable in legal proceedings, and therefore, organizational members lacked incentives to document practices. This lack of compatibility compromises the integrity of participatory approaches and limits stakeholder input to superficial, short-term goals.

From a systems perspective, organizations that remain closed to input from unexpected but influential quarters will atrophy and fail to adapt to emerging environmental changes.

We conclude this section on the three types of CMS available to organizations by considering when these systems will work effectively for an organization. Law-based systems best address bilateral conflicts about substantive concerns that have clearly defined parameters. The facts of the case need to be unambiguous, and the terms of reference about what is included and excluded must be acceptable to both parties in the conflict. Finally, the procedure whereby facts are selected, presented, and adjudicated must be perceived to be fair. Management­based systems require that individuals trust that the system possesses the resources for con­flict management to be effective. Key resources include an appropriate neutral person to man­age the process and managers who take action when conflict occurs. Individuals in conflict must have enough flexibility to engage with each other and to imagine that “they could behave nonadversarily (and that such behavior could produce a viable solution),” even though this “may be outside their lived experience to date” (Gray, 2006, p. 195). Such reframing requires a skilled facilitator who can help par­ticipants buy in to a schema revision process. To overcome the problems associated with organizationally contained decisions, process managers should also utilize organizational boundary spanners who can ascertain how strategies that foster organizational justice have been used in other settings. Participation-based systems need to identify relevant stakeholders, as failure to include the right people can result in failure to achieve organizational goals. These stakeholders must appreciate that the conflict may be resolved in multiple ways and possess the skills to participate fully in the process and contribute to the creation of outcomes.

From a systems perspective, organizations can choose to implement a law-, management-, or participation-based CMS that aligns with their organizational culture and overall pur­pose, interests, and goals. After all, one central characteristic of systems is “equifinality” (Hall & Fagan, 1968); there are many orientations and strategies available for a system to adopt in achieving its purpose. The next section explores a case study to illustrate this flexibil­ity and the impact of strategy choices on the outcome of ongoing, multilevel conflict.

Problematizing the

Three Systems: The Case of the “Unfortunate Experiment” Carried Out at New Zealand's National Women's Hospital

This case study is a story of conflict between medical personnel that began with competing views on what was the “correct” intervention when women presented with a given set of clinical indicators. It later developed into argu­ments about informed consent and patient rights. The case has also been framed as an abuse of power by the medical profession over the lay population, a gendered conflict between male doctors and female patients, and a “feminist witch hunt” that wrongly castigated medical practitioners (Bryder, 2009; Corbett, 1990). We take a systems approach to show how different CMS provide useful lenses on the conflict and offer alternative interven­tion strategies. We begin with a case summary and then undertake a detailed analysis before examining the case from law-, management-, and participation-based perspectives.