Post an assessment of your chosen qualitative study utilized in Week 2. Your assessment should include the following:Briefly describe key components of your chosen article: problem statement, purpose

Literature Review

Topic: Influence of Dispute Resolution on Employee Retention

The retention of positive and self-motivated employees is the dream of every human resource manager. Indeed, the entire organizational leadership hope to decrease the rate of turn-over since this is a development which increases expenses while ruining the productivity. De Clercq et al. (2017) argue that a significant number of employees opt to leave a conflict ridden firm, especially if they determine that these disagreements continue perpetually. Dispute resolution is, therefore, is an employee turnover management endeavor as it increases their morale in a significant manner. As a consequence, they not only enjoy their work but also look forward to remaining with the organization in question for a long period of time (Eigen & Litwin, 2014). This paper is a review of qualitative and quantitative literature on the influence that dispute resolution has on employee retention.

Eigen & Litwin (2014) address the relationship between the implementation of typical dispute resolution systems in the view of achieving organizational justice versus merely complying with the law. The goal is to understand which of the two deserve commitment as pertains to the sustainability of a business organization. The question is whether the employees would perceive it more secure to remain with the organization that obeys every law in the book or one that seeks justice as much as possible.

Eigen & Litwin (2014) is a quantitative study of an organization based in US which has a 100,000 strong workforce. It has operations in over 1,000 locations, and hence it avails an exhaustive view of the differential effects for organizational commitment while conceptualizing the most appropriate strategies towards resolving disputes. After the unique longitudinal data from the company was analyzed, it become apparent that opinions are divergent.

While 70% of the respondents felt that it is best to have in-house solutions which are not necessarily imposed by law, 30% insisted that laws are imperative as they serve as the foundations of any social and contractual dealings. The two viewpoints have notable support and in that case, Eigen & Litwin find these to be issues deserving continued attention given the high number of organizations grappling with the trade-offs (Eigen & Litwin, 2014).

A task conflict is the situation in an organization when parties are unable to make progress as a result of differing behaviors, needs, and/or attitudes of the stakeholders. It could be triggered by disagreements in regards to distribution of resources, organizational procedures and policies, as well as the means to be used to complete the task. Relationship conflict may or may not be caused by persistent task conflicts. It is when personality clashes emerge and negative emotional interactions among the people develop (De Clercq et al., 2017; Camelo-Ordaz et al., 2015).

Camelo-Ordaz et al. (2015) endeavor to establish how task as well as relationship conflicts come about during the process of decision making. This is particularly with the stakeholders in the top management within organizations. The view is that conflicts have a negative impact on the firm’s innovativeness. The researchers had a sample of 64 respondents drawn from top management of Spanish firms. It is proposed that with behavioral integration, the negative impact of the conflict tend to reduce. It also follows that the challenge in question would be unlikely to trigger relationship conflicts.

Camelo-Ordaz et al. (2015) used the Harman one-factor test and found that there is a high correlation (at 0.797, or approximately 0.8) between task conflict and relationship conflict. A confirmatory factor analysis test was conducted to confirm those findings and it was established that the effects of task conflict on relationship conflict is significant, and it ends up hampering the firm’s innovativeness. The high correlation between the two dimensions of workplace conflict are predicted to have the effect of masking any potential gains from task conflict.

Camelo-Ordaz et al. (2015) insist on the need to come-up with the right mechanisms for managing conflicts involving the top management. Otherwise, it is likely that the competent, experienced, and motivated members of the top management would feel compelled to leave if they conclude that the organization is an obstacle towards their zeal for success. The stakeholders in the top positions within an organization do appreciate that conflict is inevitable since individual needs and attitudes vary. Nevertheless, successful organizations have policies and procedures which facilitate timely resolution of disagreements (Camelo-Ordaz et al., 2015; De Clercq et al., 2017).

Knights & McCabe (2016) explain that the actor network theory can facilitate the understanding of resistance at the places of work. In some of the cases, resistance is ethnographic and it is caused by the stakeholders’ inexperience with heterogeneous environments and relations. The authors suggest than an effective resolution of disputes at the places of work would require managers to be ethnographers. They would understand their stakeholders’ perspectives from the point of view of the cultures.

Of course, Knights & McCabe (2016) argue, effective ethnography would call for an extensive interaction, interviews, as well as observation; which means that those in leadership positions will need to be competent qualitative researchers. In every organization, there are multiple departments and division, and each of them has distinguishing behavioral patterns and distinctive histories. A department would, for instance, be seen to depict distinctive qualities defined by the rules the stakeholders have set, their assumptions, values, and communication behaviors.

Lund Dean et al. (2014) agrees with Knights & McCabe (2016) that nuanced understanding of not only the organizational practices but also the various subcultures is needed. In essence, the leadership must be observant as well as understand a host of viewpoints based on ethnographic skills. Lund Dean et al. (2014) adds that the leadership must be keen of informal conversations taking place, say, over lunch in the same manner they are observant about comments made in the meeting rooms. In any case, it is when the pressure of formality is lifted when individuals express their true feelings.

Integrated conflict management (or resolution) systems is when an organization avails multiple alternatives towards addressing conflicts. The employees and management are provided with opportunities to choose the problem-solving approaches they find appropriate towards determining the which need to be taken. Negotiation is usually recommended as the first step towards having a conflict resolved. There are other measures that need to be taken to ensure success (Knights & McCabe, 2016).

Brubaker et al. (2014) argue that collaborative processes towards resolving conflicts at the workplaces have been embraced by American organizations over the last three decades. They argue that before collaborative approaches, managers favored mediation and arbitration, and these ushered in the era of organizational ombudsmen and conflict coaching. The challenge was that these early strategies were a reserve for graduates of legal studies, and it kept the conflicting parties at bay. They imposed solutions, rather than having the concerned stakeholders collaborating to arrive at all-inclusive.

Brubaker et al. (2014) favor an integrated conflict management system. They have employed a qualitative analysis on the past and present trends in order to predict the future. They conclude by suggesting that if integrated conflict resolution approaches are exploited, organizations will manage to move from just intervention towards the prevention of conflict. It does also makes it possible to upgrade from ad hoc and focus on finding and implementing the most appropriate systems. Brubaker et al. conclude that teams which will focus on managing change instead of merely seeking to resolve conflicts will outperform their competitors (Brubaker et al., 2014).

According to Brubaker et al. (2014), the management has the duty to encourage empowerment as well as recognition. This is in the spirit of embracing the emergent shifts in conflict dynamics. The new stakeholders need to be briefed on the various options available to them in case they have the need to petition for a desire they perceive to be invaluable. Such avenues make them feel appreciated and dissuaded to seek employment elsewhere.

Whether a business organization is large or small, resources and time are invaluable. Whenever a conflict comes about, the litigation costs could be overwhelming. Even if it does not call for litigation, the parties involved end up wasting effort, time, and resources needlessly. This is why the leadership must consider it indispensable to provide options for resolving disagreements (Camelo-Ordaz et al., 2015). An organization needs to have an integrated conflict management strategy in place as well as underpin organizational commitment. This would help eliminate the challenge which would arise if the parties to the dispute are compelled to resolve it in court and hence keep on adhering to appointments over which they have little control (Knights & McCabe, 2016).

Conflicts, or disputes, could actually have positive outcomes in organizations. This is because they encourage open-mindedness as well as avert the risk of being trapped in group-think. Nevertheless, it is the steps which are taken to manage conflict that matter. The review of literature suggest that leaders must be ethnographers (Lund Dean et al., 2014; Knights & McCabe, 2016) and ensure organizational commitment beyond what is required under the law (Eigen & Litwin, 2014).

Nevertheless, disagreements which start as task conflicts could escalate into relationship conflicts (Camelo-Ordaz et al., 2015; De Clercq et al., 2017); and at this point, they will have become significantly personal. In some cases, the conflicting parties might never be in a position to team-up again. Brubaker et al. (2014) argue that having an integrated conflict resolution mechanism is indispensable since the stakeholders are facilitated with a host of options to deal with the issues confronting them.

Brubaker, D., Noble, C., Fincher, R., Park, S.K., & Press, S. (2014). Conflict resolution in the workplace: What will the future bring? Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 31(4), 357–386. https://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21104

Camelo-Ordaz, C., García-Cruz, J., & Sousa-Ginel, E. (2015). The influence of top management team conflict on firm innovativeness. Group Decision & Negotiation, 24(6), 957–980. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10726-014-9424-4

De Clercq, D., Mohammad Rahman, Z., & Belausteguigoitia, I. (2017). Task conflict and employee creativity: the critical roles of learning orientation and goal congruence. Human Resource Management, 56(1), 93–109. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21761

Eigen, Z.J., & Litwin, A.S. (2014). Justice or just between us? Empirical evidence of the trade-off between procedural and interactional justice in workplace dispute resolution. ILR Review, 67(1), 171–201. https://doi.org/10.1177/001979391406700107

Knights, D., & McCabe, D. (2016). The “missing masses” of resistance: An ethnographic understanding of a workplace dispute. British Journal of Management, 27(3), 534–549. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12170

Lund Dean, K., Safranski, S., & Lee, E. (2014). Religious accommodation in the workplace: Understanding religious identity threat and workplace behaviors in legal disputes. Employee Responsibilities & Rights Journal, 26(2), 75–94. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10672-013-9232-z