ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the state of research on workplace dispute resolution and discusses areas that merit additional research attention. The chapter begins by describing four major areas of existing research. The major body of conflict resolution research traditionally focused on grievance procedures in unionised workplaces. More recently, a stream of research has emerged examining conflict resolution procedures used in non-union workplaces, which exhibit much greater variation in structures and processes. Research has also increasingly moved beyond institutional descriptions of procedures to examine usage and outcomes of conflict resolution processes, often involving more advanced quantitative data collection and analysis. The growing sophistication of research in this area is also evident in recent work examining the rise of conflict management systems. The chapter also describes four areas that merit additional research. Relatively little work has looked at the issue of representation of the parties in conflict resolution. There is also a dearth of research tying conflict resolution processes to organisational performance and individual outcomes. Research in this field has predominantly focused on the USA and there is a need for more international and comparative perspectives. Research has also mostly looked at large firms, with little attention to smaller and entrepreneurial organisations.
