Gender and Role in Conflict Management: Female and Male Managers as Third Parties

Abstract

This study tested hypotheses drawn from the literature on gender, leadership, and conflict management about the outcomes facilitated by men and women in third party roles in dispute resolution in organizations. Data collected in association with an MBA teambuilding exercise showed that when women played third party roles in which they lacked authority over disputants, they were able to facilitate an outcome that was both acceptable to disputants and met organizational interests, more than men in these roles or than men and women in third party roles with authority. Behavioral data suggested that this effect was due to women in the third party peer role eschewing and men in the third party role displaying agentic behavior. The study contributes to the literature on gender, leadership, and conflict management by showing women's traditional leadership strengths of collaboration and participation can result in unique outcomes when they have less rather than more authority over disputants.

Peacemaking at the Workplace: A Systematic Review

“…In this way, four additional empirical articles were found. Although some of them studied mainly managerial interventions (Benharda et al, 2013;Brett, Tinsley, Shapiro, & Okumura, 2007) or conflict management in general (Jameson, 2001;Morrill & Thomas, 1992), they all referred also to peer interventions in conflict. Finally, the entire search yielded a total of 12 empirical studies.…”

“…Keashly and Newberry (1995) state disputants expect the peer Volume 11, Number 3, Pages 204-224 third party to have noticeable, however limited involvement in the predecision and outcome stages. Benharda et al (2013) found that supervisors acting as third party are perceived to have more power and influence, compared with peers, and tend to make more unilateral decisions to resolve the conflict. In Table 3 A Framework of Peacemaking Peacemaking happens.…”

“…line with this, Brett et al (2007) indicated that peer third parties engage in more participatory decision making and facilitate decisions. Benharda et al (2013) claimed that compared to female third parties with authority and male third parties, female third parties without authority (peacemakers) are best able to facilitate an outcome that is acceptable to the disputants and meets the organizational interests. Arnold and O'Connor (1999) found that peers who voluntarily intervene in conflict are perceived as less credible than ombudspersons.…”

“…In practice, we see that direct supervisors, managers, and human resources managers intervene regularly in workplace conflicts (Benharda, Brett, & Lempereur, 2013;D'Cruz & Noronha, 2010;Nugent & Broedling, 2002;Siira, 2012). Sometimes professional mediators are hired to mediate interpersonal conflicts or cases like bullying (Doherty & Guyler, 2008;Fox & Stallworth, 2009), discrimination (Green, 2005;McDermott & Ervin, 2005), and business-to-business conflicts (Rome, 2002), bringing short-term as well as long-term benefits to both individuals and organizations (Bollen & Euwema, 2013).…”

Celebrating the Work of Jeanne M. Brett: Building Bridges and Making Connections

“…Given the tendency for men (rather than women) to be judges, police, and bosses, it is also likely that a "culture of men" characterized the earliest tests of antecedents to procedural justice. This likely reduced scholars' ability to observe, also, the different ways in which male versus female managers intervene in employee disputes-as more recently theorized and found by Benharda, Brett, and Lempereur (2013).…”