CONFLICT MANAGEMENT The Psychology of conflict and conflict ...

11. ORGANIZATIONAL DISPUTE RESOLUTION SYSTEMS 333
2005; Huselid 1995; Pil & MacDuffie, 1996). In effect, an ODR system is
complementary with the goals as well as needs of an organization that has
adopted other high performance work practices.
Even with an ODR system in place, the question of whether it will be
used by employees remains. There is wide variance in ODR system usage
rates across industries yet little understanding of what causes this variation
(Bemmels & Foley, 1996). Early work suggested differences in the use
of technology or the task environment (e.g., work methods, job specialization)
were related to ODR usage (e.g., Kuhn, 1961; Sayles, 1958). Yet more
recent work finds little effect for such variables on grievance rates (e.g.,
Bemmels, 1994; Bemmels, Reshef, & Stratton-Devine, 1991), leaving the reason
for industry differences unclear. Interestingly, Cappelli and Chauvin
(1991) found that factors related to higher employee exit costs (e.g., higher
wages relative to the external labor market and high unemployment rate)
result in more frequent grieving of complaints. Thus, perhaps ODR usage
is higher when there are higher barriers to exit an organization.
Other characteristics of the organization arguably play a role in the
overall ODR system usage rate in an organization. The social environment,
such as the prevailing culture, and norms for voicing and addressing
conflict in the organization are potential factors in employees’
tendency to use ODR systems (Bendersky, 1998; Peterson & Lewin, 2000).
For example, some work on employee silence (e.g., Milliken, Morrison, &
Hewlin, 2003) provided insight as to how the culture of the organization
may relate to an individual’s willingness to express problems upward. In
particular, employees often remain silent out of the fear of being viewed
or labeled negatively and ultimately damaging valued relationships. An
organizational culture in which disputes are treated as something to be
avoided at all costs may have a relatively low ODR system usage rate
(Harlos, 2001), in part because employees may fear reprisal (Krefting &
Powers, 1998). However, these factors have not been examined in the
empirical literature.
Interestingly, the extent to which a variety of other “voice” alternatives
(non-ODR systems) are available is related to lower ODR system usage.
For example, Colvin (2003a) showed that multilevel appeal rates were
lower in workplaces that had adopted self-managed teams. His argument
was that because workers in self-managed teams are granted broader
decision-making authority in the workplace, disputes can more readily be
addressed informally (Cutcher-Gershenfeld, 1991). Further, a study of the
Canadian goods and services industries found a link between employee
involvement initiatives and lower grievance rates among union workplaces,
though there was a null relationship among nonunion workplaces
(Colvin, 2004b).
A great deal of research has examined the link between ODR systems
and employee quit rates. This research generally takes an exit-voiceloyalty
perspective (Hirschman, 1970), arguing that when employees have
access to voice (e.g., grievance system), they will be less likely to react to