Arbitrtion, mediation, litigation - Essay Example

Conflict management has become more utilized than ever before in the business world. Conflict may occur when parties disagree over the substantive issues or when emotional antagonisms create friction between them (Schermerhorn & Osborn & Hunt, pg. 378, 2003). There are several techniques that can be used to manage and resolve conflicts. Three of those techniques are arbitration, mediation, and litigation. The organization I selected to analyze the application of these techniques was a former employer of mine.

All three of these techniques were used by my employer to solve different types of conflicts and problems. Litigation is a legal procedure in front of a judge such as lawsuit to solve a conflict (Freeadvice, 2011). The decision of the judge or the jury is the final resolution to the conflict. Litigation was used by the company to protect its best interest in several areas. The firm has several patents for products. The company once used litigation to protect its intellectual property when a competitor violated patent laws and created a clone of a patented product produced by the company.

Litigation was also used by the company to protect itself against employees that filed wrongful lawsuits against the firm. A few years age an employee claimed he was fired due to discrimination since he was from India. I believe his claim was bogus; this employee came to work late or was absent several times every month. I worked with him sometimes, he was completely incompetent. A second technique to manage conflicts is mediation. “Mediation is a process in which a third-party neutral assists in resolving a dispute between two or more other parties” (Honeyman & Yawanarajah, 2003).

The company used mediation to deal with problems with the union and issues associated with the collective bargaining agreement. A third technique that can be used to manage issues is arbitration. Arbitration has been used by the company in the past to settle salary disputes during the negotiation of key employees such as executive management positions. The use of litigation could have been more effective by eliminating the legal staff and paying a retainer to a law firm. The company spent too much money on payroll to its legal staff.

The legal department should be dissolved. The company would replace a fixed cost with a variable cost by switching from a legal staff to the services of a lawyer firm on retainer. The use of mediation should be extended on a limited basis to deal with controversial customer complaints. For instance if a customer claims he suffered injury or harm due to the use of a product produced by the firm, instead of risking bad publicity the company should implement a mediation mechanism to find a fair solution to the problem.

I think the use of arbitration should be extended to deal with supplier contract disputes. Arbitration can help the firm find a fast unbiased resolution that will lower tensions between the parties and help them continue a good business relationship. The use of litigation, mediation, and arbitration are three conflict resolution techniques that must be applied by business firms to resolve problems in a fair, fast, and effective manner.ReferencesFreeadvice.com. (2011). How does litigation compare to alternative dispute resolution, or ADR?

Retrieved September 17, 2011 from http://law.freeadvice.com/litigation/litigation/litigation.htm Honeyman, C., Yawanarajah, N. (2003). Mediation. Retrieved September 17 2011 from http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/mediation Schermerhorn, J, Hunt, J. Osborn, R. (2003). Organizational Behavior (8th ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons.