CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND MANAGEMENT IN CONTEMPORARY WORK ORGANIZATIONS: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES AND EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE.

This paper provides conceptual and empirical synthesis of models of organizational conflict, negotiation and bargaining, and third party processes. It then draws specifically on organizational justice, exit-voice-loyalty, and organizational punishment theories to test certain propositions about the uses, settlement, and post-settlement consequences of grievance-appeal procedures in five large nonunion companies. The empirical results provide relatively strong support for organizational punishment theory, moderate support for organizational justice theory, and weak support for exit-voice-loyalty theory.