Mediation, Diversity, and Justice in the Workplace

Catherine Shivers Powell

Facilitative and transformative mediation models, including their symmetry and neutrality roles for mediators, were investigated in this qualitative research study. The purpose of the study was to understand, from the perspective of diversified workplace mediation participants how and whether they perceived justice to have occurred with their mediation experiences. Using participant roles in facilitative and transformative mediation sessions as a model, this study’s participants represented 3 groups: (a) employee disputants who filed complaints or grievances alleging injustice or unfairness in the workplace and later participated in workplace mediation to resolve the issues involved, (b) employer disputants who represented their employer or organization in mediation as respondents to grievances or complaints filed by employee disputants, and (c) workplace mediators who had used facilitative and transformative mediation models to assist members of both disputant groups to resolve workplace disputes to the mutual satisfaction of both sides in the disputes. The study was guided primarily by scholarship that focused on the following 3 phenomena: (a) workplace diversity (inclusive of multiculturalism), (b) workplace mediation, and (c) workplace justice. Using social theory and primarily social identity theoretical frameworks, this qualitative study emanated from postmodernist paradigms designed to contribute holistically to the literature by adding new understandings to the literature while also including the subjugated or absent voices of workplace mediation participants for complete accountings. A six-factor empirically-designed justice model provided a theoretical framework for organizing, analyzing, and interpreting the qualitative data. The data were generated primarily from personal interviews with key informants. The interviews were designed to elicit key informants’ own accounts, understandings, and interpretations of their lived experiences with workplace mediation. Through comparative analysis of perceptual data reflecting individual participants’ descriptive justice conceptualizations and fairness perceptions with the traditional prescriptive justice definitions embedded in the justice model, common understandings of interactions between workplace diversity, workplace justice, and workplace mediation emerged. Consequently, new understandings were illuminated to reveal whether and how the justice was perceived to have occurred during the facilitative and transformative workplace mediation experiences in which the key informants participated.

Mediation, Diversity, and Justice in the Workplace

Metrics

Abstract

Files and links (1)

Details

Mediation, Diversity, and Justice in the Workplace

Metrics

Abstract

Files and links (1)

Details

University of West Florida Social media