How Corporate America Uses Conflict Management: The Evidence from a New Survey of the Fortune 1000

[Excerpt] Our survey results disclose considerable variation in the use of ADR and conflict management systems in Fortune 1000 corporations. Although as many as one-third of these companies use a form of a conflict management system, our results suggest that as many as 40% rarely use any ADR techniques and continue to rely largely on traditional methods, including litigation, to resolve disputes. The findings also show that major U.S. corporations that rely on ADR have adopted a wider array of ADR techniques over the past 14 years, including so called “hotlines,” open-door policies, early neutral evaluation, early case assessment, and conflict coaching. There appears to be a clear growing diversity in the conflict management strategies used by U.S. corporations. What’s behind an ADR process choice? My colleagues and I are now analyzing the factors that seem to affect a corporation’s choice of a conflict management strategy, and we will present a full analysis of those findings in another article. In brief: It appears that it is factors within an organization, such as management’s attitudes about conflict, rather than factors outside an organization, such as the industry in which the organization operates, that determine the corporate choice of a conflict management strategy