Subtitle

1. Title HRM, Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB)Conflict Management: The case of non-union MNC Subsidiaries in Ireland Liam Doherty and Paul Teague The Queens University Belfast Subtitle

2. Title Structure of Presentation • Why the creation of OCB is an important, yet under-explored, goal of the HR function ? • The relationship between OCB and conflict management. • The research methodology employed. • Main descriptive statistics that emerge from the survey • Findings of Interviews with senior HRM managers in some of the surveyed subsidiaries • The significance of the findings

3. HRM and Organizational Citizenship Behaviour • Nature of HRM in organisations has been dominated by two interrelated themes. • The organizational design of the HRM function • The employment practices required to create high performing organizations and employees. • Relatively little research about how the HRM function contributes to shaping the social system of an organization • Paper by Bowen and Ostroff (2004) is a notable exception • Key argument of this paper --A core function of HRM is to mould the social system of the organization in a manner that promotes organizational citizenship behaviour.

4. Defining Organizational Behaviour • Podsakoff et al (2000) identify seven recurring themes in the related literature • OCB manifests itself in employers having a positive commitment to the organization and displaying on-going discretionary effort to help the organization achieve its goals. • A key goal of HRM is to elicit this behaviour (Ulrich 1997). • On-going debates about the extent to which particular HR policies will engender positive employee behaviour (Caldwell 2003)

5. OCB --A Role for ADR ? • Popular view in USA that firms are forging a ‘new social contract’ at work by diffusing ADR practices to solve workplace disputes (Lipsky and Seeber 2003). • Optimum way to gain employee commitment is to recognise that workplace conflict will be part and parcel of organizational life –need to establish formal arrangements for resolution(Bendersky 2003). • Contrast with the more orthodox view that workplace conflict can prevent organizations developing a unitarist culture (see Lewin 1987). • Do HR managers use innovative workplace conflict management policies to help forge organizational citizenship behaviour ?

6. ADR practices surveyed • Mediation • Facilitation • Arbitration • Employee Hotline • Open Door Policy • Management Review Boards • Peer Review • Ombudsman

7. The Research • survey of 83 subsidiaries of non-union foreign-owned multinationals located in Ireland. • survey administered through face-to-face interviews due to the length of the survey and the nature of the topic. • Initially, the survey contained questions about the incidence of conflict in multinationals and how these were resolved, but a pilot survey found that companies were not willing to answer these questions • a series of in-depth interviews with senior HR managers in 10 of the subsidiaries that took part in the original survey

8. Conflict Management Practices in non-Union Subsidiaires • Formal grievance procedure 100% • Mediation 39.5% • Facilitation 43.2% • Arbitration 18.5% • Employee Hotline 25.9% • Open Door policy 97.5% • Management Review 65.4% • Pier Review 6.0% • Ombudsperson 6.2%

9. Does your organization have “informal” problem solving mechanisms to detect employee grievances? 96.4% • The organization of focus groups 35% • HR personnel interacting with employees on an informal basis 87.5% • Line managers responsible for interacting with employees on a informal basis 86.3%

10. Views from the Inside • evident that HR managers had a deep antipathy to the ‘conflict management’ paradigm, • conflict management not required for the HR function to be strategic in character. • No ‘business case’ for innovative workplace conflict management practices • HR managers did want the language of conflict or conflict management to be used in the organisation • common endeavour is to expunge conflict from the vocabulary of the organisation.

11. View from the Inside • Do not recognise the inevitably of conflict or the need for formal, easily accessible, procedures to manage conflict management • Conflict management procedures are not abandoned but are kept dormant in the HR cupboard only to be used in exceptional circumstances. • HR managers are being highly innovative but not in the way suggested by the dominant themes in the literature • A form of OCB that seeks to push conflict to the margins –conflict is dissident and deviant

12. Some views …. • “Dispute resolution is not part of our language” • “I would not invest resources in it (conflict management) compared to recruitment, development or reward” • “It does not merit a line in our HR strategy”. • “The grievance procedure is for people that do not have a future in our organization.” • “I would focus on creating a work environment in which people can feel free to raise any issues without fear or concern for their future”

13. Conclusions • Subsidiaries of non-union multinationals based in Ireland do not use innovative workplace conflict management practices. • No widespread diffusion of ADR-type practices to resolve problems and disputes at work. • In an effort to promote organizational citizenship behaviour, HR managers sought to socialize conflict out of the organization