Designing Integrated Conflict Management Systems: Guidelines for Practitioners and Decision Makers in Organizations

A committee of the ADR (alternative dispute resolution) in the Workplace Initiative of the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution (SPIDR) prepared this document for employers, managers, labor representatives, employees, civil and human rights organizations, and others who interact with organizations. In this document we explain why organizations should consider developing integrated conflict management systems to prevent and resolve conflict, and we provide practical guidelines for designing and implementing such systems. The principles identified in this document can also be used to manage external conflict with customers, clients, and the public. Indeed, we recommend that organizations focus simultaneously on preventing and managing both internal and external conflict. SPIDR recognizes that an integrated conflict management system will work only if designed with input from users and decision makers at all levels of the organization. Each system must be tailored to fit the organization\u27s needs, circumstances, and culture. In developing these systems, experimentation is both necessary and healthy. We hope that this document will provide guidance, encourage experimentation, and contribute to the evolving understanding of how best to design and implement these systems

Conflicts of interest in healthcare - where are we now?

Conflicts of interest in healthcare - where are we now? This research aims to describe current practice in the declaration of interests in UK healthcare, in order to identify potential means to reduce the negative impacts of conflicts of interest. Three studies are presented as published works: 1) a cross sectional study assessing current declaration practice in Scotland and England 2) a cross sectional study assessing recommendations of a non-NHS approved intervention in lay media, online, and NHS material, and associated financial conflicts of interest and 3) a mixed methods study, set in the UK, assessing peoples’ ability to locate a health professionals’ declaration of interest, and citizen understanding of what such declarations mean and their potential impact. Clinical Commissioning Groups, NHS Trusts, NHS Scotland Health Boards, and private healthcare organisations; articles making recommendations about screening for atrial fibrillation from the UK (lay press, online and social media), and citizens, lay people, professionals and students in the UK were studied. Measured outcomes included 1) Adherence to NHS England guidelines on declarations of interests, and comparison of declaration registers in Scotland, 2) Proportion of references advocating for, against and presenting balanced/neutral views on screening for atrial fibrillation (AF), and proportion of references citing commentators/organisations with financial conflicts of interest 3) a) Participants’ level of trust in professionals with variable conflicts of interest, as expressed in vignettes, b) participants’ ability to locate the declarations of interest of a given well-known healthcare professional, c) laypeople’s understanding of healthcare professionals declarations and conflicts of interest. The research found that 1) 76% of registers published by Trusts did not routinely include all declarations of interest categories recommended by NHS England. In NHS Scotland 86% of Boards did not publish staff registers of interest. Trusts and Clinical Commissioning Groups in England have low levels of compliance with NHSE guidance on declarations of interest and in Scotland, few staff registers are public and transparency is overall lower. 2) 185/217 (85.3%) media articles were in favour of screening for AF. 194 commentators were identified; 44 were quoted more than once. 41/44 of these (93.2%) were in favour of screening. Of these 41, 37 (90.2%) had a direct or indirect financial conflict of interest, including that due to a work role. In 187 articles (85.7%) these were not disclosed. Of 23 NHS organisations holding information about funding and promoting AF screening online, 22 (96%) had industry funding. The top 10 patient information websites promoting AF screening were analysed: 9 (90%) had industry funding. 3) 85% of participants thought that knowing about professional declarations was definitely or probably important, but 76.8% were not confident they had found all relevant information after searching. Fictional scenarios found that increasing financial conflicts of interest were associated with decreased trust in professional advice. 297 participants agreed to search for a healthcare professionals’ ‘gold standard’ declaration of interest, and 169 reported some data. 5 (3%) of participants found all the information contained in the ‘gold standard’. Qualitative interviews with 21 citizens highlighted the importance of transparency but raised serious concerns about how useful declarations were in their current format, and whether they could improve patient care. In conclusion, current practice in declaring interests in England is not congruent with NHS England guidelines. Comparatively, in Scotland, there is less public information about health professionals’ interests. Most media coverage on screening for atrial fibrillation is favourable, but conflicts of interest held by supporters are mainly not declared. Most commentators recommending screening had a financial conflict of interest in doing so. Study participants consider professionals conflicts of interest important and want to know about them, but cannot effectively locate them. In qualitative interview, participants raise multiple questions about how effectively declarations can manage conflicts. This body of research describes contemporary practice and raises concerns that 1) current systems of declarations do not effectively achieve transparency and 2) the role of transparency in reducing conflicts of interests requires to be delineated to ensure that the intended purpose is met. The potential benefits from transparency as well as the risks, unintended consequences, burden and evidence gaps in current declaration systems is discussed, with questions raised as to whether transparency can reduce bias or, counter-intuitively, worsen it."I am grateful for funding from the University of St Andrews Research Fund, HealthSense, and the Chief Scientist Office Scotland; this would not have got done without it."--Acknowledgment

Work Alienation among IT Workers: A Cross-Cultural Gender Comparison

Information Technology (IT) has experienced a worrisome decline in female participation over two decades, much of which can be attributed to fewer women choosing IT careers. However, women IT professionals also demonstrate mid-career turnover for reasons such as work-life balance, work exhaustion, role ambiguity, role conflict, and growth needs. This study explores alienation among women IT professionals and examines factors that lead to work alienation and abandonment of IT careers. Such alienation appears to be less prevalent in Asian countries where women perceive IT careers to be more conducive to female participation. A comparison among women from American and Asian cultures is proposed

The importance of negotiating for improved information systems delivery

Faculty of Information Systems School of Economic and Business Sciences 9406128v [email protected] Conflict is a neglected topic in Information System Development (ISD). While deemed important, few ISD studies have examined interpersonal conflict, the management of this conflict, or the impact this conflict has on project outcomes. Research in this field has revealed that conflict between different user groups within the systems development team is considered to be a significant threat to the success of a project. Failed systems have been attributed to resistance to system change, political issues that arise as a result of the system change and poor qua lity of teamwork between users and technical staff, analysts, programmers and other IS professionals and cultural differences. Better methods of systems analysis and design are thus needed to ensure appropriate, feasible and acceptable programs and applications and it is therefore with this intention, that this dissertation is submitted: to consider organisational behavioural means, in particular the importance of negotiating within the Systems Development process, to improve systems development. There were multiple objectives to this dissertation. These were: · to investigate whether system development is currently experienced as a process of conflict · to ascertain which roles experience a greater degree of conflict · to ascertain which systems development life cycle (SDLC) and which methodologies experience a greater degree of conflict · to assess whether negotiating skills vary across the different roles within the SDLC, to assess whether negotiating skills vary across SDLC methodologies · to determine whether the interest to improve negotiating skills varies within the SDLC · to evaluate the importance attached to negotiating skills in the SDLC · to assess whether the acceptance of the proposed negotiating framework for systems development varies within the SDLC · to examine what factors play a role in the acceptance of the proposed frameworks and · to assess whether the proposed framework will improve systems delivery. ii The reach of the research was limited to organisations in Southern Africa. These organisations were either large software development houses, or small IT departments within organisations, which specialised in developing either outsourced systems or in- house systems. Selfadministered questionnaires were mailed out to system development teams in South Africa, of varying industries and a total sample of one hundred and fifty five respondents replied. A quantitative approach was adopted to analyse the data. The results of the research show that minimal conflict is currently experienced in the SDLC and respondents across all roles and methodologies feel they possess negotiation skills to handle the conflict. The majority of the sample favourably accepted the proposed framework. Some roles attached more importance to the need for negotiating skills in their line of work, and paid more attention to improving their negotiating skills than others

Rethinking communication in innovation processes: creating space for change in complex systems

Abstract: In innovation studies, communication received explicit attention in the context of studies on the adoption and diffusion of innovation that dominated the field in the 1940-1970 period. Since then, our theoretical understanding of both innovation and communication has changed markedly. However, a systematic rethinking of the role of communication in innovation processes is largely lacking. This article reconceptualises the role of everyday communication and communicative intervention in innovation processes, and discusses practical implications. It is argued that we need to broaden our perspective on the types of (communicatively supported) intermediation that an innovation process includes and requires. Keywords: innovation, communication, discursive space, intermediaries, everyday tal

Problematising parent–professional partnerships in education

The value of, and need for, parent–professional partnerships is an unchallenged mantra within policy relating to ‘special educational needs’. In spite of this, partnerships continue to be experienced as problematic by both parents and professionals. This paper brings together the different perspectives of two disability researchers: one a parent of a disabled child while the other was a teacher for 20 years of children with the label autism. The paper deconstructs the concept of partnership and then, drawing on the expertise of parents, suggests how enabling and empowering parent–professional relationships might be achieved

Designing with Users

1.1 The past 2-3 years has seen a resurgence of interest in the creation of pedestrian priority places. This interest has largely been stimulated by the advent of "traffic calming". There are two important differences however, compared to previous phases of interest in "pedestrian issues". Firstly, the emphasis is shifting beyond the town centre to residential and district centres. Secondly the interest is stimulated as much by `green issues' as by `pedestrian issues', meaning that people's interests are much broader than merely improving conditions for pedestrians. This new concern has led to fresh attention being focused on the design of pedestrian places and design processes. This attention is not only relevant to pedestrian places. All around us are transport systems, facilities and structures which at some point have been "designed". All too often these extensively researched projects still create dissatisfaction amongst the people who use them. The reasons for this dissatisfaction are numerous and need to be understood in order to provide better work and design in the future. In this paper we discuss how we might set about designing such places in order to produce satisfaction to these people who have to use them. We argue that the appropriate method should be a user-centred design. We define what this means and compare it with more conventional perspectives/approaches to design. For simplicity we have shown in Figure 1 the essence of the user-centred approach to design. 1.2 The term `design' is used to mean the exercise of a process to bring together all the requirements of the space and an endeavour to satisfy these requirements. Design as here used deals with the issues of function, cost, timing and effectiveness in use. The intangible functions of safety, comfort, attractiveness, visual appearance, respect for location are included, not just the usual interpretation of "Design" by non-designers, who think of it solely as the aesthetic aspects. Design is interpreted to mean an understanding of a continuing process - not just the first design of the project. But most importantly, here, design means design in terms of satisfaction of the user, not just satisfaction of the designer! The term `user' refers to those people who will have to live, work, shop, visit, walk around, drive through or look at the final project

Problematising parent–professional partnerships in education

The value of, and need for, parent–professional partnerships is an unchallenged mantra within policy relating to ‘special educational needs’. In spite of this, partnerships continue to be experienced as problematic by both parents and professionals. This paper brings together the different perspectives of two disability researchers: one a parent of a disabled child while the other was a teacher for 20 years of children with the label autism. The paper deconstructs the concept of partnership and then, drawing on the expertise of parents, suggests how enabling and empowering parent–professional relationships might be achieved