Managerial Mediation Competency: A Mixed-Method Study

In today's workplace, line managers are increasingly asked to take on human resource management responsibilities. According to John Purcell and Sue Hutchinson (2007), frontline managers can have important impacts on employees' human resource experiences and their attitudes toward their employing organizations. For example, they found that employees' commitment to their employers and their jobs are influenced by the quality of frontline managers' leadership. And frontline managers are increasingly expected to play an active role in the resolution of conflict at work (Teague and Roche 2012).

Conflict is “a process that begins when an individual or group perceives differences and opposition between itself and another individual or group about interests and resources, beliefs, values or practices that matter to them” (De Dreu and Gelfand 2008: 6). When conflict develops between people at work, it may be necessary for managers to intervene in order to assist parties to resolve their differences constructively.

Various factors can influence whether and how a manager becomes involved in resolving a conflict. For instance, research suggests that managers who possess transformative leadership qualities may be more likely to initiate constructive efforts to resolve conflict (Saeed et al. 2014). Such contextual factors as cultural expectations can also help determine whether employees directly request managerial intervention to help resolve conflicts or whether managers initiate such interventions themselves (Elangovan 1993; Kozan, Ergin, and Varoglu 2014).

Scholars have suggested that once managers become involved as third parties in resolving a work‐related conflict, they will usually select from among four main approaches to achieve a resolution (Sheppard 1984; Lewicki and Sheppard 1985; Kolb 1986; Karambayya and Brett 1994). First, managers may opt to investigate/intervene and thus arbitrate how the conflict will be resolved, which may include enforcing a solution if necessary. In some cases, the manager may seek to restructure, which involves changing the organizational structure (e.g., assignment of duties and team composition) to resolve the conflict. In other cases, managers may decide that it is better to advise/coach parties to take steps to resolve the conflict on their own by playing a more advisory role. Finally, in some instances, managers will play a more proactive role and mediate the conflict existing between the parties. In such cases, the goal is to help employees negotiate a solution through a facilitated discussion. Managers are more likely to choose mediation when they perceive that joint problem solving and compromises can effectively resolve the conflict (Karambayya and Brett 1989).

Mediation‐based approaches have practical appeal for managers, particularly if they seek to establish harmonious relations between the parties (Kozan, Ergin, and Varoglu 2007). Mediation is also compatible with a transformative leadership style, in which employees are encouraged and empowered to assume a central role in their own problem solving (Alper, Tjosvold, and Law 2000). Because of employees' direct participation in the resolution process, mediation also has practical relevance when managers perceive that it may be important to build employee commitment to the resolution (Kozan, Ergin, and Varoglu 2014). Managers can play an active role in resolving workplace conflicts. Paul Teague and William Roche (2012) found, however, that they often do so without adequate training or performance monitoring. This may be because managerial conflict resolution skills, such as mediation, are poorly defined and measured.

The goal of this study was to better define managerial mediation skills and to develop a scale to measure managerial mediation competency. Through a mixed‐method approach, we have developed a competency framework and associated measurement instrument that we believe could assist those who conduct research in managerial mediation, as well as those who provide performance appraisals of practicing managers who must mediate conflicts at work and those who develop training and development programs related to this skill. Practicing managers themselves will benefit from our model because it highlights specific skills and abilities that they should incorporate into their strategies when mediating to resolve a workplace conflict.

Christopher Moore (2003) broadly characterized mediation as a negotiation process that involves the intervention of a third party who seeks to assist the principal parties in their voluntary efforts to reach a mutually acceptable settlement of the issue in dispute. Applied more specifically to the managerial profession, Blair Sheppard (1984) described managerial mediation as a mediation procedure conducted by the manager of employees involved in a conflict. To be successful when acting as mediator, a manager must develop a constructive dialogue that is based on the protagonists' interests and needs, rather than try to establish who is right and who is wrong (Slaikeu 1996). In addition, successful managerial mediation requires a set of distinct interaction skills and attitudes that facilitate parties' efforts to find a solution (Ross and Wieland 1996; Moore 2003).

We have identified three subdimensions of conflict management skills that align with the defining features of the conflict process. According to Louis Pondy (1967), the term “conflict” has been used in the literature to describe: (1) cognitive states, such as one's perception or awareness of the conflict situation; (2) affective states, such as the stress or hostility one experiences during a conflict, and (3) conflict behavior, ranging from passive resistance to overt aggression. Consequently, a manager who is called upon to mediate disputes between employees must acquire the skills to deal with each of these three aspects of conflict: cognitive, emotional, and behavioral. An attitude of impartiality is considered a critical prerequisite in order for managers to be accepted as credible mediators (Moore 2003). We explore below the role of these skills and attitudes as they relate to managerial mediation.

Cognition is the process through which our minds filter thoughts so as to organize our perception of events unfolding in our environment (Sandberg 2000; McFarlane 2006). Mediators need to convey to parties a thorough understanding of their perspectives and help them determine the facts of the conflict and the key issues.

Parties should perceive that their manager understands what matters to them. Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith (2005) stressed the importance of formulating questions to encourage parties to share information. This signals that the manager is interested in what parties are thinking and perceiving, and wants to know more about the situation they are experiencing (Cloke and Goldsmith 2005; Gerzon 2006). A key aspect of understanding concerns is to give disputants the sense that they have “voice” in the process. When employees feel that they have been able to fully express their opinions and concerns, they are more likely to be satisfied with the conflict management process and its outcome, as well as to be more committed to implementing the solution (Elangovan 1995; Budd and Colvin 2008).

Poorly defined problems are more difficult to solve (Furlong 2005). Therefore, managers must ensure the problem is defined as accurately as possible in the course of pinpointing priorities (Bowles 2005; Cloke and Goldsmith 2005). To do so, parties must look beyond stated positions and claims in order to identify their underlying interests and needs. Cloke and Goldsmith (2005) defined “position” as what people want, whereas interests are what they need and what motivates their positions. To help distinguish interests from positions, the manager should increase protagonists' awareness of each other's primary concerns (Mayer 2000), which in some cases may help parties realize that they have similar interests (Ury 1999).

Conflict situations often trigger negative emotional responses, which can block resolution (Pondy 1967). For this reason, managers who act as mediators must not overlook parties' emotions, but rather find ways to incorporate them constructively into the process.

Bearing in mind two principles can help managers integrate emotions into the conflict resolution process. The first principle is to simply take emotions into account. The intensity of the emotions they experience during conflicts often makes it difficult for parties to keep quiet for long (Stone, Patton, and Heen 1999). A strategic move for the manager is to allow people to express and experience their emotions early in the process. One party's expression of emotion can convey to the other party how important the conflict is to him or her and also help reveal each party's underlying motivations (Adler, Rosen, and Silverstein 1998).

The second principle is to restate how emotions are expressed, or help parties restate this themselves, in less inflammatory, accusatory, and more acceptable ways, so that the expression of emotions does not serve to further escalate the conflict (see below). It will then be easier to integrate these emotions and what they reveal about parties' interests into the discussion (Ellis and Anderson 2005).

Parties' behaviors, such as assigning blame and failing to consider the perspectives of others, often escalate conflicts (Deutsch 1973). Thus, managers must have the skills necessary to directly influence inappropriate behaviors that keep parties from finding a solution.

Perceptions often guide employees' behavior (Lulofs and Cahn 2000). For example, one disputant may construe that the other party's actions are ill‐intentioned and deliberate, and may consequently be unwilling to work with that person toward a resolution or compromise (Stone, Patton, and Heen 1999). In such cases, because employees tend not to express their beliefs and concerns to the other party, this bolsters the need for managers to step in and encourage parties to share perspectives (Van Slyke 1999). Managers can foster conflict resolution by encouraging parties to share their perceptions and then to confront those perceptions with facts (Stone, Patton, and Heen 1999) as a strategy to unblock the conflict.

When parties have reached an impasse, they may be tempted to give up or engage in competitive behaviors (Ury 1999; Mayer 2000; Cloke and Goldsmith 2005). Mediating managers should first encourage parties to maintain their focus on the goal, that is, on finding a resolution that both parties can accept. Second, because voluntary agreements are considered to be preferable to and more sustainable than forced settlements, managers should encourage employees to adopt integrative strategies (win–win) rather than distributive strategies (win–lose) (Folger, Poole, and Stutman 2005). Finally, when parties cannot find a solution, mediating managers should suggest alternate resolutions because, with their direct knowledge of the context, they may have a broader view of feasible options for resolution (Mayer 2000).

Reaching an agreement may be the manager's main goal, but implementation of the agreement is also critical (Elangovan 1995) because successful implementation not only prevents recurrence of that particular conflict, but also helps to establish the precedents that can prevent additional future conflicts from arising. Several strategies can help managers facilitate implementation and prevent further conflict episodes. First, managers can encourage parties to put their agreement in writing using clear, simple, and unambiguous language (Crawley and Graham 2002). Second, managers should follow up with employees during implementation to prevent conflicts resulting from a failure of one or more parties to meet the agreed‐upon objectives (Bolton 1986; Cloke and Goldsmith 2005).

Scholars suggest that to avoid confusing their mediation responsibilities with those of their primary management role, managers who mediate conflicts should clarify their duties as mediator, explaining to the disputing employees that their role in the process will be to guide discussion and encourage the search for solutions (Ellis and Anderson 2005). Moreover, scholars recommend that mediating managers should clearly communicate that they will not render a final decision because many employees will otherwise assume this (Kolb and Sheppard 1985). In addition, managers should also clarify that they will need to approve any proposed solution in order to ensure it is consistent with the rules and objectives of the organization.

Similarly, employees may fear that the manager/mediator will take sides, especially if one of the employees has a better relationship with the manager (Moore 2003). Thus, mediating managers should take deliberate steps to demonstrate their impartiality to the parties by ensuring the process of mediation is procedurally just. They can do this by providing equal opportunities for parties to freely express themselves, and they can express their neutrality by showing respect for both parties' points of view (Gerzon 2006).

Managerial mediation competency can be evaluated by questionnaire or behavioral observation, using managers' own self‐reports or from ratings provided by their supervisors, peers, and employees. Because employees are in a unique position to report upon their managers' skills as mediators, we decided to develop the MMCS to be administered to employees as a questionnaire. Furthermore, we hoped to keep our scale relatively brief to facilitate its use in research‐based questionnaires and internal organizational assessments because space in questionnaires is often limited.

To develop the measurement instrument, we opted for a mixed methodology study, with a qualitative phase followed by a quantitative phase (Creswell and Clark 2007). In the first study, we qualitatively investigated employees' phenomenological understanding of managerial mediation skills to uncover the salient features of each skill by probing the skills and attitudes most commonly identified by respondents. We used the results of this qualitative analysis to develop the competency framework and to develop a scale for measuring managerial mediation competency. In the second study, we evaluated the reliability and validity of the newly developed scale, which we call the Managerial Mediation Competency Scale (MMCS).

Nomological validity refers to the extent to which a measure demonstrates empirical relationships with other measures in theoretically consistent ways. In Study Two, in addition to testing the psychometric properties of the scale, we also explored its nomological validity by seeing how scores on the MMCS related to responses to two well‐established measurement instruments that assess theoretically related constructs: intragroup conflict (Jehn 1995) and job satisfaction (Cammann et al. 1983).

Previous studies have found that managers' conflict management style is related to the level of intragroup conflict they experience (Friedman et al. 2000). Moreover, recent research has suggested that the ways in which organizational leaders typically address conflict can become instilled among employees and serve as the basis for the organization's overall conflict culture (Gelfand et al. 2012). Thus, conflict seems likely to occur less frequently among employees whose managers demonstrate skills and attitudes associated with effective managerial mediation competencies, and, to the extent that a manager is rated as exhibiting effective managerial mediation skills and attitudes, the general level of conflict among his or her employees should be lower. Thus, our first hypothesis is the following:

In addition, managerial mediation competency is likely to be valued by employees in today's organizations, especially in the context of fostering employees' commitment to their jobs and their employers. Therefore, we chose to examine the relationship between the MMCS and job satisfaction, one of the most frequently studied variables in human resource management. Because conflicts within groups correlate negatively with job satisfaction (De Dreu and Weingart 2003), we expect a positive association between managerial mediation competency and employee job satisfaction. Thus, our second hypothesis is as follows:

To identify and more clearly understand the distinct skills and attitudes that are representative of effective managerial mediation, we conducted a phenomenological study. The analysis of the content of employee interviews, including frequency analyses, was central to our approach.

To assemble our sample, we asked alumni from a graduate management school in Canada to complete an online survey (first step), without being required to participate in interviews (second step). We sought responses only from people (1) who had been working full time for the last six months; (2) who had, in the last six months, been directly involved in a conflict with a colleague; and (3) whose immediate supervisor had mediated to help settle the situation. Respondents were asked to rate their satisfaction with their manager's involvement in the conflict resolution. Lastly, the survey asked participants if they were willing to participate in the second‐step interviews. Thus, only respondents who had firsthand experience of their manager's conflict mediation skills were included in the subsequent interview study.

We estimate the online survey participation rate at 11 percent, which is low, but acceptable for an online questionnaire (Sheehan and McMillan 1999; Cook, Heath, and Thompson 2000); many of the respondents we surveyed were screened out from participating because they had not been involved in a workplace conflict in the previous six months. A total of seventy‐six individuals filled out the questionnaire, and twenty two (29 percent) agreed to participate in the follow‐up interview. We found no significant statistical difference in terms of demographic data and in terms of the degree of satisfaction with the manager's intervention between the participants who agreed to the interviews and those who did not volunteer for the second phase. A sample size of twenty‐two participants is considered reasonable for conducting a qualitative in‐depth interview study (Moustakas 1994; Creswell and Clark 2007).

We conducted a follow‐up interview with each of the twenty‐two participants to learn more about how their specific managers mediated conflicts between employees at work. All interview questions concerned interviewees' managerial mediation situations. We designed interviews to be semidirected, and they unfolded in two phases. Initially, the interviewer used the spontaneous recall approach, in which parties named their manager's conflict resolution skills. The interviewer only discussed the skills mentioned first by the respondent — in this way the discussions in the first phase could be considered spontaneous.

In the second phase, the interviewer used a directed recall approach, by prompting respondents to describe each characteristic in their own words. The second phase was directive because, unlike the first phase, the interviewer asked questions with respect to skills and attitudes that participants did not necessarily mention spontaneously themselves first.

Our four strategies to bolster the validity of results (Maxwell 2012; Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña 2014) were:

• confirming respondents initial responses to avoid any misinterpretation of their views,

• inclusion of both negative and positive cases,

• the use of quasi statistics to compare the frequencies of mention for distinct skills and attitudes, and

• an acceptable level of inter‐rater reliability between the two people who coded all of the text segments.

For the salience analysis, we first compiled across all interview participants the number of times each skill or attitude was present (1) or absent (0) during the spontaneous recall phase. Second, we divided this result by the number of people interviewed in order to obtain a percentage. Because only mentions during the spontaneous recall phase were used for these calculations, the result is a percentage that measures the prevalence of the skills in the employees' experiences of the managers' interventions.

To identify the skill‐ and attitude‐based themes, we analyzed each answer using the phenomenological method developed by Alexandra Bachelor and Puroshottam Joshi (1986), in which interviewees' own descriptions were used to identify general themes associated with each characteristic. During the directed recall approach phase, we identified relevant aspects of each skill and attitude using the following criteria: if the frequency of mention of a given aspect of a skill or attitude was 66.7 percent or higher (i.e., two thirds of participants mentioned that aspect), we considered it to be central. As a result, we were able to identify the essence of each skill and attitude from the employees' points of view.

During the in‐depth interview (spontaneous recall) phase, respondents spontaneously mentioned the six skills and one attitude discussed previously in the literature review. They did not, however, spontaneously mention each characteristic with the same frequency (see Table One). In addition, during the subsequent directive phase of the interview, we were able to probe interviewees for the essential ways in which they saw these characteristics materialize in their managers' behaviors. Table One summarizes the frequency of spontaneous mentions as well as what each skill meant to employees.

One‐hundred percent of interviewees spontaneously mentioned the manager's efforts to understand parties' concerns, and 82 percent of interviewees said that a relevant aspect of this skill involves the manager's effort to take the time to try to understand the employees' perspectives of the conflict. According to one respondent, this meant “… being both mentally and physically present for the person. It means being able to take in what the person has to say.” Conversely, another respondent referred to a manager who did not take sufficient time to understand the employees' concerns: “When you cut somebody off, you're not listening to what they want to say and, ultimately, anticipating what they want to say. So you miss the mark.”

Roughly 77 percent of interviewees spontaneously mentioned the manager's ability to identify underlying interests. For 77 percent of respondents, this means pinpointing needs and interests, which requires a manager to identify what really matters to employees. One respondent defined the skill as follows: “Identifying needs and interests involves being close to one's employees and identifying what matters to them, paying special attention to what they say, what they want.” Also, according to 73 percent of the respondents, the manager should grasp the employees' context (have a solid understanding of their work). According to one respondent, “it means becoming aware of one's employees' reality and understanding it, but also putting it into the perspective of the organization.”

Approximately 55 percent of interviewees spontaneously mentioned the manager's ability to take emotions into account. To 95 percent of respondents, this skill requires the manager to be able to demonstrate empathy. One respondent said of his or her manager: “She is very understanding. That's very important to me. Not only does she listen to what I have to say, she understands me. She never made me feel silly at any point.” Also, 68 percent of respondents said that this involves letting employees express their emotions, while encouraging them to move forward. One respondent said, “It can be hard sometimes. Then, the manager is there to reassure the person and calm him or her down.”

All of the interviewees spontaneously mentioned the manager's ability to encourage parties to consider each other's perspectives (perspective taking), and 91 percent of them said that managers do this by encouraging the parties to share their perspectives. One respondent summarized it as follows: “One person might have one opinion, while the other one could have another opinion, and the truth could be somewhere in the middle. Setting things straight at the outset and, if we have our own views, it's important to talk about them [to the manager and the other party] to cushion the impact of perception.”

Nearly 55 percent of interviewees spontaneously mentioned the manager's ability to encourage parties to explore solutions. All respondents defined this as the manager's ability to make employees take responsibility for finding and implementing a solution that suits both parties. One respondent summed it up this way: “Ideally, I think that, to encourage solution seeking, the manager should allow the two people to find a solution in a collaborative, cooperative, and participative way. That would be better.” Conversely, a manager who finds the solution on the parties' behalf is taking a misstep. According to one respondent: “No matter what the solution is — good or bad — if it is dictated to them and the two parties feel like it is being imposed, it is not the best situation.”

Only 27 percent of interviewees spontaneously mentioned the manager's ability to facilitate implementation of the agreement. But nearly all respondents (95 percent) defined this skill as the manager's ability to finalize the agreement, that is, to make it formal. According to one respondent, formalizing the agreement means: “… reviewing, reclarifying the situation […], restating what was said. It could be a verbal agreement, or a written one, depending on the conflict. Getting both parties to say they agree with the solution that has been identified. The manager is a witness to the agreement that he clarifies.”

Approximately 59 percent of interviewees spontaneously mentioned the manager's ability to be impartial, and 95 percent stated that this primarily involves avoiding biased behaviors and statements. One respondent said, “It's being able to treat everyone equally. Not judging, not taking sides.” Indeed, some respondents described bias as a major roadblock to effective managerial mediation. One respondent confided: “Because the first question he asked me was: If I had to choose between you and him, who would I choose? He said it was very clear that he would choose him. He said it clearly.”

The results of Study One indicate that the characteristics previously identified in the literature as necessary for effective mediation match employees' first‐hand experiences with managerial mediation. Our results reflect employees' direct experiences in conflict, which enhances the ecological validity of these findings. Using interviewees' own descriptions, we were able to identify ways in which each skill and attitude manifested itself in actual behavior. Through this, a picture emerged of what constitutes competent managerial mediation behavior, a picture grounded in employees' experiences.

We used the results of the qualitative analysis to develop specific items for the MMCS, and we employed a quantitative study design to explore the psychometric properties and nomological validity of this scale. More specifically, we used confirmatory factor analysis to validate the measurement structure of the scale and regression analysis to examine its nomological validity.

To assess the properties of the MMCS, we asked alumni from a graduate management school in Canada to complete an online survey. As the first study, the survey validated that (1) respondents had been working for the last six months; (2) respondents had, in the last six months, been directly involved in a conflict with a colleague; and (3) the immediate supervisor had intervened to mediate and settle the situation.

We estimated the participation rate at 13 percent, which is low, but acceptable for an online questionnaire (Sheehan and McMillan 1999; Cook, Heath, and Thompson 2000) — many surveyed respondents were screened out from participating because they had not been involved in a workplace conflict in the previous six months. We analyzed a total of 158 questionnaires.

We based the scale on the categories we identified during the qualitative phase and used the actual behaviors that participants identified in the wording of the scale items (Creswell and Clark 2007). We designed the scale to have four dimensions: cognitive skills, emotion‐based skills, behavioral skills, and impartial attitude. To ensure that items were understandable to respondents, we reviewed them with a focus group made up of conflict management professionals and graduate students before launching the survey.

We asked survey respondents to indicate the degree to which they agreed that the scale items described the behavior of their manager, using a 5‐point Likert‐type rating scale ranging from 1 = “strongly disagree” to 5 = “strongly agree.” During the analysis, we followed steps described by Robert Devellis (2003) to identify which items to retain in the final scale. The results of a confirmatory factor analysis (see Figure One) indicated that respondents' ratings of these items provided a good fit to our multidimensional conceptualization of the construct (χ² = 29.64, df = 31, p = 0.536; RMSEA = 0.000; GFI = 0.96; NFI = 0.98; CFI = 1.00; AGFI = 0.93).¹ In addition, we assessed the scale's reliability and found high internal consistency, with a Cronbach's alpha internal consistency coefficient of .944.

To test the scale's nomological validity (Hypotheses One and Two), we conducted multiple linear regression analyses using managerial mediation competency as a predictor of both conflict among employees (organizational conflict) and employees' job satisfaction. We used respondents' sex, age, work status (i.e., full time or part time), and years of work experience as control variables.

We measured organizational conflict using the six‐item Intragroup Conflict Scale (Jehn 1995; Pearson, Ensley, and Amason 2002) and job satisfaction using the three‐item Overall Job Satisfaction Scale (Cammann et al. 1983). Both of these scales exhibited internal consistency (organizational conflict Cronbach's alpha [α] = .785 and job satisfaction Cronbach's alpha [α] = .756).

Respondents varied in their ratings of their managers' mediation competency, with an average rating of 3.22 (standard deviation = 0.90). We found that ratings of managerial mediation competency were negatively correlated with the degree of organizational conflict (r = −0.41, p < 0.01) and positively correlated with employees' job satisfaction (r = 0.47, p < 0.01). As we expected, organizational conflict was also negatively correlated with job satisfaction (r = −0.32, p < 0.01). Table Two summarizes means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations of all the study's variables. We also found no correlation between any of the respondents' demographic characteristics (i.e. sex, age, work status, and work experience) and their perceptions of the managers' mediation competence.

As the regression analysis indicates (see Table Three), our findings support both hypotheses. Consistent with Hypothesis One, managerial mediation competency correlated significantly with an absence of organizational conflict (b = −0.39, p < 0.01), and, consistent with Hypothesis Two, it correlated significantly with the presence of job satisfaction (b = 0.49, p < 0.01).

The results of Study Two provide empirical evidence that supports the structure of the MMCS. In addition, results of both hypothesis tests support our underlying theoretical arguments, which suggest that enhancing managerial mediation competency has significant potential for minimizing conflict among employees in organizations and for boosting employee satisfaction.

With these studies, we have sought to examine the extent to which mediator skills identified in the general mediation literature can be applied to managers charged with mediating disputes among employees. Results of both studies suggest that the mediation skills typically associated with neutral third parties in general are similar to those employed by managers who mediate conflicts occurring between employees. In Study One, however, we did identify a few departures from previous findings. Employees in this sample reported few concerns about distinguishing the role of mediator and manager, although, in the literature, this factor has been described as critical (Kolb and Sheppard 1985). Also, employees in this sample reported that mediating managers should have a firm understanding of the organizational context of the conflict, a factor that has been rarely mentioned in the mediation literature.

Because of the nature of managers' roles, they face different constraints and challenges than the typical third‐party neutral. As we noted previously, for them, demonstrating neutrality is particularly challenging because of their role as organizational leaders, with their own direct interests in the smooth functioning of the organization. Moreover, mediation is normally premised on the voluntary involvement of parties, but in the workplace, participation in the process may feel compulsory because it is at the request of someone who holds a position of authority over the disputants. Each of these issues may threaten the perceived impartiality of mediating managers.

While complete neutrality is probably impossible, we suggest that a manager's claims to impartiality will be accepted or rejected based on the quality of the parties' perceptions of his or her attitude and of the processes employed during the mediation. Research suggests that managers should consider whether they have sufficient referent power (respect from the employees on their team) before selecting mediation as an intervention strategy (Kozan, Ergin, and Varoglu 2014). We suggest that referent power will also increase parties' acceptance of the manager as mediator, decreasing the likelihood that they will question the manager's neutrality as part of this process.

Regarding the issue of voluntary involvement, research on mediation in other contexts in which authorities have encouraged the practice (e.g., court‐referred mediation) suggests that people will be satisfied with mediation to the extent that they have favorable views of the mediator and of the procedures employed during the process (Galin 2014). By extension, even when managers recommend that their employees participate in mediation, the process can succeed provided the mediators have cultivated their referent power among employees and that they demonstrate equitable treatment.

Managers are likely to be more effective as mediators to the extent that the organizational culture favors collaboration and workplace harmony is valued (Kozan, Ergin, and Varoglu 2014). They are also more likely to choose mediation over other intervention strategies when the parties are more likely to work together again, when a commitment to a solution is important, and when there is minimal time pressure (Lewicki and Sheppard 1985; Carnevale and Conlon 1988; Elangovan 1995).

In summary, in this study, we have proposed a framework for measuring managerial mediation competency that rests on four dimensions: cognitive skills, emotional skills, behavioral skills, and impartial attitude. We developed a scale, the MMCS, which exhibited sound psychometric properties and a measurement structure consistent with our theoretical framework. Moreover, we found that managerial mediation competency exhibited theoretically consistent relationships with related constructs, namely, with organizational conflict and job satisfaction, providing encouraging evidence as to its nomological validity.

This study makes a theoretical contribution to the literature on how managers handle conflict in the workplace, by shifting the focus from managerial styles toward a competency‐based framework that specifies the skills and attitudes that are associated with effective mediation. Most studies on managing conflict in organizations to date have used the Thomas–Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (Kilmann and Thomas 1977) or the Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory‐II (Rahim 1983), each of which proposes the existence of five distinct styles of resolving conflict. Scales such as these assess the extent to which managers tend to avoid, accommodate, compete, compromise, or collaborate when resolving conflict at work.

While these scales were developed mostly for parties to a conflict, they have also been used to assess managers' conflict management styles. For example, in one study, researchers found that managers with dominating conflict management styles were perceived as somewhat less effective leaders (Korabik, Baril, and Watson 1993). In another study, researchers found significant correlations between managers' conflict management styles and job satisfaction (Chan, Huang, and Man Ng 2008).

Unfortunately, a focus on conflict management style has provided little information about the specific competencies (skills and attitudes) that managers need to effectively mediate conflicts between employees. A manager may have a collaborative style but still be ineffective at resolving conflicts. Developing a competency‐based measurement instrument, derived from the content overlap between the theoretical principles of effective mediation and the real‐world experiences of employees has allowed us to focus on behaviors rather than style, which we believe makes it more informative and useful for applied research and developmental training efforts.

The managerial mediation competency framework developed in this article may be applied in various ways. For one, the MMCS can be used to assess managers' mediation competencies. When used for evaluation purposes, their superiors must keep in mind that managers may use their skills differently depending on the nature of the situation and the parties involved. In fact, the strategies adopted by managers are likely to be contingent on parties' behavior, because the dynamics of mediator–disputant interactions form the core of the mediation process (Wall and Dunne 2012). For example, mediators may rely more upon perspective taking when parties are attacking one another (Donohue, Allen, and Burrell 1985). Alternatively, mediators may be more likely to urge parties to identify priorities when disputants have high aspirations and are less willing to compromise (Wall and Chan‐Serafin 2009). As a result, we recommend that when assessing managers' mediation competencies, evaluators aggregate many evaluations over time to account for the role of different situational circumstances and disputant profiles on managers' choice of mediation strategies.

Second, because our competency‐based framework is informed by validated principles of conflict management theory, it could also be used to help train managers to effectively mediate workplace conflicts between employees. Moreover, researchers could incorporate such training into experimental studies to determine whether those managers who improve their mediation competency through training based on our framework are subsequently better able to reduce conflict and increase employee satisfaction in their departments.

Third, in identifying the salient features of managerial mediation competency from employees' perspectives, we have been able to identify not only valid conflict management skills, but also which skills are of particular importance to employees. For this reason — and because our results suggest that employees' perceptions of their managers' mediation capabilities are positively related to their job satisfaction — we think that employees will be more receptive to a manager who exhibits such skills when mediating a conflict. In fact, our current results indicate that conflict management competency has a greater impact on job satisfaction than it does on the level of organizational conflict itself. This suggests that what matters most to employees is knowing that they have a manager who can effectively intervene as a mediator in the event of a conflict, not necessarily how frequently they do so — not all conflicts between employees call for managers to intervene as mediators.

Our results suggest that managerial mediation competency can serve, more generally, as a signal of the quality of human resource management. This aligns squarely with recent research that suggests that transformative leaders, who are highly appreciated by employees in general, are also more likely to adopt integrative approaches to resolving conflict, an approach that forms the basis for mediation efforts (Saeed et al. 2014).

Our study has some important limitations. One involves the generalizability of the MMCS itself. For the first study, we focused our qualitative inquiry on a sample of twenty‐two people to obtain rich descriptive data about the ways in which managers intervene as mediators in organizational conflicts. The demographic characteristics of those people who agreed to be interviewed were similar to those who did not, which is reassuring because it limits the possibility that our results are biased by having one gender or age group overrepresented. And, our second study sample was considerably larger (158 respondents). In both cases, we drew respondents with varying amounts of work experience from a somewhat diverse range of white‐collar work settings, which enhanced the studies' external validity. But clearly, use of this scale across a wider variety of settings with a more broadly representative sample would help build greater confidence in its validity.

We also note that the validity of the MMCS as a measure of mediation competency is contingent on cultural context. What is considered an appropriate mediation skill or attitude may vary from one society to the next (Elangovan 1993). While mediator impartiality is important in Western cultures, a collectivist culture may expect mediators to exhibit partiality. For example, mediators in China are expected to be relatively more proactive in directing parties toward an agreement in order to restore harmony (Chia, Lee‐Partridge, and Chong 2004; Wang 2015). In addition, the mediator's role in finalizing the agreement may vary by culture. For instance, it has been proposed that in very hierarchical cultures, mediators may be expected to make the final decisions, whereas in more egalitarian cultures, the disputants are expected to make the final decision jointly (Conlon et al. 2007). The MMCS is primarily reflective of a North American perspective on managerial mediation and might need to be adapted should it be used in different cultural contexts.

Furthermore, although our results supported our hypotheses about the relationship between managerial mediation competency and organizational conflict and employee satisfaction, the cross‐sectional research design we employed in Study Two does not permit causal interpretations — although the data supporting our hypotheses suggest that managers who display mediation competency may be better able to reduce the occurrence of conflict among their employees and more likely to foster employee satisfaction, we cannot rule out alternative interpretations. For instance, managers whose employees experience less intense conflicts may demonstrate more satisfactory mediation abilities because conflict in such settings may be easier to resolve. Moreover, we cannot rule out the possibility that respondents who were more satisfied with their managers in general may also have been predisposed to view their managers as more competent at resolving conflict. We thus suggest that future research examine more closely the direction of causality between managerial mediation competency and these kinds of outcomes. In addition to the experimental and quasi‐experimental research designs we mentioned previously with respect to training and development applications, researchers could also use the MMCS in longitudinal studies that track changes in managerial mediation competency with changes in organizational conflict and job satisfaction over time.

Future research could also build upon what is currently known about the relationship between leadership and conflict style (e.g., Saeed et al. 2014) by examining more specifically the role played by the mediation competencies we have identified in the exercise of leadership. For instance, research has demonstrated a connection between the type of leadership shown by the immediate supervisor and the presence of conflict in the workplace (Doucet, Poitras, and Chenevert 2008). It would be interesting to examine whether mediation competency plays an intervening role in explaining this relationship. Future research could also examine more closely what are the specific areas of overlap between the processes of mediation and transformative leadership. It may be that the inherent adaptability of mediation to specific circumstances, combined with the way it empowers employees to control the outcome, influences employees' perceptions of individualized treatment, which is a fundamental element of transformative leadership.

Lastly, because of the association we have uncovered between managerial mediation competency and employee job satisfaction, future research could establish not only whether there is a causal effect between those variables, but could also examine the potential influence of managerial mediation competency on other variables generally associated with job satisfaction such as job stress, intention to quit, motivation, and job performance (Jex 2002). Based on the arguments that we have developed in this article, we are confident that future research will clarify more fully the critical role played by managers' mediation competency as a means of establishing and maintaining a positive work environment for employees.

1. My manager takes the time to understand employees' point of view.

2. My manager is able to recognize employees' needs.

3. My manager takes the time to gain information on the conflict's context.

4. My manager gives employees a chance to express their emotions.

5. My manager shows understanding of what employees are going through.

6. My manager gets employees to understand other perspectives.

7. My manager encourages the parties to propose solutions.

8. My manager gets employees to agree on concrete actions.

9. My manager takes a stand in favor of one of the employees (R).

10. My manager is unbiased.

(Items marked with “(R)” are reverse scored.)

(Jehn1995 ; Pearson, Ensley, and Amason2002 )

1. How much anger was there among members of the group?

2. How much personal friction was there within the group when decisions were made?

3. How much tension was there within the group when decisions were made?

4. How many disagreements were there on different ideas?

5. How many conflicts regarding decision content did the group have to work through?

6. How many differences of opinion were there within the group?

(Cammann et al.1983 )

1. All in all, I am satisfied with my job.

2. In general, I don't like my job (R).

3. In general, I like working here.

(Items marked with “(R)” are reverse scored.)