Opening the Black Box of a Corporation in Dispute: Manager – Lawyer Coproduction of Response to Business Conflict

Abstract

Companies in dispute vary both in how systematically they consider negotiated dispute resolution and in how their legal and decision-making functions interact with each other. Approaching business conflict resolution as a professional service leads to the adoption of new agency assumptions for the study of within-party manager-lawyer relationships in conflict settings and their possible impact on the organization’s propensity to use ADR. When we consider that conflict resolution is not a task clients simply delegate to lawyers but that the two categories will actually craft response to conflict in coproduction with each other, we are able to isolate new internal barriers to conflict resolution. Based on exploratory qualitative data, this contribution explores the notion of coproduction in conflict resolution. It isolates the different lawyer-manager coproduction schemes and drafts a first list of their determinants (structural, organizational and personal). All of this aims to reflect on different ways to increase consideration for ADR in conflict resolution strategy phases, with the idea that for negotiated dispute resolution to take ground in organizations, some organizational change may prove necessary.