How Effective Is Private Dispute Resolution? Evidence From Ireland

Abstract

This article examines the effectiveness of private dispute resolution arrangements (PDRAs) established voluntarily by employers and unions in private- and public-sector firms and agencies in Ireland. PDRAs comprise three-person panels or sole adjudicators and combine binding or non-binding adjudication with internal mediation. PDRAs seek to rewrite the established rules and conventions governing dispute resolution within workplaces and to change the ways in which internal dispute resolution is aligned with external dispute resolution by state agencies. The majority of the eleven PDRAs examined are shown to be effective. One is described as ‘semi-dormant’ and two are shown to be less effective. Variations in the effectiveness of PDRAs are attributed to features of the internal and external contexts of the firms and agencies in which they have been established: the persistence of significant commercial and industrial relations challenges; the absence of disjunctures in organisations or industrial relations; the presence of champions; and the effects of industrial relations legacies. The paper contributes to the literature by systematically accounting for variations in the effectiveness of adjudication and arbitrations arrangements and concludes by considering whether the incidence of PDRAs is likely to continue rising.