CONVENOR Conflict Management

Alexander Dobrev, the author of the winning entry, was awarded $250. Runner-up Susan Hutton received $100. Honorable mentions were awarded to Alice Epler and Andrew R. Louis.

The winners' essays:

Alexander Dobrev: Concession aversion: Can fast food slow down successful negotiations?
Susan Hutton: What is reactive devaluation?

The 1999-2000 rules, and topics offered:

Theory to Practice and Georgetown Law Center
Experimental Competition: Best student translation of an ADR theory or research work

Detailed rules

1. Eligibility: All currently enrolled Georgetown Law students. Note: fall and spring semester students who are enrolled in Professor Menkel-Meadow's courses can receive course credit for the same essay.

2. Due date: May 15, 2000, except earlier if required for course credit.

3. Description of contest: We are seeking essays on one of about ten research or theory works which the judges consider important, but not widely read in the original. Students can choose whether to write as if for the New York Times, for USA Today or for another major newspaper (in each case, a feature article of about 2000 words.)

4. Prizes:
$250 for best essay
$100 for runner-up
Winning essay will be published in ADR Report (Pike & Fischer/BNA, Inc.)

5. Judges:
Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Professor of Law, Georgetown Law Center
Christopher Honeyman, Director, Theory to Practice Project
Carol Eoannou, Editor, ADR Report

The judges' decision will be final even if arbitrary and capricious.

6. Background:
The Theory to Practice project is a major effort funded by the Hewlett Foundation which seeks to improve the dialogue between scholars and practitioners of ADR. Its 14-member national steering committee consists of seven scholars and seven practitioners, drawn from a variety of disciplines. The "reasons why," along with sample translations of research and theory works, can be found at www.convenor.com/madison

7. The fine print.

a. Credit will be given for imaginative examples. Feel free to make up characters, as long as these are clearly identified as fictional. It's only fair that if you pick a short text (e.g. "reactive devaluation") you cover it thoroughly. If you pick an entire book, choose one, or at most two themes to focus on.

b. Use end notes, not footnotes. Notes can be as long as you like, and will not count against the length limits, but the text must stand on its own when stripped of them.

c. Enclose a copy of your essay on disk along with the printed original. Microsoft Word (any version), WordPerfect and Rich Text Format are acceptable file types. Virtually all current word processors can save a file in at least one of these formats.

d. A number of essays submitted may be used by the Theory to Practice Project as examples of research translation, or in other contexts beyond the immediate context of this competition. (Credit will be given to authors where practicable.) By entering the contest you agree that copyright to your essay, whether it wins a prize or not, is freely given to the Theory to Practice Project.

8. List of Subjects for Competition (tentative)

A. Reactive Devaluation.
See Arrow, Kenneth, Robert H. Mnookin, Lee Ross, Amos Tversky, Robert Wilson. Barriers to Conflict Resolution. (1995, WW Norton & Co)

Note: Barriers is featured in several parts here because it has a remarkable combination of fundamental importance to the field and reader indifference. (For instance, Amazon.com, as of October 18, 1999, listed it as its 445,276th best selling book. By comparison, Fisher and Ury's "Getting to Yes" was 337th.) Particularly important to practitioners are chapters on reactive devaluation, loss aversion, judgmental overconfidence, dissonance reduction (but see below for related material from elsewhere) and a variety of structural barriers, including the principal/agent problem.

B. Loss Aversion (Barriers)

C. Judgmental Overconfidence (Barriers)

D. Dissonance Reduction and Cognitive Dissonance (Barriers, also Festinger, L. Cognitive Dissonance.)

Note: this stream of work was originated in 1957 by Leon Festinger, but has since involved numerous researchers. For a starting point in addition to Barriers, a reasonably short summary lecture on some of this research can be found (as of the date of writing this) at http://www.mindspring.com/~frudolph/lectures/SOC/soc1.htm. In endnotes, you should cite all sources used.

E. Structural Barriers, collectively, including principal/agent (Barriers)

F. Ayres, I. and Nalebuff, B. "Common Knowledge as a Barrier to Negotiation." 44 UCLA Law Review 1631 (1997.)

G. Cooperrider, D.L. & Srivastva, S. (1987) "Appreciative inquiry in organizational life." In R. Woodman & W. Pasmore (eds.) Research in Organizational Change and Development: Volume 1 (pp.129-169). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. And Bushe, Gervase R. "Advances in Appreciative Inquiry as an Organization Development Intervention." (Organization Development Journal, Fall 1995, Vol.13, No.3, pp.14-22)

Note: "Appreciative inquiry" work, broadly, discusses moving from problem solving to envisioning, building on what did work, what was appreciated in the past, and working backward from the desired end point.

H. Kegan, Robert. The Evolving Self. (Harvard, 1982)

Note: Kegan is the principal exponent of stages of adult human development, following on from Piaget's more widely-discussed work. This has particular significance for aspects of conflict resolution that are focused on the principals' states of mind. For an example, see Jeffrey Seul (a new paper, to be published late 1999 in Ohio Journal of Dispute Resolution), testing the Bush and Folger "transformative" theory of mediation against Kegan and other developmental theory. If you find it relevant, you may also wish to refer to Kegan's more recent In over Our Heads: The mental demands of everyday life. (Harvard Univ. Press, 1995.)

I. Nader, Laura. (Editor) No access to law: Alternatives to the American Judicial System. (out of print.)
Nader, L. (Editor) The disputing process in ten societies. (out of print.)
Nader, Laura. 1995. “Civilization and its Negotiators,” in Understanding Disputes: The Politics of Argument. Pat Caplan, editor. Providence, RI: Berg, 1995.

Note: Nader is a major critic of dispute resolution as practiced in the United States. Whether or not her views are enjoyed by adherents of this field, they are more or less at the center of a critique that mediators and their allies should be prepared to answer.

J. Schein, Edgar H.

Note: An organizational theorist based at MIT, Schein has done work on learning the culture of a company in order to work effectively. You should choose the example(s) you think most persuasive and useful. An example, "Organizational and Managerial Culture as a Facilitator or Inhibitor of Organizational Learning," is available online: http://www.it-consultancy.com/extern/culture.html

K. Ayres, I. and Brown, J. "Economic Rationales for Mediation." Virginia Law Review, 1995.

Note: Like Ayres and Nalebuff, above, this law-and-economics-based paper provides a new and more structured basis for arguments for the efficacy of mediation. Practitioners often make similar arguments out of conviction, but without a solid theoretical foundation, leaving them more open to attack than need be. (See, f.i., Nader, L., above.)

L. De Bono, Edward (1990.) Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step-By-Step (HarperCollins)

Note: De Bono has a long series of works on the process of invention and on developing creativity in people who tend to think in constrained ways (i.e. all of us.) Feel free to choose a different one among his works, or to mix and match, but state clearly what choices you made.

M. Deutsch, Morton. The Resolution of Conflict: Constructive and Destructive Processes (1977, Yale Univ Press.)

Note: For many of those with long memories and long experience in dispute resolution, Deutsch's work represents "where it all began." Feel free to use other Deutsch works, including, if available, the up-to-the-minute Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice (Jossey-Bass: Morton Deutsch and Peter Coleman, co-editors), publication expected March 2000.

N. Lax, David A., James K. Sebenius. The Manager As Negotiator: Bargaining for Cooperation and Competitive Gain (1986, Free Press)

O. Kolb, Deborah M., Jean M. Bartunek. Hidden Conflict in Organizations: Uncovering Behind-The-Scenes Disputes (Sage, 1992). With:
Kolb, Deborah M. Is it her voice or her place that makes a difference?: a consideration of gender issues in negotiation (out of print) (a related essay, "Her Place at the Table," is, however, available as part of Breslin, J. W. and Rubin, J. Z., eds. Negotiation theory and practice. (1991, Cambridge, MA: PON Books, Harvard Law School.)

Note: Key material on organizational conflict and on the role of gender in negotiation style. Discussing this in context and comparison to the following works is optional:
Tannen, Deborah. You just don't understand. (Ballantine, 1991.)
Tannen, Deborah. Gender and discourse. (Oxford U. Press, 1996.)
(Gender and Discourse provides the research and theory foundation behind Tannen's more accessible work.)