Arbitrator Characteristics and Arbitral Decisions

Experimental evidence of gender effects in arbitration decisions

“…From the signs on the coefficients, the results suggest that more experienced and more educated arbitrators are harsher on the grievant than less experienced and less educated arbitrators. The results support the findings of Bankston (1976), who found education to significantly influence arbitral decisions, and Nelson and Curry (1981), who found arbitration experience to significantly affect the arbitrator's rulings. The results conflict with the findings of Fleming (1965) and Westerkamp and Miller (1971), who, using a very small sample in a nonempirical study, found no difference in ruling based on arbitration experience.…”

“…Other studies have examined arbitrator occupation, age, education, experience, professional activities, and registration with arbitration services, and found none of these characteristics to be correlated with decisions of the arbitrator (Cain & Stahl, 1983;Fleming, 1965;Heneman & Sandver, 1983). Contrary to these studies, Nelson and Curry (1981) found arbitrator experience and age to be significant factors in arbitral decisions. …”

The Effect of Grievants' Gender on Arbitrators' Decisions

“…Most arbitrators are 1 Based on the assumption that arbitrators' values on these issues will be reflected by their background characteristics, the parties to arbitration generally invest a significant amount of time and effort researching arbitrators' backgrounds before selecting an arbitrator. Several experimental studies investigating the validity of this underlying assumption have found mixed results (Fleming 1965;Westerkamp and Miller 1971;Nelson and Curry 1981). Heneman and Sandver (1983) analyzed the decisions of 250 arbitrators and found very little evidence of linkages between arbitrators' biographical data and their decisions.…”

“…Source: Arbitration decisions filed with the Director of Mediation Services or the Public Service Employee Relations Board of Alberta between January 1,1981, and June 30, 1983. For decisions involving more than one grievant, each grievant was treated as a separate case; hence, the number of cases exceeds the number of decisions.…”

Attribution Theory and Discipline Arbitration

“…These moderators are chosen for discussion because research has found that they influence arbitrators' decisions (Nelson and Curry 1981;Bemmels 1991).…”