Influence of Third Party Expertise on Disputants' Reactions to Mediation

Abstract

When people cannot resolve their conflicts, they often turn to a third party, called a mediator, for help. What guides disputants' choice of mediators is the present focus. Two kinds of mediator's expertise were compared, which might affect disputants' judgment of mediators and their recommendations--process expertise and content expertise. The mediator's particular content expertise about the details of the dispute appeared to be irrelevant if the mediator was considered to be an expert in the process of conflict resolution. When mediators were seen as process experts, disputants viewed them as more credible and were more favorably disposed toward engaging their services. These judgments extended to the mediators' recommendations. Those recommendations offered by process expert mediators were viewed as higher quality and were judged more favorably. When the mediator was perceived as lacking process expertise, disputants' perceptions of how well the mediator understood the particular details of the dispute increased their evaluations of the mediator and the mediator's recommendation.

The impact of expertise on the mediating role of the audit committee

“…For mediation to be effective, the disputing parties must view the mediator as credible and expertise is recognized as a key factor that generates credibility (Kolb, 1985;Arnold, 2000). Previous studies focus on two types of expertise, namely process and content expertise (Arnold, 2007). Process expertise is defined as the mediator's experience and knowledge of the mediation process while content expertise refers to the mediator's knowledge and insight relating to the issue under dispute (Silver, 1996;Arnold, 2000Arnold, , 2007[2].…”

“…In turn, more credible mediators were judged more favourably and were seen as more capable of performing a mediation role. However, Arnold (2007) studied the interaction between process expertise and content expertise and found that content expertise was only important when mediators lacked process expertise. When mediators were expert in mediation procedures, it did not seem to matter whether they had in-depth knowledge of the issue under dispute.…”

“…Notwithstanding Arnold's (2007) findings, in the present study we focus on content expertise for a number of reasons. First, audit committee members are unlikely to possess high process expertise because they are not specifically trained in mediation.…”

“…Second, audit committee content expertise is recognised as an important element of audit committee effectiveness (DeZoort et al, 2002). Third, Arnold's (2007) study involved management students with limited work experience who role-played as employees negotiating with their supervisor over a pay dispute. Mediator content expertise in the study was manipulated as familiarity with company policies and a high awareness of the specific issue under dispute.…”

Putting the peaces together: a situated model of mediation

“…• characteristics of the context-like culture (Callister and Wall, 2004), individual differences within cultures (Davidheiser, 2006), the number of parties in multiparty mediation (Böhmelt, 2011), a highly conflictual context (Grima and Trépo, 2009), time pressure (Grima and Trépo, 2009;Pinkley et al, 1995), shifts and changes in conflict dynamics (Vukovic, 2012) and past mediation outcomes (Bercovitch and Gartner, 2006); • characteristics of the conflict like conflict intensity and resolution status (Alberts et al, 2005;Baitar et al, 2012b;Bercovitch and Gartner, 2006;Pinkley et al, 1995), as well as integrative potential (Maoz and Terris, 2006;Terris and Maoz, 2005); • characteristics of disputants like gender (Herrman et al, 2003) and relationship hostility (Mareschal, 2005); • perceptions of conflict asymmetry between the parties (Jehn et al, 2010) and parties' behavioral style during the mediation (Nelson et al, 2011); • characteristics of the mediator like mediator's experience and skill base (Arnold, 2007;Mareschal, 2005;Poitras, 2009), mediators' ties, knowledge and bias toward the parties (Savun, 2008;Svensson, 2009), mediator's emotional intelligence (Boland and Ross, 2010), the clarity of the mediator's role and their role-conception (Grima andTrépo, 2009,Van Gramberg, 2006), power position of the mediator (Svensson, 2007) and mediator's style (Alberts et al, 2005;Asal et al, 2002, Baitar et al, 2012a, 2012bBeardsley et al, 2006;Goldberg, 2005;Jameson et al, 2010;…”