Leveraging Indigenous Knowledge for Sustainable ...

Pre-publication version of paper published in Journal of Corporate Citizenship: Reade, C., & McKenna, M. 2013. Leveraging indigenous knowledge for sustainable workplace harmony: A conflict management tool for international managers. 51: 53-71.

Leveraging Indigenous Knowledge for Sustainable Workplace Harmony: A Conflict Management Tool for International Managers

Carol Reade and Mark McKenna San José State University, USA

Carol Reade is an associate professor of international management at San José State University. Her research interests include culture, conflict, and human resource management in the multinational enterprise, and the role of business in fostering peaceful societies.

Mark McKenna is a lecturer in international business at San José State University. His research interest and professional expertise is in the management of political, economic, and social change processes in developing and emerging economies.

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We thank our many colleagues, counterparts, and students in Sri Lanka for sharing their experiences, and the Employers’ Federation of Ceylon, the Postgraduate Institute of Management, and The Asia Foundation for institutional support. We benefited greatly from the comments of two anonymous reviewers, as well as numerous conference participants who offered their insights. Above all we are grateful to Ed Miller, Neil Bodine, and Keith Fitzgerald for their generous mentoring.

Leveraging Indigenous Knowledge for Sustainable Workplace Harmony: A Conflict Management Tool for International Managers

Abstract In the multinational enterprise (MNE), workplace conflict is generally managed within organizational systems adopted from the West. When MNEs operate in emerging economies, there is a potential disconnect between these systems and the conflict management preferences of local employees. We propose that international managers consider using indigenous knowledge to inform the conflict management systems in their subsidiaries in order to enhance and sustain cooperative workplace relations. Drawing on literature from management, anthropology, and international development, as well as the authors’ experience as participant observers in the industrial sector in Sri Lanka, we develop a conceptual model for ‘leveraging’ indigenous knowledge. The model is illustrated by a practical application in the Sri Lankan subsidiary of a European MNE. We conclude by suggesting that the leveraging of indigenous dispute resolution knowledge from the community into the organization contributes to greater workplace harmony and global corporate citizenship.

Keywords: indigenous knowledge, conflict management, culture, interest-based problem solving, employment relations, multinational enterprise, Sri Lanka

Copyright Carol Reade and Mark McKenna 2013

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Management theorists and practitioners have turned a blind eye to the role of culture and indigenous belief systems, values, attitudes and institutions in shaping the functioning of organizations. Durganand Sinha, 1999: 43.

Creating shared value with local communities through stakeholder engagement has been identified as critical to the success and growth of an organization (Porter and Kramer 2011). The focus on human, organizational, and community potential, and the need for the firm to tap this potential for the well-being of all is captured in the notion of corporate citizenship (Cooperrider and Fry 2010). Corporate citizenship means “developing mutually beneficial, interactive and trusting relationships between the company and its many stakeholders…through the implementation of the company’s strategies and operating practices” (Waddock 2003: 3). Central to corporate citizenship is the treatment of all stakeholders with dignity and respect, and engaging collaboratively with them to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes (Waddock 2003). Global corporate citizenship is the extension of these concepts and practices to embrace peoples and communities worldwide, and is relevant to multinational enterprises (MNEs) We believe that to be good global corporate citizens MNEs and their international managers need to move beyond a passive respect for local cultures and proactively consider the integration of indigenous belief systems in the functioning of the organization. This involves bringing local wisdom into the MNE subsidiary in culturally meaningful ways that enhance employee wellbeing and corporate effectiveness. In this paper we focus on indigenous dispute resolution traditions and their potential integration into a firm’s conflict management system. Conflict management systems are designed to facilitate cooperative employment relations. Good working


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relations among employees, and between management and labor, are associated with labor efficiency, product quality, client satisfaction, and higher attendance behavior (Deery, Erwin, and Iverson 1999; Pfeffer 1998; Wagar, 1997). Conversely, adversarial employment relations are associated with higher costs, reduced quality, and lower worker productivity (Pfeffer, 1998). Cultures differ in their preferences for the way conflict is managed (Ting-Toomey 1985). Cultural frameworks that elucidate these differences help Western managers to be more effective in their overseas assignments (Ting-Toomey and Oetzel 2001). While valuable, we believe that a reliance on these frameworks alone is insufficient in emerging economy contexts for two reasons. First, even those Western managers with the necessary cultural acumen to navigate unfamiliar sociocultural contexts are apt to utilize that acumen to facilitate goal attainment through organizational systems and structures that are Western in origin. There is a reported ‘disconnect,’ for instance, between conflict management practices within mechanistic Western institutions that engender adversarialism, and the preferences of people from collectivistic cultures for more consensual approaches to conflict management (eg., Ben-Mensah 2004; Uwazie 2011). Second, indigenous dispute resolution traditions may be eschewed even by local business people since they themselves have been trained in Western management principles and have therefore been taught to devalue local practices that may appear to be inconsistent with these principles. Because of a Western bias in management training, the practices and traditions that non-Western managers may apply in their families and communities to good effect may be considered backward and irrelevant in the modern business organization. In other words, a full appreciation of the potential role of indigenous knowledge in an organizational context may be lost on both Western managers and many of their non-Western counterparts.


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Indigenous knowledge refers to a wide range of generally non-Western knowledge systems and includes knowledge that has been obscured or marginalized through the processes of modernization, including periods of colonization. The recovery of indigenous knowledge is considered a viable path to sustainable development (Marsden 1994a; Marsden 1994b; Woykec, Shroff-Mehta, and Mohan 2004). Indigenous knowledge of agriculture, forestry, and medicinal plants, for instance, has been actively recovered and used successfully with the aid of modern technology in international development projects (Marsden 1994b; Woykec et al. 2004). We propose that indigenous knowledge of dispute resolution, because of its applicability in economic and social spheres, can be a valuable resource for managers seeking to enhance and sustain cooperative employment relations at the subsidiary level of MNEs operating in emerging economies. We believe that indigenous consensual dispute resolution traditions have the potential to inform or supplement existing conflict management systems within the firm and create conditions more likely to promote sustainable workplace harmony. The organization benefits further since embedding culturally relevant and meaningful practices into the organization draws on the human strengths of the community and creates an expanded basis for competitive advantage (Laszlo and Zhexembayeva 2011). We further propose that interest-based problem solving can act as a tool to ‘leverage’ indigenous dispute resolution traditions from the community into the organization, and help to channel such knowledge into a culturally relevant conflict management mechanism. Interestbased problem solving is an integrative approach to resolving differences (Fisher, Ury, and Patton 1991). While Western in origin, it has been used flexibly with success in various cultural contexts (eg., Senger 2002). In the same way that the recovery and application of indigenous knowledge of plants has occurred with the aid of modern technology, we suggest that interest-


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based problem solving, with its global familiarity, can help Western and non-Western managers revive and apply indigenous dispute resolution knowledge in the firm, and serve to bridge the organizational and community contexts in ways conducive to good global corporate citizenship. Drawing on literature from management, anthropology, and international development, as well as the authors’ experience as participant observers in the industrial sector in Sri Lanka, we present a conceptual model illustrated by a practical application in the Sri Lankan subsidiary of a European multinational enterprise. Sri Lanka provides an appropriate setting as it is representative of emerging economies that have a deep reservoir of indigenous consensual conflict management traditions (Amerasinghe 1999). The study responds to a call for research on indigenous, context-specific issues that contribute to global management knowledge (Tsui 2004), and should be of interest to academics and practitioners in the fields of international management, human resource management, and conflict management. The paper proceeds with a section on indigenous knowledge, culture and dispute resolution, and contextual examples from Sri Lanka. This is followed by sections on the leveraging model and its application. We conclude with a discussion of implications for research and practice.

THE WELLSPRINGS OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE ’Local,’ ‘traditional’ or ‘folk’ knowledge is no longer the irrelevant vestige of a ‘backward’ people who have not yet made the transition to modernity, but the vital well springs and resource bank from which alternative futures might be built. David Marsden, 1994b: 46.


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A key discourse in the international development literature revolves around indigenous knowledge and its use in managing development projects (Marsden 1991, 1994a,b; Nicholson 1994; Mishra, 1998; World Bank, 1998; Woykec, Shroff-Mehta, & Mohan, 2004). In generic terms, indigenous knowledge refers to non-Western knowledge systems that play a role in the day-to-day lives of people in developing countries (Marsden 1991, 1994a,b). Development strategies have historically focused on the transfer of Western knowledge. The interest in indigenous knowledge has been motivated by a search for alternative strategies that might better ensure the sustainability of the benefits of development, such as the alleviation of poverty (International Labor Organization 1989; Marsden 1994b; Woykec, Shroff-Mehta, & Mohan 2004). This recognizes that Western knowledge systems are not the only sources of valuable innovation and creativity, and that locally-relevant knowledge can be a significant resource for increasing the efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability of the development process (Ekins 1992; Marsden 1991; Gorjestani 2000). The term indigenous refers to something that occurs naturally in a land or region, and carries the nuance of ‘authenticity’ and ‘local legitimacy’ which comes from a long historical association with a given place (Marsden, 1994b). A further nuance is that indigenous can refer to knowledge of local social structures and processes that have been obscured and/or devalued in the process of modernization, including periods of colonialism (eg., Ben-Mensah 2004). The “ingenuity of local coping mechanisms,” particularly as they relate to technical and agricultural activities, is a constant theme in the international development literature (Marsden, 1994b: 47). Indigenous knowledge includes local systems of farming and seed cultivation, forestry, folk medicine, and dispute resolution (Woykec et al., 2004).


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Towards a leveraging model. A project in Sri Lanka for the conservation and use of medicinal plants provides a concrete and typical example of the way in which indigenous knowledge can be utilized for sustainable development, and illustrates the components of our leveraging model—surfacing, applying, and mainstreaming—presented below. Sri Lanka, known as Ceylon until the adoption of a new constitution in 1972, is an island in the Indian Ocean. The conservation project in Sri Lanka included an ethno-botanical survey among elderly people in remote villages to identify and surface traditional knowledge on the use of plant species in healthcare and medication. Support, including overseas training, was provided to develop and apply the knowledge beyond its traditional medicinal uses, for example, in the large-scale, valueadded commercial production of goods such as cosmetics and drugs. A number of activities were also initiated to preserve and mainstream indigenous knowledge for the benefit of future generations. These included the training of villagers in the conservation and cultivation of medicinal plants, the setting up of herbariums in schools, the establishment of gene banks, and the revival of the Gurukula residential education system, an ancient system of inter-generational knowledge transfer through apprenticeship training (De Silva and Wettasinghe 2004). The project aimed to preserve cultural heritage while alleviating poverty in rural areas, and represents a viable path for achieving sustainable development (Marsden 1994b).

Indigenous Dispute Resolution Indigenous knowledge extends beyond agriculture to social and economic domains. It encompasses knowledge of the ways in which people resolve interpersonal and community disputes over such matters as land allocation and water rights (Gorjestani 2000; Woykec et al. 2004). Indigenous dispute resolution draws upon knowledge of the social structure, that is, ‘who’


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and ‘what’ are important for resolving the conflict, as well as knowledge of the social process, that is, ‘how’ the dispute should be resolved in the local context. Many societies in Africa, Asia and Latin America are representative of cultures that are collectivistic (eg., House et al., 2004), and have long histories of consensual, village-based dispute resolution with a preference for known and respected third-party mediators (Jandt and Pedersen 1996; Merry 1992, 1993; Moore 2003; Pe, Sosmena, and Tadiar 1988; Uwazie 2011). Cultural groups “often develop institutions that formalize their values, behavioral norms, meanings and symbols” (Dialdin and Wall 1999: 382). Collectivistic cultures generally establish conflict management systems that involve the entire community in managing disputes in order to preserve and promote the harmony of the group. In these cultural groups, society is deemed collectively responsible for both the cause and the resolution of a dispute. An escalation of the conflict is seen as damaging society as a whole because of the interdependency of its members. The restoration of disrupted relationships is typically a primary goal of the dispute resolution process. Dispute resolution norms dictate an indirect, non-confrontational, relationship-oriented, ‘face saving,’ group-oriented, and obligation-oriented focus (Ting-Toomey 1985; Ting-Toomey and Oetzel 2001). An amicable, consensus-based approach is used to arrive at a settlement that will save face and be in the best interests of the community as a whole. When third parties become involved, there is a preference for what Lederach and Wehr (1991) have described as ‘insider-partial’ third parties, that is, individuals who are known to the disputants, familiar with the situation, and who have ascribed status in the community (eg., Uwazi 2011). By comparison, cultures that value individualism (of which Britain and the United States are prototypical examples) are more likely to establish laws and courts to protect individual rights (Dialdin and Wall 1999). In these cultural groups, disputants feel that they themselves are


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responsible for settling the conflict, either directly or through their agents or representatives, such as lawyers. Dispute resolution norms dictate a direct, confrontational, individualistic, and rights-based focus (Ting-Toomey 1985; Ting-Toomey and Oetzel 2001). Resolving disputes requires the explicit articulation of individual demands in order to arrive at a clear and enforceable solution. The process is often adversarial, and the settlement prioritizes individual needs over the needs of the group. There is a preference for ‘outsider-neutral’ third parties such as a court or judge, in other words, individuals who are unknown to the disputants, who do not have a vested interest in the situation or outcome, and who define their role in the process on the basis of their professional qualifications (Lederach and Wehr 1991). These differences between consensual and adversarial approaches to dispute resolution have prompted some to observe contradictions in the ways that disputes are managed in many emerging economy countries. This generally refers to the contradictions between state mechanisms imported from the West, such as legal systems that have institutionalized an adversarial approach and have supplanted indigenous dispute resolution systems, and the historical preference of the people for consensual dispute resolution processes (Ben-Mensah 2004; Uwazie 2011; Woykec et al. 2004). It has been suggested that the “ineffectiveness [of these state mechanisms] may be in part a symptom of their inappropriateness to indigenous culture” (Nicholson 1994: 68). Sri Lanka provides a case in point. Consensual traditions in Sri Lanka. Consensus-based dispute resolution in Sri Lanka dates from ancient times, as early as the 5th century BCE (Herat 1988; Rubasinghe 1996). Stone inscriptions and more recent historical accounts indicate that there was a well-established and widespread pre-colonial practice of using community elders and individuals of high standing to mediate intra-village disputes (Amerasinghe 1999). The mediations were conducted by village


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councils, as one element in a multi-layered dispute resolution system. Upon the raising of a criminal or civil complaint, a village council would assemble at a suitable public location, gather the disputing parties and others who might be interested, and solicit accounts of the nature, causes and consequences of the dispute. The evidence suggests that decisions were reached mainly through consensus, based on “customary practices and vague equitable concepts” rather than abstract principles or laws as in a modern court, and “taking into consideration the past history of the parties, their status in the community, their kinship relationship and other subjective factors” (Herat 1988: 369). An essential feature of this indigenous approach to conflict resolution was the endeavor to address and remove the underlying cause of the discontent and to amicably settle disputes in order to maintain village harmony (Amerasinghe 1999). Settlements emphasized compromise over punishment and called upon the members of a community to honor their mutual duties and responsibilities. The village councils, by institutionalizing Sri Lankan values and norms of community harmony and collective responsibility, provided a prompt, accessible, and popular means for resolving disputes while addressing the root causes of discontent and diffusing the sources of intra-village rivalries and conflict (Herat 1988). The village councils gradually fell into disuse after introduction of the British legal system during colonial administration. The village councils continued for some time as an adjunct to the formal court system. However, as their settlements were not considered binding, people made increasingly less use of the village councils in favor of the courts. Amerasinghe (1999) notes that the new courts were slow, cumbersome, and complex; moreover, they tended to encourage bitterness and continued enmity.


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Revival of traditions and the role of international aid. Over the years there have been attempts to re-invigorate an indigenous consensus-based dispute resolution system in Sri Lanka. The most effective of these efforts has been the establishment of the Community Mediation Boards under the auspices of the Ministry of Justice to mediate minor civil and criminal disputes at the community level as a means to supplement the courts with a consensual process (McClintock 1998). These successful efforts at the community level have also progressed in the industrial relations arena to address adversarial relations between management and labor (Reade and McKenna 2007). The Employment Mediation Services Center was established in the capital city of Colombo under the auspices of the Employers’ Federation of Ceylon in partnership with labor unions and the Ministry of Justice to promote a more collaborative workplace environment. In both the community and industrial contexts, international aid was sought by the Ministry of Justice and the Employers’ Federation of Ceylon, respectively, for training in collaborative forms of negotiation and mediation. This includes interest-based problem solving, an integrative approach to negotiation and mediation, described in further detail below. The authors were involved with ongoing support to the Community Mediation Boards, establishment and support of the Employment Mediation Services Center, and training of industrial relations stakeholders including Department of Labor officers, trade union leaders, and senior Human Resources managers from the top domestic and multinational firms in Sri Lanka. Additionally, courses in interest-based negotiation were offered by one of the authors to midcareer managers enrolled in an MBA program at the leading business school in Colombo. It should be noted that our leveraging model, presented in the following section, was developed inductively through reflection by the authors on the practices adopted by Sri Lankan managers, particularly those in the MBA program, in their application of interest-based problem


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solving. A number of managers decided for their course projects to report on efforts they had made to apply the interested-based process in their own companies, which included domestic, family-owned, and international firms across a range of industries and employee groups. Some of these initial efforts, including the case selected for illustration of the leveraging model, led to further engagement by the authors to assist managers in extending their use of the interest-based approach in their organizations. The leveraging model emerged from these observations and reflections and was conceived as a way to better understand the function of interest-based problem solving as a “tool”, rather than an imposed formula, with which to open up new, more locally responsive possibilities for conflict management in the firm.

THE LEVERAGING MODEL Peter Senge (1990: 114), in his work on ‘learning organizations,’ defines leveraging as “seeing where [small, well-focused] actions and changes in structures can lead to significant, enduring improvements.” In this spirit, and drawing on the above-mentioned insights gained from the applications of Sri Lankan managers and the participant observations of the authors, we present a model for systematically leveraging indigenous knowledge of dispute resolution from the community level in order to inform conflict management systems at the enterprise level. The model, illustrated in Figure 1 and described below, consists of a leveraging tool and three nested components for surfacing, applying, and mainstreaming indigenous dispute resolution knowledge. As shown, the model is iterative in design. Successive iterations of the model’s components bring greater depth in understanding and utilization of indigenous knowledge, leading to the further enhancement of employment relations within the firm.


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The Leveraging Tool Interest-based problem solving (Fisher, Ury and Patton 1991) comprises the tool to uncover and channel indigenous dispute resolution knowledge in the work organization. Interest-based problem solving is an integrative, mutual gains approach that has been applied to resolving differences between individuals, between groups, and even between countries. It was first presented in 1981 in the book Getting to Yes which has sold millions of copies and has been translated into 36 languages (New York Times 2012). The interest-based approach is now considered the most influential body of ideas on the practice of negotiation (Spector 2004). Roger Fisher and William Ury of the Harvard Program on Negotiation developed these ideas to address what they saw as the suboptimal outcomes, including the harmful effects on relationships, of the positional, adversarial approach to negotiation typically used in the US (Spector 2004). The key distinguishing features of interest-based problem solving are the focus on underlying interests rather than positions, the brainstorming of options and their evaluation against agreed upon criteria, and the building of relationships to enhance the likelihood of a mutually satisfactory and sustainable outcome (Fisher, Ury and Patton 1991, Spector 2004). Interest-based problem solving has been used in negotiation and mediation in multiple contexts across cultures to identify and address both substantive and relationship issues (eg., Senger 2002). When used in mediation, a third party (mediator) supports the disputants to determine the issues, underlying interests, potential options, relevant criteria, and ultimately the solution to their dispute.


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The Leveraging Components Surfacing. The first component of the model consists of uncovering knowledge of social structure and process in the local context that affects the dispute and its resolution but may be considered irrelevant in the work organization. For instance, in societies with collectivistic values, there is often less of a separation between personal and work domains than in more individualistic societies. This can give rise to different configurations of stakeholders and interests around a conflict than one might expect in most Western business settings. Likewise, a common process norm for resolving differences in collectivistic societies is to rely on trusted community elders who ensure that conflicts are resolved in the best interest of the group as a whole, and not just in the best interests of the immediate parties to a dispute. The intent of surfacing is to give the international manager a better understanding of the relevant stakeholders, and what is important to them, in order to frame a shared perception of the problem. A key element of interest-based problem solving is the identification of relevant stakeholders and their underlying interests, the substantive and relationship issues involved in a conflict situation, and the values, norms, and criteria for resolving disputes in a particular social context. This is done through active listening and inquiry. Parties are encouraged to tell their stories, and inquiries are made not in an accusatory manner but in the spirit of appreciative inquiry (Cooperrider 1995). Appreciative inquiry is described as both an art and practice of asking questions in a way that heightens positive potential (Watkins and Mohr 2001). In this way, and similar to the indigenous medicine example where knowledge was uncovered on plants and those who knew how to cultivate and use them, surfacing brings to the fore key stakeholders who may also come from outside the workplace, and process preferences such as for an insider-partial


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third party or mediator. The surfaced knowledge can change management perceptions of the issues and the possibilities for resolution. Applying. The second component, which builds on the first, refers to the introduction and application of indigenous dispute resolution processes at the enterprise level. In societies with collectivist values, as highlighted earlier, conflict is resolved according to the best interests of the community as a whole, often achieved through a trusted community elder who works with the disputing parties and other interested community members as a mediator. The elements of interest-based problem solving that come into play in this phase are brainstorming potential options to resolve the conflict, identifying criteria for evaluating the merits of the options, and arriving at a solution that satisfies the interests of all parties. By adopting the indigenous preference for mediation with a trusted third party, these interest-based elements serve to augment and channel indigenous knowledge of dispute resolution processes toward resolution. This allows for the building of consensus based on satisfying the interests of all parties. The melding of indigenous and Western approaches creates a new process that is familiar to the international manager while serving to legitimize the process and outcome for local managers and employees. Similar to our indigenous medicine example where Western technology is used to leverage knowledge of indigenous plants into large-scale commercial production, interest-based problem solving is used to leverage indigenous dispute resolution processes in ways that modify, even for a particular dispute, the firm’s established approach to conflict management.. Mainstreaming. The third component involves the systematic integration, or mainstreaming, of indigenous dispute resolution traditions into the firm’s conflict management system. It is a summation and expansion of the first two components of the model. Similar to the indigenous


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medicine example, where villagers are trained in the conservation and cultivation of medicinal plants in order to sustain valuable knowledge for future generations, the intent of mainstreaming is to embed culturally-relevant traditions into the overall systems and structure of the organization to create and sustain workplace harmony over time. Likewise, ongoing training of employees in interest-based problem solving and indigenous traditions can help to transform the organizational culture to one that continually supports cooperative employment relations. This is dependent upon both the consistent application of locally-relevant dispute resolution processes at appropriate levels of decision making across the organization, and the openness of international managers to realign organizational values and norms to accommodate indigenous principles and practices of conflict management. By using the interest-based approach as a tool to re-discover indigenous dispute resolution knowledge, firms can leverage indigenous knowledge to create a more culturally-relevant conflict management process, one which ultimately serves to legitimize both the process and the outcomes in the eyes of the employees.

THE MODEL IN PRACTICE

The case described here draws on the experiences of several Sri Lankan managers working for the Sri Lankan subsidiary of a European multinational enterprise. They used interest-based problem solving to gain a deeper understanding of the conflict in their organization, and to develop a culturally-relevant mechanism based on indigenous traditions for positive change (see Reade and McKenna, 2007, for a fuller historical and contextual discussion of the case). The company involved produces high-end lingerie for the European market. European expatriates and Sri Lankan nationals comprise the management team. The company’s production


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facilities are located in the countryside, about 30 miles from the capitol city of Colombo. Employees who work on the production lines are mainly young women hired from outlying villages. The company, like others in the non-unionized export-oriented garment industry, has a Joint Consultative Committee (JCC), a formal mechanism for addressing employee grievances and management-labor disputes. The issue that precipitates management action is the discovery of a large occurrence of reworked and discarded garment pieces.

Surfacing Social Structure and Process A JCC meeting was called by the Sri Lankan managers to get to the bottom of the employee productivity and product quality issues. Employees refused to talk. The managers who had undergone training in interest-based problem solving consulted with the European head of the subsidiary about using the interest-based approach to try to resolve matters outside of the JCC. The European manager was open to the idea, and an adhoc meeting was called. This time, only the managers trained in the interest-based approach met with the employees. The managers began to engage employees through active listening and appreciative inquiry. They asked questions of the employees in a way that emphasized the positive value of their contributions rather than the potential for punitive actions that had shaped much of the discussion in the earlier JCC meeting. Through this approach the root cause of the problem came to the fore: longstanding inter- and intra-village rivalries were playing out in the factory. Female line workers were sabotaging each others’ work by purposefully mis-cutting or mis-sewing pieces that were needed at the next work station on the production line as part of a tit-for-tat process arising out of conflicts between individuals and groups. One sabotaged piece of work sent up the line wasted the time and effort of the entire line, since the final product had to be reworked or


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discarded. This affected the line-based performance pay of rival individual workers and teams and resulted in an escalation of interpersonal disputes, as well as negatively impacting the firm’s bottom line. In essence, active listening and inquiry, key aspects of interest-based problem solving, revealed the underlying issues in a respectful manner. An appreciative approach to inquiring about the details of the stories told by employees facilitated the uncovering of social structures and divisions in the organization that were previously unrecognized or considered irrelevant to the functioning of the organization. Employees shared an interest to make as high a bonus as possible, and came to realize this would not happen if the conflicts continued. By framing the concerns of employees and management as a shared problem, and focusing on the underlying relationships and interests, the interest-based approach was more consistent with the cultural norm of treating conflict as a collective responsibility compared to the JCC conflict management process which tended to assign individual blame and responsibility associated with more individualistic cultures. Uncovering these social realities allowed for a reframing of management perceptions of the nature of the problem away from a focus on employee incompetence or shirking to the need to improve workplace harmony and collaboration. The development of an innovative solution was made possible by this shift, as described below.

Applying a New Process The managers recognized that the community context could not be separated from the organizational context. They also recognized that the JCC, which had been set up as a formal mechanism to deal with management-employee issues, represented an adversarial process that was unlikely to be effective in handling the kinds of communal conflict currently affecting the


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organization. The managers proceeded to engage with the employees to generate and evaluate options for resolving the conflicts, essential aspects of interest-based problem solving. During this phase further interests and process norms for resolving conflicts within the Sri Lankan context were identified. Specifically, employees expressed a shared interest in working together harmoniously. Management expressed a mutual interest in harmonious employment relations, as well as an interest in quality products and high productivity. Employees further expressed appreciation for being able to talk through the issues together. This prompted the managers to adopt aspects of a dispute resolution process considered appropriate at the community level. The managers assumed the role of insider-partial third parties, allowed employees to publically express concerns while saving face for themselves and others, and utilized a non-confrontational approach to arrive at a solution that benefited the whole community (company). At the end of this process, which included both interest-based and indigenous elements, employees proceeded to cooperate with each other. The result was higher quality pieces that produced a higher bonus. The use of indigenous traditions served to legitimize the process and its outcome. Given this success, management considered how to build and embed a hybrid— indigenous and interest-based—conflict management capacity into the organization.

Mainstreaming Indigenous Traditions The managers arranged for several of the top managers and all of the line supervisors to be trained in the principles of interest-based problem solving and how it can be integrated with indigenous traditions. Subsequently, space was allocated within the factory to establish a ‘mediation corner’ where line supervisors could meet with employees to resolve interpersonal and other conflicts. The process was intentionally designed to be informal and extemporaneous,


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consistent with indigenous dispute resolution practices. Employees could come to the mediation corner at any time during work hours when a conflict arose in the line without the need to file a formal complaint. Participation in the mediation corner is voluntary and open to anyone, including those who simply want to listen in and observe the process. Confidentiality, an important concern in individualistic societies, can be perceived as secrecy, provoking uncertainty and distrust in more collectivistic societies. The use of an open process reinforces indigenous values represented in the ancient village councils where the community engaged publically to address the underlying concerns and come to a consensual solution. This conflict management mechanism has become self-sustaining due to ongoing training,and the expansion of the mediation corner across organizational units over several years. Each incoming group of newly-hired line managers is trained, and the mediation corner is embedded in multiple factories. Similar to our indigenous medicine example, where a gurukula was established for ongoing training to preserve indigenous knowledge for future generations, the training of employees and the setting-up of the mediation corner has helped to ensure the longevity and sustainability of culturally-relevant dispute resolution practices in the organization. According to the managers who spearheaded the initiative, the mediation corner serves as an informal supplement to the JCC and has been an effective approach for resolving a wide-range of employment-related disputes, and for maintaining harmony in the workplace.

DISCUSSION

We have presented a model for leveraging indigenous dispute resolution knowledge from the community into the organization as a conflict management tool for international managers. This


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study illustrates how an MNE subsidiary located in an emerging economy can integrate indigenous traditions into its conflict management system to create and sustain an organizational culture of collaborative problem solving among employees and managers. Below we elaborate on the contributions, implications, and limitations of this study. The overarching contribution of the paper is that it addresses the call to enhance global management knowledge through context-specific indigenous research (Tsui 2004). Little is known about the utilization of indigenous traditions to inform or augment the conflict management systems in modern organizations. This may be particularly relevant in MNE subsidiaries located in emerging economies where there is a reported disconnect between organizational systems adopted from the West and the cultural preferences of local people. Indigenous knowledge has been subsumed or marginalized in the process of modernization, including periods of colonization. It has been actively recovered in agriculture as a viable path to sustainable development (Marsden 1991, 1994a,b; World Bank 1998). Likewise, we have argued that indigenous knowledge of consensual dispute resolution at the community level can be leveraged at the enterprise level to create and sustain culturally relevant ways to manage workplace conflict. The study therefore contributes to our understanding of how indigenous knowledge of dispute resolution can inform an MNE’s conflict management system and human resource management practices at the subsidiary level. The leveraging model was developed inductively through the authors’ reflections on the use of interest-based problem solving in Sri Lanka. The authors were involved in the training of Sri Lankan managers in domestic and multinational firms, who used the interest-based approach to manage conflict in their organizations. As participant observers in the training and application process, we noted that Sri Lankan managers used interest-based problem solving less as a


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“manual” or step-by-step process for resolving conflict and more as a “tool” with which to open up new, more locally responsive possibilities for conflict resolution. It is this tool-like use of the interest-based approach in the Sri Lankan subsidiary of a European MNE that surfaced the cause of the employment relations problem, indigenous process preferences, and flexibly allowed for the application of indigenous traditions as part of a hybrid conflict management process. For MNEs, there is always the question of the cultural appropriateness of introducing Western management practices in non-Western societies (Adler 2002; Javidan, Stahl, Brodbeck, and Wilderom 2005; Roper and Weymes 2007; Sinha 1999). Some question, for instance, whether workplace conflict management processes are transferable to overseas subsidiaries, given cultural and legal differences (eg., Lipsky, Seeber, and Fincher 2003). Others question the appropriateness of transferring alternative dispute resolution (eg, Nader 2002) and other techniques such as appreciative inquiry (eg, Grant and Humphries 2006) because they are viewed as potentially manipulative and hurtful to vulnerable groups in society. While the interest-based approach was developed in the West, it has demonstrated cross-cultural applicability. A quote from a newspaper in Colombo regarding the Sri Lankan view of interest-based problem solving is telling: “[The] win-win resolution of dispute[s] made popular in the modern world by Professors Uri [sic] and Fisher of the Harvard Negotiation Project was first propagated to the world by Lord Buddha…” (Daily News Online 2006: 1). There are several implications of this study for international managers. One is that the application of indigenous dispute resolution processes provides a more culturally-responsive way to resolve conflict. This contributes to the perceived legitimacy of both the process and the outcome of the dispute in the eyes of local employees and managers. Local wisdom in the form of indigenous knowledge represents an accumulation over time of human strengths in a given


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society. Another implication is that the use of such knowledge by MNE subsidiaries and their international managers signals respect of local citizens and their culture. This contributes not only to individual wellbeing and organizational resilience and effectiveness, but ultimately to a more robust global corporate citizenship by tapping the strengths and virtues of people and communities so that they can thrive (Cooperrider and Fry 2010). All models are partial and selective in approach to the world they hope to illuminate. As such, there are necessarily limitations, not least of which is generalizability. We have focused on indigenous dispute resolution traditions in a single country context, and a leveraging tool comprised of management approaches developed in the West. This raises the following questions with implications for further research. First, do other emerging economies have indigenous traditions of dispute resolution that can be leveraged by firms? As indicated above, evidence suggests that indigenous forms of dispute resolution are found in emerging economies across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Sri Lanka is representative of other emerging economy countries where there is growing sentiment for the revival of indigenous consensual dispute resolution processes as an alternative to formal, often colonially-imposed, legal systems (Guojiang 1996; Moore 2003; Uwazie 2011). Second, will interest-based problem solving serve as an effective tool to leverage indigenous knowledge in other emerging economies? The proposed leveraging tool applies an analytical approach to a conflict, a perspective more common in individualist societies, while also addressing the interdependent relationships that are often at the heart of the conflict, and which are the primary consideration for dispute resolution in collectivist societies. As a result, we believe it has wide cross-cultural applicability and can appeal to both international managers and local employees in emerging economies. This does not rule out other management approaches from elsewhere in the world that may have cross-cultural


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resonance and applicability (eg., Roper and Weymes 2007). Finally, are there forms of indigenous knowledge other than dispute resolution that could be leveraged and made relevant to the firm? The answer to this last question in particular lies primarily in the hands of managers who are willing to experiment with innovative approaches to addressing the business needs of the firm and the social needs of the countries in which they operate.

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