Agency in Conflict Resolution as a Manager–Lawyer Issue: Theory and Implications for Research

Adrian Borbély
Additional contact information
Adrian Borbély: IRENE - Institut de recherche et d'enseignement sur la négociation - ESSEC Business School, ESSEC Business School

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: Agency theory is often used, through the principal–agent framework, to explain organizational barriers to conflict resolution, i.e., the internal reasons why parties in conflict lean so much toward adjudication, despite the availability of more efficient negotiated settlement methods. Framing business conflict resolution as a professional service, a knowledge‐intensive field in which lawyers assist the other functions of the firm in resolving difficulties encountered with other organizations, leads scholars to reconsider classical agency assumptions. This contribution proposes a manager–lawyer agency framework of conflict resolution, which recognizes the influence lawyers exert over their clients and induces a focus on the micro‐interactions among decision‐makers, in‐house legal counsels and attorneys as they coproduce response to conflict. From this theoretical effort, one may draw numerous paths for future research aiming to provide Alternative Dispute Resolution promoters with an increased understanding of within‐party agency interactions.

Keywords: Négociation; Gestion des Conflits; Contentieux; Théorie de l’agence; principal–agent model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-05-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, 2011, 4 (2), 129-144 p. ⟨10.1111/j.1750-4716.2011.00076.x⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03188176

DOI: 10.1111/j.1750-4716.2011.00076.x

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().