Donald E. Conlon

• Eli Broad Professor of Management at Michigan State University

Music listening has proliferated in the workplace, yet its effects have been overlooked, and classic investigations offer conflicting results. To advance our understanding, we draw from self-regulation and resource allocation theories to suggest that listening to music has curvilinear effects on attentional focus and performance on work tasks and t...

Why do employees perceive that they have been treated fairly by their supervisor? Theory and research on justice generally presumes a straightforward answer to this question: Because the supervisor adhered to justice rules. We propose the answer is not so straightforward and that employee justice perceptions are not merely "justice-laden." Drawing...

We examine the notion of a Phantom BATNA – a negotiation alternative that may or may not materialize – and its impact on a current negotiation. Across three studies, we investigate the impact of such alternatives on negotiation, and compare them to when negotiators have a certain BATNA, when they have no BATNA, or when they are provided no informat...

As the number of unmarried adults in the workforce is on the rise, employees increasingly have to navigate lifestyle differences between single, married, and divorced members of their work groups. To understand the impact of this new form of diversity in groups at work, we introduce the concept of marital diversity as an important predictor of grou...

Organizations, and the groups and individuals within them, sometimes face the thorny dilemma of whether or not to continue failing courses of action. Escalation of commitment describes the tendency to “carry on” with such questionable endeavors, regardless of whether doing so is likely to result in success. Despite the wide variability between and...

The goal of this chapter is to bridge between two literatures by applying a justice lens to the time‐sequence model of mediation presented in chapter 2. To achieve this goal, I first sketch the development of the justice field. I will then apply a recently derived model of justice to the mediation model advanced by Herrman, Hollett, and Gale that f...

Although the decision to engage in prosocial behavior has received research attention, the literature offers a limited understanding of fairness and uncertainty as antecedents. We propose that one can encourage prosocial decision making simply by invoking the notion of fairness because of its effects on the perceived trustworthiness of the invoking...

In this tribute to the 2015 recipient of the International Association for Conflict Management Lifetime Achievement Award Winner, we celebrate the work of J. Keith Murnighan. Each of us highlights a unique contribution of his research to a different area in the field of organizational behavior. The four areas we discuss are behavioral economics, ex...

We build on the small but growing literature documenting personality influences on negotiation by examining how the joint disposition of both negotiators with respect to the interpersonal traits of agreeableness and extraversion influences important negotiation processes and outcomes. Building on similarity-attraction theory, we articulate and demo...

Task conflict has been the subject of a long-standing debate in the literature-when does task conflict help or hurt team performance? We propose that this debate can be resolved by taking a more precise view of how task conflicts are perceived in teams. Specifically, we propose that in teams, when a few team members perceive a high level of task di...

Research on justice as a dependent variable, though increasing in recent years, is still nascent when considering that a recent meta-analysis on justice as an independent variable coded over 400 articles since the turn of the century (Colquitt et al., 2013). In an effort to organize and guide future research in this emerging area, Brockner, Wiesenf...

Despite meta-Analytic evidence demonstrating that leader-member exchange (LMX) agreement (consensus between leader and subordinate perceptions) is only moderate at best, research on LMX typically examines this relationship from only one perspective: either the leader's or the subordinate's. We return to the roots of LMX and utilize role theory to a...

We contribute to an emerging literature viewing organizational justice as an endogenous outcome that employees may attempt to proactively influence instead of an exogenous event to which employees react. Drawing on social capital and social exchange theory, we test a model whereby employees' ingratiation toward their supervisor leads to higher leve...

Justice research examining gender differences has yielded contrasting findings. This study enlists advanced techniques in cognitive neuroscience (fMRI) to examine gender differences in brain activation patterns in response to procedural and distributive justice manipulations. We integrate social role, information processing, justice, and neuroscien...

Research summary: Research on the resource‐based view has begun to place more emphasis on the ability of managers to extract better performance from the resources that are available to them. In this paper, we show that prior experience can both help and hinder their ability to generate performance from various categories of resources. Further, we a...

The escalation of commitment literature has remained divided on whether sunk cost or project completion information is more significant in driving escalation behavior. However, we believe that the debate over the respective drivers has been missing a key point. It is not which driver predicts escalation better, but in which context a specific drive...

Although considerable research has focused on employee reactions to organizational justice, far less research has examined why managers adhere to rules of justice in the first place. Taking a proactive approach to organizational justice, we address this void by examining managerial motives for adhering to distributive, procedural, informational, an...

In this study we examine the relationship between two elements of the physical environment (workspace density and temperature) and performance in an action team context. We hypothesize that high levels of workspace density are beneficial for team performance and high temperature is detrimental to team performance. We further hypothesize that team p...

Although a flurry of meta-analyses summarized the justice literature at the turn of the millennium, interest in the topic has surged in the decade since. In particular, the past decade has witnessed the rise of social exchange theory as the dominant lens for examining reactions to justice, and the emergence of affect as a complementary lens for und...

In the context of purchasing ultimatums, consumers may dislike the freedom of choice that comes with proposing offers due to their awareness that the other party may have better information than they do and the fact that the attractiveness of outside alternatives is uncertain. Indeed, across three studies, we find that people prefer to receive rath...

The topic of escalation of commitment has intrigued the organizational sciences for over 35 years. A variety of theoretical explanations have been offered for why escalation occurs, and numerous constructs have been examined as antecedents of escalation behavior. However, little effort has been made to systematically investigate these various accou...

The authors developed and tested a model proposing that negotiator personality interacts with the negotiation situation to influence negotiation processes and outcomes. In 2 studies, the authors found that negotiators high in agreeableness were best suited to integrative negotiations and that negotiators low in agreeableness were best suited to dis...

Negotiators often bargain on behalf of others. In many cases, these constituents set the goals they want their negotiators to achieve at the table. We argue that prior evidence for superior results of promotion-focused negotiators may not hold when goals are set by others. We report the results of a study in which negotiators were provided with ext...

Numerous studies have demonstrated that decision makers will allocate additional resources to failing projects if those projects are close to completion, as opposed to far from completion. The present work considers whether high project completion leads to other effects; namely, decision-maker willingness to conceal negative information about a pro...

To date, leader-member exchange (LMX) research has primarily examined member outcomes, such as member attitudes and performance. However, little research exists regarding outcomes specific to the leader. Focusing on the leader-member dyad, we develop a framework of leader outcomes resulting from resource exchanges with members. We propose specific...

A classic debate in the organizational justice literature concerns the question of whether procedural justice and distributive justice are independent constructs. We investigate this question by using fMRI methods to examine brain activation patterns associated with procedural and distributive unfairness. We observed a clear dissociation of activat...

Negotiations present individuals with a paradox. On the one hand, individuals are expected via social norms and formal regulations to be honest and straightforward in their negotiations. On the other hand, individuals who mislead their negotiation counterpart are often rewarded with more favorable settlements. The authors investigate this paradox b...

Structural Adaptation Theory proposes that it is more difficult for teams to change from competitive to cooperative reward conditions than it is for them to change in the opposite direction, and this has been labeled the cutthroat cooperation effect [Johnson, M. D., Hollenbeck, J. R., Ilgen, D. R., Humphrey, S. E., Meyer, C. J., & Jundt, D. K. (200...

In the negotiation literature, relatively little attention has been paid to the impact of negotiator goals and expectancy disconfirmations on negotiator behaviors and affective outcomes. We found that negotiators with larger negative expectancy disconfirmations were less satisfied; set lower targets for a subsequent negotiation; and were more likel...

In this article, we focus on alternative dispute resolution procedures, in particular third party procedures. We describe eight different procedures and provide examples of how these procedures are used in different cultural contexts. We then evaluate the procedures in terms of how they impact four key criteria that have been noted in the literatur...

One of the key ways in which many scientific fields (including management) develop is through scholarly journal publication (McWilliams, Siegel, & Van Fleet, 2005; Spencer, 2001). The top journals in a field serve as a collection and dissemination system, annually gathering in thousands of submis-sions that are then carefully evaluated and cri-tiqu...

Because of the growth of online discount travel intermediaries (e.g., Priceline), researchers have become interested in how customers react to electronic brokered ultimatum bargaining contexts. This paper investigates how characteristics of the customer and characteristics of the bargaining context might ameliorate customers' (a) perceptions of jus...

A simulated organizational dispute tested the influence of third party power and settlement suggestions on negotiation. Six different types of third party suggestions were tested: Integrative (highest possible value to both parties), compromise (the prominent solution equally favorable to both parties), unintegrative (lowest possible value to both...

Conlon and Garland (1993) demonstrated that information about the degree of project completion, as compared with information about sunk costs, seemed to be the driving force behind continued investment in an R&D project. In the present paper, we replicate and extend this work. In studies with experienced bank managers, Chinese graduate students, an...

Organizations sometimes present their members with facades of choice: situations that appear to promise a choice but that, in fact, do not do so. Our study examines how facades of choice, relative to genuine choice, influence justice perceptions and negative and compensatory behavioral reactions. We then consider how the adequacy and timing of expl...

Computer users were surveyed before and after the Michelangelo trigger date (March 6, 1992) to examine risk perceptions and performance of risky and protective behaviors. Consistent with Risk Homeostasis theory, population risk perceptions changed over the course of the risk period, while personal risk perceptions remained unchanged. Protective beh...

In the last three decades, there has been a growing acceptance of the use of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) procedures in lieu of litigation for business and other types of disputes (Coltri, 2004), as well as intra-organizational disputes (Brown, 1983). With this acceptance has come a wide variety of third party ADR procedures: some of these...

We provide a brief review of how the concept of justice has evolved over time from a single construct (distributive justice) to one represented by four constructs (distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice). We then compare and contrast two recent meta-analytic views of organizational justice, focusing on the relationships...

Within the negotiation literature, the type of negotiation (integrative or distributive) and the relative power among negotiators are two issues that have received considerable attention. However, a direct comparison of integrative and distributive negotiations using an identical negotiation task is surprisingly absent, and thus many commonly held...

Bargaining activities now often take place electronically. Many travel-related exchanges occur through discount intermediaries such as Priceline and Hotwire, who offer customers opportunities to acquire travel-related items at reduced cost; in return customers give up prior knowledge regarding what hotel or airline will provide them service. We exa...

One aspect of attracting new employees that has historically been ignored by recruitment researchers is salary negotiations. In this study, we used a hypothetical scenario design to depict salary negotiation experiences in which we varied the levels of salary offer, the behavior of a company and its representative, and the deadlines for receiving a...

Expanding a conceptual framework, we differentiated services on the basis of their levels of captivity (the difficulty of a customer's leaving) and intensity (the number of services performed), arguing that context is especially critical to service delivery when these levels are high. Data from cruise ships generally supported our hypotheses. We re...

There has been little research examining customer reactions to brokered ultimatum game (BUG) contexts (i.e. exchanges in which 1 party offers an ultimatum price for a resource through an intermediary, and the ultimatum offer is accepted or rejected by the other party). In this study, the authors incorporated rational decision-making theory and just...

We present the results of two longitudinal studies that examine how the level of project completion affects decisions and worker outcomes. In a lab study, we find that as a project approaches completion, task completion is rated as increasingly more important and economic motives (e.g., finishing on budget) as increasingly less important. We also f...

This study examined whether the relationship between reward structure and team performance is contingent upon task dimension, team composition, and individual performance level. Seventy-five four-person teams engaged in a simulated interactive task in which reward structure was manipulated. A competitive structure enhanced one task dimension, speed...

In two studies examining resource allocation, support is found for the notion that group decisions are affected in systematic ways depending on whether or not there was individual consideration of the problem before meeting as a group. Specifically, compared to no prior consideration groups, prior consideration groups (1) escalate their commitment...

A relatively new phenomenon in recruitment and selection is the unhiring dilemma: New hires who were promised employment after graduation but now find their job offers rescinded or delayed. In study 1, we use a scenario context to examine how job rescissions and delays, along with four different compensation alternatives, influence new hire judgmen...

Due to the growth of discount travel intermediaries such as Priceline, researchers have become interested in customer reactions to brokered ultimatum bargaining contexts. In this study, utilizing justice theory, we examine how procedural variations in a brokered ultimatum game (BUG) affect customer perceptions of informational and distributive just...

The growth of discount travel intermediaries such as Priceline and Hotwire highlights the importance of studying customer reactions to brokered ultimatum bargaining contexts. We examine how procedural variations in a brokered ultimatum game (BUG) affect customer behaviors (offer made for the current purchase, repatronage behavior, and future biddin...

The present study extends recently-acquired knowledge about the affective aspects of negotiations by examining the effects of defining negotiation outcomes in affective terms rather than numeric terms. Using a 2 x 2 experimental design, the researchers represented the negotiation outcomes in four different ways: happy faces, unhappy faces, positive...

The authors examined the impact of 2 hybrid dispute resolution procedures (mediation-arbitration [med-arb] and arbitration-mediation [arb-med]) and 3 disputant dyadic structures (individual vs. individual, individual vs. team, and team vs. team) on various dispute outcomes. Consistent with W. H. Ross and D. E. Conlon (2000), the authors found that...

This article poses the question which reward structure (cooperative or competitive) has the best effects on team performance under which circumstances. Specifically, a cooperative reward structure is predicted to increase performance on means-interdependent tasks, while a competitive reward structure is predicted to increase performance on means-in...

A contingency model of reward structures is developed, stating that the relationship between reward structure and team performance is contingent upon the performance dimension specified (speed vs. accuracy), team composition (team members' interpersonal orientation in terms of extroversion and agreeableness), and the relative performance level of i...

In a series of studies, the authors established empirical support for a general decision-making bias that they termed a person sensitvity bias. Specifically, a person sensitivity bias consists of a person positivity bias (D. O. Sears, 1983) under positive performance conditions and a person negativity bias under negative performance conditions. The...

The field of organizational justice continues to be marked by several important research questions, including the size of relationships among justice dimensions, the relative importance of different justice criteria, and the unique effects of justice dimensions on key outcomes. To address such questions, the authors conducted a meta-analytic review...

The field of organizational justice continues to be marked by several important research questions, including the size of relationships among justice dimensions, the relative importance of different justice criteria, and the unique effects of justice dimensions on key outcomes. To address such questions, the authors conducted a meta-analytic review...

Authors of two recent books, Smart Choices and The Win-Win-Solution, offer negotiation practitioners some new twists on how they can improve their decision-making processes. In the first book, Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa present a five-part “PrOACT” system, which features: an assessment of the problem; determination of objectives; exploration of al...

We contrast two hybrid dispute resolution procedures (arbitration-mediation and mediation-arbitration) that involve using mediation and arbitration in different sequences. The former's strengths stem from lowering disputant expectations and enhancing cooperative behaviors during the mediation phase. The latter procedure likely will be less costly a...

Wa use the interpersonal dispute resolution literature to develop hypotheses regarding how organizations respond to adjudicated conflicts, Our hypotheses were tested with dal:a from disputes litigated at the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware, which hal; been called "the chief arbiter of right and wrong in corporate America" (New York Times...

Although the resource allocation literature has frequently examined the decision rules used to distribute monetary resources, many other types of resources have not been systematically studied. In addition, very little is known about the allocation rules that might be used when resources are recovered (i.e., taken away) as opposed to distributed. A...

In a simulated three-issue organizational dispute, subjects were interrupted by a third party (their supervisor) who recommended—and eventually imposed—one of five different outcomes. Each outcome provided subjects the same overall payoff, though the arrangement of payoffs across each of the three issues varied. The design allowed us to evaluate fo...

Research on the distribution of resources typically focuses on anticipated outcomes. This paper investigates the social norms people use to distribute adventitious (unanticipated) outcomes. Participants in this study read a scenario where either they, or the person they were with (an acquaintance or a friend), received either an unexpected gain or...

Contemporary crisis in the idea and practice of corporate governance prompts a consideration of future resolution based on historical imperatives. We review periods of analogous crisis in corporate governance in the mid-1800s, 1930s, and 1960s to evaluate the catalyst, process, and outcome of paradigmatic change. Framing our analysis are the ruling...

Using the justice and impression management literatures as a guide we examined company responses to customer complaints in a field study. Explanations in which a company accepted responsibility for a problem resulted in the most favorable pattern of complainant reactions Inclusion of coupons or other reimbursements also led to more favorable reacti...

This study examined the dispute-resolution behavior of the "intravenor," a distinct third-party role in organizational dispute resolution. Unlike a mediator, whose involvement in the dispute is at the whim of the disputants, the intravenor can control the outcome of the dispute. Unlike an arbitrator, who is compelled to dictate the outcome of the d...

This study examined how outcome, appeal method, and group membership influenced judgments about procedural and distributive justice made by people who appealed parking violations using a university appeal procedure. It also compared two explanations for the effects of procedural justice. The results support the first explanation, the selfinterest m...

Two sources of 3rd-party partisanship are: (1) the preexisting affiliation a 3rd party may have with the negotiators and (2) the overt support a 3rd party demonstrates by imposing an outcome. In 2 experiments, Ss involved in a negotiation simulation were told prior to negotiation that the 3rd party was either positively affiliated with their side o...

Prior studies have suggested that "sunk costs," the amount of money already invested in a project, influence resource allocation decisions but have often confounded sunk costs with the degree to which a project is completed. To address this issue, we varied information about both sunk costs and project completion in two experiments. Our results sug...

Two sources of third-party partisanship are: (1) the preexisting affiliation a third party may have with the negotiators and (2) the overt support a third party demonstrates by imposing an outcome. In 2 experiments, subjects involved in a negotiation simulation were told prior to negotiation that the third party was either positively affiliated wit...

In a simulated organizational conflict, concession behavior by a negotiator's opponent was manipulated to examine how subsequent third party intervention would influence negotiator perceptions of process control, decision control, distributive justice, and the third party. Negotiators whose opponents made large concessions reciprocated by also maki...

This paper focuses on the relationship between the internal dynamics and success of a population of intense work groups, professional string quartets in Great Britain. We observed three basic paradoxes: leadership versus democracy, the paradox of the second violinist, and confrontation versus compromise. The central findings indicate that the more...

A simulated organizational dispute tested the impact of third party intervention on negotiator and constituent perceptions of procedural and distributive justice. The speed of third party intervention influenced perceptions of procedures more than perceptions of outcomes, and the perceptions of negotiators more than constituents. Outcome received i...

This study investigated the effects of different mediator behavioral styles and disputant knowledge regarding negotiation deadline on bargaining behavior. A 2 x 2 factorial design varied mediator behavioral style (task-oriented versus person-oriented) and deadline certainty (certain versus uncertain) in a simulated laboratory dispute. Disputants wi...

Computer-based experimental simulations are discussed as a specific type of simulation. Educational and research advantages of simulations are discussed in general terms, and two negotiation studies using a computer-based simulation are discussed in detail. The advantages and shortcomings of the negotiation simulation are discussed. The argument is...

It has generally been assumed that increases in the concrete outcomes of a procedure will result in judgments of greater procedural and distributive fairness, but research on this topic has been inconsistent. Using a classic procedural justice paradigm (Walker, LaTour, Lind, &. Thibaut, 1974), the experiment tested the effects of four levels of out...

The present study simulated a dispute to examine the influence of time pressure on mediator behavior and to test P. J. Carnevale's (1986, Negotiation Journal, 2, 41–56) strategic choice model of mediation. Time available for negotiation, mediator concern for the disputants' aspirations, and perceived probability of a mutually acceptable agreement w...

Mediators can pursue four basic strategies to facilitate bargaining: (a) integrate, which involves a search for efficient outcomes, (b) press, which involves attempts to lower the bargainer’s aspirations, (c) compensate, which involves offers of side payments, and (d) inaction, which involves letting the bargainers handle the dispute by themselves....