The Reconstruction of Workplace Conflict Resolution: The Road to the Workplace Relations Commission in Ireland

Many attempts have been made in recent decades by liberal market economies to reconstruct public workplace conflict resolution agencies in response to major changes in patterns of workplace conflict. These have often been hampered or stymied by political schisms, stalemate or inertia. The radical reconstruction of conflict resolution in Ireland marks out a major exception to the international pattern and represents a case of successful adaptation and innovation in conflict resolution services and supports. Drawing on detailed primary research, and aimed at scholars, policy makers, professionals and students, this book examines the drivers of innovation in the Irish case and shows how the new state agency for workplace conflict resolution, the Workplace Relations Commission, operates and maintains the confidence of employers, unions, people at work and government. The Irish case is considered in comparative context, and current strategic challenges facing the Workplace Relations Commission are assessed.

William K. Roche is Full Professor of Industrial Relations and Human Resources at the College of Business, University College Dublin. He is a graduate of UCD and completed his doctorate at the University of Oxford, where he was Heyworth Memorial Prize Research Fellow of Nuffield College. He has held visiting professorships at the University of South Australia, Adelaide and at the University of Melbourne and the Cyprus International Institute of Management. He was a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute, Florence. He is a Fellow of the Geary Institute for Public Policy at UCD.

Paul Teague is Emeritus Professor of Management at The Queen’s University Belfast. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and has been a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Massachusetts. He is a Fellow of the Irish Academy of Management. He has written widely on the themes of the employment relations consequences of deeper European integration, social partnership and employment performance, workplace conflict management and human resources in the recession. He has published over 50 papers in top‑tier journals on these themes.

Denise Currie is a Reader in Human Resource Management at Queen’s Business School. She is also a graduate of Queen’s Business School, where she completed her PhD on conflict management in business networks (2010). Her current activities lie broadly in employee relations with particular interest in the various dynamics and organizational processes that are integral to creating positive working environments. Specifically, she has interests in workforce conflict, cooperation and collaboration, wellbeing, and diversity and inclusion.