Influence, enforcement and collaboration: Legitimating a conflict resolution approach to public administration

This study uses an existing theoretical framework for a conflict resolution approach to public administration, as well as theory developed by the researcher. Existing theory is predicated on the formal approach to resolving conflict, and advocates institutional support to ensure adequate exposure of public administrators to conflict resolution rationales and skills, in order to develop agency capacity for successful conflict resolution. The theoretical framework developed by the researcher builds on existing theory, and incorporates an informal approach to resolving conflict. The informal approach is predicated on public administrators collaborating with a multiplicity of societal interests: private business, unions, non-governmental organizations, and academics, and using informal influence in resolving institutional conflict. Collaboration between government and other societal interests would serve as an expression of government's sensitivity to the public's demands for openness and participation.; This study provides an analysis of a combined formal and informal approach to conflict resolution by exploring the perceived relevance of conflict resolution to public administration, by examining public administrators' roles in resolving institutional conflict, as well as the perceived legitimacy of public administrators in these roles. Specifically, the study analyzes the role of informal influence in resolving institutional conflict. Four questions are addressed: (1) In what ways does the conflict resolution approach relate to public administration? (2) Does public administrators' reliance on formal authority to resolve institutional conflict affect perceptions of administrative legitimacy? (3) Do public administrators have an informal role that allows them to use influence in resolving institutional conflict? (4) Does public administrators' reliance on informal influence to resolve institutional conflict affect perceptions of administrative legitimacy? By applying the combined formal and informal conflict resolution framework to Barbados and Trinidad, two Caribbean country settings that differ in terms of public administrators' roles in conflict resolution, the study attempts to develop an appropriate perspective.; The study is framed mainly within the qualitative genre and uses a constructivist grounded theory approach to explore and analyze respondents' feelings and meanings about their conflict resolution roles and to generate generic conceptual statements. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...