Tackling Conflict and Relational Breakdown in Mediation: Insights into an Interview Study with Parties to Workplace Mediation

Whilst a large conceptual literature suggests that mediation elicits improvement in parties’ relationships there is a lack of interpretative enquires that investigate relational changes in mediation from the participants’ perspectives. This paper aims to address this gap by presenting two main themes from a qualitative research study conducted at the University of Hull, UK. The study uses interviews with parties’ to workplace mediation and interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) that provides a rigorous and profound analysis explicating the individual’s personal experiences. The analysis outlines participants’ perception of mediation as a process that leads to a relationship of different quality. Mediation as being predominantly a learning process and the mediator’s tools facilitating the change process are outlined. The paper provides a rich portrait of the dynamics of relational changes, which will be of benefit to both academics and practitioners seeking new insights in a wide arena of conflict resolution and organisational disciplines.