ABSTRACT
Third party intervention has had a rich and important role in the management of conflict. One can think back to the story of King Solomon’s wise decision when two women from his Kingdom came to him, each arguing that a baby was hers. Solomon threatened to cut the baby in half, realizing that the real mother would rather the baby live-even if given to the wrong woman-than let the baby die. Solomon’s story, even if apocryphal, points to an established human tradition going back for millennia of third party conflict resolution. We hope that scholars and researchers have learned a few things in these intervening years since King Solomon’s story was written. The purpose of this chapter is to investigate and integrate our current understanding of this issue as it applies to organizations.
