Paulo Marzionna, professor at FGV’s Sao Paulo School of Business Administration (EAESP), had his doctoral thesis from Cornell University nominated as an Honorable Mention in the Thomas A. Kochan and Stephen R. Sleigh's Best Dissertation Awards Competition, sponsored by the Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA). This is the main thesis competition in the field of ​​Labor Relations in the United States.

The study, entitled “Is this workplace bullying? Conflict management and workplace bullying in the Brazilian banking sector,” addresses the development of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods and other management strategies to address different conflicts in the work environment in the Brazilian banking sector, with particular attention to the issue of workplace bullying.

Based on interviews with managers of 14 banks and leaders of six industry trade unions, as well as an extensive research on the unions’ communication and journals, the results of the paper suggest that unions and banks have different understandings regarding the phenomenon of workplace bullying, with unions focusing on the structural aspects of bullying, while banks focus on the individual aspects of management. These different understandings, in turn, arise from the different mental models that these stakeholders use to interpret labor relations and influence the adoption of different strategies and tools of conflict management.

The survey also stresses how specific characteristics of each sector and different types of conflicts play a key role in the establishment of conflict management strategies by different stakeholders in labor relations.

The awards ceremony will be held on June 15, in Cleveland.