Conflict management: does imposing a penalty restore cooperation?
A persistent conflict over unmet commitments often leaves managers facing a choice: restate the rule or penalise non-compliance. The more useful question is narrower: under what conditions does a penalty encourage cooperation rather than turn a breach into a paid option?
What the literature establishes
Uri Gneezy and Aldo Rustichini (2000, The Journal of Legal Studies) studied the introduction of a fine for parents arriving late at childcare centres. Late arrivals increased after the fine was introduced and did not return to their initial level after it was removed. This finding challenges the assumption that adding a cost to a breach necessarily discourages it.
When punishment supports cooperation
Ernst Fehr and Simon Gächter (2002, Nature) show, in a public goods contribution experiment, that allowing participants to punish one another can support cooperation, even when punishment is costly to the person imposing it. Their design concerns punishment between participants, not a managerial disciplinary procedure. It nevertheless establishes that attaching a negative consequence to non-cooperation is not always counterproductive.
The premature conclusion
It would therefore be excessive to conclude either that penalties undermine cooperation or that they systematically restore it. One interpretation of the childcare finding is that the fine can make lateness seem like a service purchased rather than an obligation breached. For managers, the relevant distinction is between a measure that reaffirms an obligation and one understood as the price of being exempt from it. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What these findings cannot decide
Neither parental lateness nor an experimental game reproduces a workplace conflict embedded in ongoing relationships, operational constraints and employment law. These studies therefore cannot determine which HR sanction to choose or directly predict its effect in Sion. Instead, they invite managers to check how a measure is understood, without replacing the applicable procedures when safety, harassment or a legal obligation is at stake.
A practical check in Sion
Within SHR's “Gestion du conflit” programme, one possible exercise is to select, with a Sion-based team, a recurring commitment that is not safety-critical: administrative handovers in hydropower or healthcare, or coordinating availability in winegrowing or Alpine tourism. Before and after clarifying the rule and its consequences, track over two periods of equal length the proportion of commitments met among those due, while also documenting workload. Separately ask the people concerned whether the consequence means “the commitment remains mandatory” or “a breach becomes acceptable at a cost”. This record does not establish causality, but it allows the team to check whether the expected improvement occurs and whether the rule retains its intended meaning. To go further: explore the Conflict Management training in Sion in the canton of Valais, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Conflict Management in Sion
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