Ideas Made to Matter
Revisiting a classic negotiation framework
Insights into attitudinal restructuring and intra-organizational negotiations still hold the key to positive outcomes.
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Mary Rowe
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Mary Rowe is an Adjunct Professor of Negotiation and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
As a conflict management specialist and an expert in interpersonal negotiations, Rowe hears from hundreds of people a year about serious conflicts and concerns. She served for 42 years as an organizational ombuds reporting directly to five presidents of MIT.
Her research interests focus on the uses of power in interpersonal negotiations; harassment; dispute resolution system design; and coping with difficult people. She is especially interested in the role of “bystanders” in helping to affirm professional and productive behavior within organizations. Rowe taught Negotiations and Conflict Management for many years—and consults widely to corporations, academic institutions, and government agencies. Her writing probes the subtle inequities experienced by people who are nontraditional in any context, micro-affirmations, conflicts of interest, and other classic workplace problems.
Rowe holds a BA in history from Swarthmore College and a PhD in economics from Columbia University.
Publications
"Supporting Bystanders: See Something, Say Something is Not Enough."
Rowe, Mary, MIT Sloan Working Paper 5897-20. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, January 2020.
"A Framework for Communicating How Organizational Ombuds Help to Manage Risk."
Rowe, Mary, Timothy Hedeen, and Jennifer Schneider, MIT Sloan Working Paper 5812-19. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, January 2019.
"What do Organizational Ombuds Do? And Not Do?"
Rowe, Mary, Timothy Hedeen, and Jennifer Schneider, MIT Sloan Working Paper 5813-19. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, January 2019.
"Micro-inequities in Medicine."
Silver, Julie K., Mary Rowe, Michael S. Sinha, Diana M. Molinares, Nancy D. Spector, and Debjani Mukherjee. Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Vol. 10, No. 10 (2018): 1106-1114. Download paper.
"Fostering Constructive Action by Peers and Bystanders in Organizations and Communities."
Rowe, Mary. Negotiation Journal Vol. 34, No. 2 (2018): 137-163.
"Organizational Ombuds Accomplishments Reported in 2016 (With a Focus on Helping to Manage Risk)."
Rowe, Mary, MIT Sloan Working Paper 5387-18. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, April 2018.
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Ideas Made to Matter
Is your firm supporting bystanders?
For a company's conflict management system to be successful, it needs to support the people who report those conflicts.