INDIGENOUS CONFLICT MANAGEMENT: FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE STRATEGIES. A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Abstract

There are several possible ways to respond to conflict situations as a managerial intervention to solve it. The current understanding of such conflict management strategies was framed without adequately considering indigenous practices. Therefore, the objective of this systematic review was to explore the contributors and determinants of the effectiveness of indigenous conflict management strategies. The findings indicated that factors such as shared dialogue, empowering indigenous structures, symbolic ritual procedures, flexibility, ease, friendliness, compassion, less costless, timeliness, transparency, inclusiveness, adequate interests representation, power sharing, and diversity recognition contributed positively to its effectiveness. Nonetheless, poor language choice and communication barriers, lack of legal empowerment, corrupt behavior of negotiators, and negative attitudes became hindrances to its value. This review identified that indigenous conflict management strategies have valuable managerial application potential in the field of conflict interventions. However, the review was limited to only positive and negative contributors to indigenous conflict management strategies. Keywords: Conflict, Conflict management, Effectiveness, Indigenous strategies, Systematic review