Transformative Mediation at the United States Postal Service

This article reviews the results of a 12-year longitudinal research program on transformative mediation of employment discrimination complaints at the United States Postal Service. The research employed mixed methods, including quantitative and qualitative survey methods, interviews, and archival data. This article focuses on how that research examined facilitative and transformative mediation styles. The research illustrates that organizational context can shape the effects of a mediator's style. It also indicates that the transformative style - by emphasizing the goals of disputant empowerment as well as recognition and by preventing mediator evaluation - may heighten disputants' perceptions of interpersonal justice (i.e. between the disputants) and reduce the perceptions of structural bias.