The strategic use of caucus to facilitate parties' trust in mediators

Purpose - Mediators' impartiality and empathy are two classical factors in the parties' trust in mediators. However, mediators are often torn between being impartial and being empathetic. The aim of this paper is to explore this empirically. Design/methodology/approach - This study empirically tests the strategic use of caucus to improve the interaction between impartiality and empathy by splitting them into two phases: impartiality in joint sessions and empathy in caucus. Findings - The strategy did create significant synergy between impartiality and empathy with the main impact of reducing the time needed to reach an agreement. Research limitations/implications - All research data come from workplace mediation and from the same organization. Although it can be reasonably postulated that the results can be generalized to other mediation settings, this remains to be proven. Practical implications - When mediators use the trust caucus strategy, impartiality and empathy work better together and parties put more weight on empathy than on impartiality. While the use of the trust caucus does not increase the likelihood of reaching agreement, it does significantly decrease the time needed to conclude an agreement. Originality/value - The study uses a quasi-experimental design to test its hypothesis. Furthermore, the study uses real mediation cases.