About

Alexander James Colvin is the Kenneth F. Kahn '69 Dean and the Martin F. Scheinman '75, 'MS '76 Professor of Conflict Resolution at the ILR School, Cornell University. His research and teaching focus on employment dispute resolution, with particular emphasis on procedures in nonunion workplaces and the influence of the legal environment on organizations. His current research projects include empirical investigations of employment arbitration and cross-national studies of dispute resolution systems. He has published extensively in leading journals and is the co-author of several books on labor relations and conflict management. Dean Colvin holds a J.D. from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. from Cornell University. Before joining Cornell in 2008, he taught at Penn State University from 1999 to 2008. His work contributes significantly to understanding employment dispute resolution processes, their outcomes, and their implications for organizations and workers.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Economics
• Engineering
• Law
• Positive economics
• Political economy
• Environmental science

Selected publications

• When Mandatory Binding Arbitration Met the Class Action: Why We Were Right to Worry

  2025-08-21

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This article considers the impact of arbitration on the future of class actions. In the author’s view, if litigants successfully meet the prerequisites for a class action, reviewing courts may: (1) order that the parties use arbitration to resolve the dispute, thus precluding claimants from using court or an arbitration venue for their class claims; (2) refuse to send the parties to arbitration, instead permitting claimants to litigate their class claims; (3) order that the dispute be resolved through a class arbitration process; or (4) order the dispute to arbitration but allow the arbitrators to determine whether the dispute should be resolved individually or on a class basis. The article concludes that when the parties agree to a broad arbitration clause, it is inappropriate to exclude an entire class of disputes from arbitration, unless permitting class arbitration would violate constitutional, statutory, or contractual interests. This article advocates that Congress enact legislation to prevent companies from using binding arbitration clauses to eliminate class actions entirely if society believes that companies should not be allowed to insulate themselves from class actions, and courts fail to accept the statutory and contractual arguments set out in this article or elsewhere.

  PublisherDOI

• A fragmented and heavily privatized dispute resolution system: The United States

  Industrial Relations Journal · 2023-07-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract The United States possesses a highly fragmented and decentralized set of mechanisms addressing work‐related conflicts and disputes. There are consequential differences in how workplace conflicts are resolved across the following settings—union and nonunion or collective and individual, public and private sectors, traditional and nonstandard employment models, and public and private forums. An important trend is the growing influence in the nonunion sector of ‘private justice’ provided in employment arbitration and conflict management systems as a replacement for ‘public justice’, and in the union sector, private neutrals also play a key role.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Effects of Breaking Up Sedentary Behavior With Short Bouts of Yoga and Tai-Chi on Glycemia, Concentration, and Well-Being

  Journal of Physical Activity and Health · 2023-11-22 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  BACKGROUND: Investigating the effects of breaking up sedentary behavior with short bouts of Yoga and Tai-Chi on glycemic control, concentration, and well-being in healthy individuals. METHODS: In this randomized balanced incomplete block study, 15 adults (age = 26 [2.50] y, 8 females) completed 2 of 3 protocols: uninterrupted sitting (Control), sitting interrupted with 3 minutes of Yoga every 30 minutes, or with 3 minutes of Tai-Chi every 30 minutes. Protocols lasted 7.5 hours and included a standardized diet. Glucose was measured every 30 minutes with a glucometer (Abbott FreeStyle Libre). Concentration and well-being were recorded with self-reported ecological momentary assessment. Area under the curve was calculated for glucose data. Statistical analyses were performed as a hierarchical repeated-measures model. RESULTS: Glucose area under the curve for the Yoga intervention (34.55 [3.12] mmol/L) was significantly lower than the Control (38.14 [3.18] mmol/L; P < .05). There was a trend toward lower glucose in the Tai-Chi group compared with the Control, but no significant differences were found (AUCTai-Chi = 36.64 [3.11] mmol/L; P = .57). Mean concentration in all groups decreased throughout the day, with the largest decrease in the Control. Well-being for the Yoga and Control groups decreased but increased with Tai-Chi. Concentration and well-being responses were not statistically significant between intervention groups. CONCLUSIONS: Breaking up sedentary behavior using 3-minute bouts of Yoga significantly lowers blood glucose in healthy individuals without compromising concentration or well-being. Tai-Chi did not provide the same significant effect on glucose levels but allowed better maintenance of concentration and well-being. These interventions provide effective ways to combat the deleterious effects of prolonged sedentary time while maintaining concentration and well-being.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Changing face of public agencies in workplace conflict resolution: A six country study

  Industrial Relations Journal · 2023-07-01

  articleOpen access

  Abstract This six‐country study includes examination of the institutional context in which public agencies for conflict resolution operate; the internal and external pressures for change in the activities of these agencies, including the shift from collective to individual forms of workplace conflict; the extent to which the changes being introduced are altering the traditional organizational character or culture of these bodies; and the effects of the pandemic on how public agencies involved in conflict resolution carry out their work.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Mandatory Employment Arbitration

  Annual Review of Law and Social Science · 2023-07-17 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This article offers a comprehensive overview of the academic literature concerning mandatory employment arbitration and existing empirical evidence. Proponents of mandatory employment arbitration contend mandatory arbitration provides access to justice to those excluded from the traditional civil litigation system. Conversely, opponents of mandatory employment arbitration assert that it is a coercive system that disproportionately benefits employers and disadvantages employees. Although these entrenched perceptions of mandatory employment arbitration are not new, an expanding body of recent empirical research provides fresh insights. The empirical literature reveals lower employee success rates and financial awards, longer case resolution times, and evidence of a repeat player effect in arbitration relative to civil litigation and, as a whole, tends to support arguments made by opponents of the forum. This article reviews the literature on the major debates surrounding employment arbitration and corresponding empirical evidence.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• New Directions in Employment Relations Theory: Understanding Fragmentation, Identity, and Legitimacy

  ILR Review · 2021 · 75 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Sociology

  This article introduces the special issue on New Theories in Employment Relations. The authors summarize the history of employment relations theory and reflect on the implications of recent disruptive changes in the economy and society for new theory development. Three sets of changes are identified: the growing complexity of actors in the employment relationship, an increased emphasis on identity as a basis for organizing and extending labor protections, and the growing importance of norms and legitimacy as both a constraint on employer action and a mobilizing tool. The articles in this special issue advance new frameworks to analyze these changes and their implications for the future of employment relations.

  PublisherDOI

• Comments The River’s Source: Empirical Research and Lisa Blomgren Amsler’s <i>Employment Arbitration: The Repeat Player Effect</i>

  2021-06-16

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Extract Lisa Blomgren Amsler's classic article was a groundbreaking piece of work in the genuine sense that it broke new ground on an important issue and laid the path for subsequent work in the area. As I will describe in this commentary, my own research, along with that of others in this field, was deeply influenced by the crucial initial steps that Amsler took. By the late 1990s mandatory employment arbitration had become a topic of increasing academic and public policy debate. Public policy concerns had led to the creation of the Due Process Protocol. Important legal scholarship on the topic by scholars such as Katherine Stone and Richard Bales had already been published. What Amsler's article brought to the issue, however, was a new focus on empirical analysis of what was happening in employment arbitration and a new set of issues to examine. Amsler's article is most known for raising and examining the question of whether there was a repeat player effect in employment arbitration. Repeat player effects had been famously identified in the litigation arena long before by Marc Galanter, analyzed elsewhere in this volume. But Amsler was the first to identify and systematically analyze repeat player effects in employment arbitration. Her article was built on the crucial insight that the ability of the parties to select the decision maker in an arbitration procedure increased the potential for a repeat player effect favoring employers.

  PublisherDOI

• Employment relations in the United States

  Routledge eBooks · 2020 · 15 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Political Science
  • Environmental science

  In accord with the relatively strong role that market forces have played in United States (US) economic history, the USs has long been noted for a high degree of diversity in the conditions under which employees work. High capital mobility, relatively weak government regulation of employment conditions and decentralised collective bargaining, then, helped make the US industrial relations system part of an archetypal liberal market economy in the view of those who adopt a Varieties of Capitalism paradigm. In the United States, all the participants in the employment relations system retain some influence. Jobs found in the union sector—even in industries, such as construction, that faced substantial cyclical economic volatility—led the way in developing structured and well-paid employment practices. A substantial body of private ‘law’ has grown up through arbitral decisions, providing employment relations with a set of norms that are often used in the non-union sector, as well as the union sector.

  PublisherDOI

• The Metastasization of Mandatory Arbitration

  Chicago-Kent law review · 2019-02-09 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Mandatory arbitration procedures have expanded to become a common feature of American employment relations. This article presents the results of a new original survey examining the extent of mandatory arbitration, where it is most commonly used, and which employees it is most likely to affect. Overall, 53.9 percent of private sector business establishments, representing 56.2 percent of nonunion employees, have mandatory arbitration procedures. Larger employers are more likely to have adopted mandatory arbitration, as are workplaces with lower paid employees. Mandatory arbitration is particularly common in California, North Carolina, and Texas, but is widespread nationwide. Class action waivers are included in the mandatory arbitration agreements of 41.1 percent of the employees covered by these procedures. Some 39.5 percent of the mandatory arbitration procedures were adopted within the last five years, indicating that there has been a rapid recent growth in this practice. These findings indicate a metastasization of mandatory arbitration, where it has now replaced litigation as the most common method of enforcement of employment rights for nonunion employees, with potential major negative consequences for workers.

  Publisher

• Decision-Maker and Context Effects in Employment Arbitration

  Industrial and Labor Relations Review · 2019-11-04 · 4 citations

  articleSenior author

  Using a novel survey of 274 employment arbitrators, this study investigates how decision-maker characteristics and the context of the arbitration proceeding affect employee outcomes. The authors analyze the predictors of settlement before an arbitrator award and, if no settlement is reached, the likelihood that an employee will receive a favorable verdict after a full hearing. Findings show that pre-arbitration dispute resolution procedures, such as mediation, have significant effects on settlement behavior and employee outcomes. The characteristics of the presiding arbitrator as well as the structure of the arbitration proceeding also influence employee outcomes at trial. This study contributes to the existing literature by describing the characteristics of employment arbitrators—an underexplored actor in industrial relations. In addition, it analyzes case outcomes, including settlements, across multiple arbitration forums and with more rigorous controls than those applied in existing data sets.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Paul Teague

  112 shared

• William K. Roche

  111 shared

• Rosemary Batt

  Cornell University

  39 shared

• Jeffrey H. Keefe

  Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

  35 shared

• Harry C. Katz

  34 shared

• Thomas A. Kochan

  27 shared

• John W. Budd

  University of Missouri

  14 shared

• Mark Gough

  10 shared

Labs

• Buffalo Co-LabPI

Awards & honors

• 2003 Outstanding Young Scholar Award from the Industrial Rel…
• 2000 Best Dissertation Award from the IRRA