Conflict resolution styles in the nursing profession

Abstract

Background: Managers, including those in nursing environments, may spend much of their time addressing employee conflicts. If not handled properly, conflict may significantly affect employee morale, increase turnover, and even result in litigation, ultimately affecting the overall well-being of the organization. A clearer understanding of the factors that underlie conflict resolution styles could lead to the promotion of better management strategies. Objective: The aim of this research was to identify the predominant conflict resolution styles used by a sample of Spanish nurses in two work settings, academic and clinical, in order to determine differences between these environments. The effects of employment level and demographic variables were explored as well. Design: Descriptive cross-sectional survey study. Participants: Our sample consisted of professional nurses in Madrid, Spain, who worked in either a university setting or a clinical care setting. Within each of these environments, nurses worked at one of three levels: full professor, assistant professor, or scholarship professor in the academic setting; and nursing supervisor, registered staff nurse, or nursing assistant in the clinical setting. Methods: Conflict resolution style was examined using the standardized Thomas–Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, a dual-choice questionnaire that assesses a respondent’s predominant style of conflict resolution. Five styles are defined: accommodating, avoiding, collaborating, competing, and compromising. Participants were asked to give answers that characterized their dominant response in a conflict situation involving either a superior or a subordinate. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to examine the relationship between workplace setting and conflict resolution style. Results: The most common style used by nurses overall to resolve workplace conflict was compromising, followed by competing, avoiding, accommodating, and collaborating. There was a significant overall difference in styles between nurses who worked in an academic vs. a clinical setting (p = 0.005), with the greatest difference seen for the accommodating style. Of those nurses for whom accommodation was the primary style, 83% worked in a clinical setting compared to just 17% in an academic setting. Conclusion: Further examination of the difference in conflict-solving approaches between academic and clinical nursing environments might shed light on etiologic factors, which in turn might enable nursing management to institute conflict management interventions that are tailored to specific work environments and adapted to different employment levels. This research increases our understanding of preferred approaches to handling conflict in nursing organizations.