Conflict-handling Modes Research Articles

Relationships of Victimization, Machiavellianism and Conflict Behavior

The article establishes the mutual links between the victimization, personal Machiavellianism and the conflict-handling modes. Many of these relationships depend on gender and age. A total of 732 subjects participated in the study: 285 women, 110 men, 180 girls and 157 boys. The victimization of subjects was evaluated using the author’s test of victimization for adults, Machiavellianism was evaluated with the help of the Mac-IV test, conflict-handling modes was evaluated with the TKI test. Victimization is associated with Machiavellianism, which correlates positively with general victimization, aggressive and uncritical behavior in men, women, boys and girls. In addition, the Machiavellianism in men, women and young men is positively associated with the addictive behavior and with realized victimization, the Machiavellianism of young men and women is associated with self-destructive and non-critical behavior, in young men it is associated with dependent behavior and with realized victimization. The nature of the relationship between victimization and conflict-handling modes is different for the components of victimization and modes. The Competing in men and women, boys and girls is positively associated with general victimization and aggressive behavior. The Accommodating in women and men is negatively correlated with general victimization and aggressive behavior, and in women it is associated with self-destructive and non-critical behavior. The Avoiding in women is negatively correlated with self-destructive and non-critical behavior and with realized victimization, in men it is positively associated with dependent behavior, and in young men it is associated with self-destructive behavior. Compromising in men, women, boys and girls is negatively correlated with general victimization and aggressive behavior. The Collaborating is negatively associated with general victimization and with aggressive behavior in young men and women, and in young men it is also associated with uncritical behavior. The Machiavellianism of men, women and young men is positively associated with Competing and it is negatively associated with Accommodating.

Conflict-Handling Mode Scores of Three Crews Before and After a 264-Day Spaceflight Simulation

In both the Russian and U.S. space programs, crew safety and mission success have at times been jeopardized by critical incidents related to psychological, behavioral, and interpersonal aspects of crew performance. The modes used for handling interpersonal conflict may play a key role in such situations. This study analyzed conflict-handling modes of three crews of four people each before and after a 264-d spaceflight simulation that was conducted in Russia in 1999-2000. Conflict was defined as a situation in which the concerns of two or more individuals appeared to be incompatible. Participants were assessed using the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, which uses 30 forced-choice items to produce scores for five modes of conflict handling. Results were compared to norms developed using managers at middle and upper levels of business and government. Both before and after isolation, average scores for all crews were above 75% for Accommodating, below 25% for Collaborating, and within the middle 50% for Competing, Avoiding, and Compromising. Statistical analyses showed no significant difference between the crews and no statistically significant shift from pre- to post-isolation. A crew predisposition to use Accommodating most and Collaborating least may be practical in experimental settings, but is less likely to be useful in resolving conflicts within or between crews on actual flights. Given that interpersonal conflicts exist in any environment, crews in future space missions might benefit from training in conflict management skills.

The Army, NEPA, and Risk Communication

AbstractIn the short period of two or perhaps three days of training, you can become aware of and practice the skills required to incorporate risk communications into your management philosophy. Risk communications training, to be effective, must incorporate role‐playing and include the following: effective listening; a stress on nonverbal communications; conflict handling modes; trust and credibility; dialogue; and positional and principled negotiation.Learning by doing is the best axiom in developing these oral communications skills. And while these skills are related to public relations, they are very different from public affairs skills you may have been exposed to such as dealing with media “sound bites.” Besides, most public relations are handled by the public affairs office. Risk communications is for when you're on your own.Seek out this training for yourself or even your entire environmental staff so that your effectiveness as an environmental manager is enhanced. You will never be able to win emotionally charged activists over to your position. However, by employing risk communication skills in addressing their opposition in public meetings, you will have a positive impact on open‐minded, undecided individuals who witness this exchange.You will most likely win them over to your position and thereby incrementally increase those who support a reasoned, balanced, and environmentally sound decision. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Nurse educators'/administrators' ways of handling conflict.

Using women's standpoint research to analyze the data, a qualitative, retrospective case study was undertaken to study the group process among 27 female nurse educators/administrators who met from 1987 to 1990. The group was engaged in making major changes to integrate nursing education programs from a variety of institutions. Part of the research involved studying the group's conflict-handling strategies. These strategies were compared and contrasted with strategies found in traditional, feminist, and nursing management literature. In the traditional management literature, five conflict-handling modes are described: competing, compromising, avoiding, integrating, and accommodating. Although the research results indicated similarities between the conflict-handling modes used by the group studied and those reported in the research literature, there also were significant differences. One unique strategy identified was not competing. Competing as a strategy was rejected. Compromising and avoiding were used frequently by the group. Integrating, the most efficacious strategy, was used to resolve only two issues, whereas accommodating was not identified as an obvious strategy, although two aspects of it were apparent. One conclusion is that conflict management theories based on men's behavior do not adequately explain nurses' (women's) conflict management behavior. This study suggests that nurse educators/administrators may have a distinct approach to conflict management that has not been recognized.

Intergroup conflict and conflict management in the R&D divisions of four aerospace companies

The author examined the intergroup conflict between R&D managers and non-managers in four aerospace companies, as well as the relationship between each of the five conflict-handling modes: competition, accommodation, sharing, collaboration, and avoidance, with the following variables: conflict frequency, job satisfaction, and job performance. The research findings indicate that intergroup conflicts were in the areas of goals, reward, control, authority, and insufficient assistance from technical support staff. Furthermore, intergroup conflict and conflict management were found to have both positive and negative consequences. Competition and avoidance were found to have exacerbated the frequency of conflict, and they had a negative impact on performance. Collaboration was found to have ameliorated the frequency of conflict, and it had a rather high positive impact on performance. Both sharing and accommodation were found to be inconsistently related to conflict frequency, and they had an inconsistent impact on performance. For three organizations, job satisfaction was negatively related to conflict frequency and avoidance while it was negatively related to accommodation based on one sample of subjects from one organization only. Competition, sharing, and collaboration were not found to be significantly related to job satisfaction. >

Deans of nursing: perceived sources of conflict and conflict-handling modes.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between sources of conflict with nursing faculty and deans' conflict-handling styles. A three-part questionnaire was sent to 257 deans of baccalaureate nursing programs. One hundred sixty-seven deans responded. The findings showed that deans identified two levels of conflict with nursing faculty, and sources of conflict leading to each level. Deans perceived no change in conflict-handling styles in relation to conflict source or perceived effect. In addition, significant relationships were found among conflict-handling modes, conflict sources, and demographic data.

Relationships Among Personality, Conflict Resolution Styles, and Task Effectiveness

Using a sample of 114 MBA students in a Business Policy simulation, relationships among personality, conflict-handling modes of behav ior, and group task effectiveness are hypothesized and tested Empiri cal support was found associating personality with preference for the smoothing forcing and confrontation modes of conflict resolution. These preferences were associated with actual behaviors and the ac tual behaviors were associated with group task effectiveness.

A Study of the Relationship between Jungian Personality Dimensions and Conflict-Handling Behavior

This study investigated potential personality predispositions to interpersonal conflict-handling behavior. The design of the study represents an advancement over previous research as both males and females were studied in a controlled context of conflict introduced via a business simulation game. Jungian personality dimensions and conflict-handling modes were assessed and a significant relationship was found between subjects' decision-making preference (thinking-feeling) and their choice of conflict-handling behavior. Some sex differences in conflict-handing behavior were also found. The findings of this study have implications for conflict management, personnel selection, and placement of individuals in organizations.

Deans in Canadian Universities: A Managerial Perspective

The main objective of this article is to investigate the dean's roles and functions from a managerial perspective. It reports the findings of an empirical study con- ducted in selected Canadian universities which tried to identify the dimensions of an effective deanship and find correlates of effective performance for a dean. More specifically, this article focuses on the following variables and their relation- ships: dean's managerial effectiveness, dean's conflict-handling modes, length of time the dean has served in office and size of the dean's faculty.

Toward Multi-Dimensional Values in Teaching: The Example of Conflict Behaviors

The article examines the role of values in business education and proposes a philosophy of education with respect to value positions. The author notes that due to increasing political and ethical issues being raised in business there has become a growing interest to include a value-oriented aspect in the business education curriculum. He examines how values play a role in areas such as conflict management and discusses some of the conflict-handling modes which include; competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding and accommodating. He closes by discussing the need to develop teaching strategies that take into account differences in strengths and weaknesses between students in order for students to get the most out of their individual skills.

Developing a Forced-Choice Measure of Conflict-Handling Behavior: The "Mode" Instrument

This paper describes the rationale and development of a new measure of five interpersonal conflict-handling modes (competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding, and accommodating), which attempts to control for the social desirability response bias. The instrument is entitled: "Management-of-Differences Exercise," or the MODE instrument. The results of this study indicate that the new instrument significantly reduces the social desirability bias for overall population tendencies in comparison to three other conflict behavior instruments, although all four instruments may still be susceptible to some individual tendencies in this response bias. This study also investigated other aspects of substantive validity and structural validity. Lastly, this paper presented emerging evidence on external validity, which, while encouraging, suggests the need for continuing research efforts to investigate this aspect of validity for the new MODE instrument.

Support for a two-dimensional model of conflict behavior

The limitations of the unidimensional “cooperative-competitive” classification of interpersonal conflict-handling behavior are discussed, and a model is proposed which includes two dimensions: a cooperative dimension and an assertiveness dimension. Two studies were conducted to investigate whether individuals use the two dimensions in understanding another's conflict-handling behavior. In Study I, 150 subjects engaged in a negotiation task. Each subject rated another's use of five conflict-handling modes and described the person on a semantic differential. A factor analysis of the semantic differential yielded an evaluative factor and a dynamism factor. Next, ratings of the other's conflict-handling modes were collapsed into indices of cooperation and assertiveness. The index of cooperation was correlated with the evaluative factor but not with the dynamism factor. In contrast, the index of assertiveness was correlated with the dynamism factor but not the evaluative factor. In Study II, 65 subjects completed semantic differentials in response to hypothetical conflict-handling behavior of another. A factor analysis again identified evaluative and dynamism factors. The mean ratings of the evaluative and dynamism factors for the five conflict-handling modes were consistent with the expectations based on the two-dimensional model. Thus, two studies using different designs yielded rather consistent results supporting the two-dimensional model.

Interpersonal conflict-handling behavior as reflections of Jungian personality dimensions.

This study has sought to investigate the Jungian psychological correlates of an individual's choice of different interpersonal conflict-handling modes: competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding, and accommodating. These five modes were defined according to the two basic behavioral dimensions of assertiveness and cooperativeness and were also related to integrative and distributive dimensions. The results suggest that the Jungian functions related to judging (thinking vs feeling) and the type of enactment (introverted vs extraverted) are significantly related to an individual's conflict-handling behavior. The study concludes with a schematic illustration of these Jungian functions plotted upon the basic behavioral dimensions which define and characterize the five conflict-handling modes.