Conflict Management Skills Research Articles

Developing Conflict Management Skills in Hong Kong: An Analysis of some Cross-Cultural Implications

This paper reports the results of an empirical study into the orientations towards conflict and preferred conflict management styles of Chinese managers in Hong Kong. The differences in styles between Chinese and Western managers are then traced back to aspects of Chinese culture and traditional values. The difficulties caused by these contrasting styles, both for the transfer of western managerial practices and for the operation of multi-ethnic organisations in Hong Kong, are noted. Similarly, the effects of these cultural values on the preferred Chinese learning styles are also discussed. Finally, the problems of attempting to develop the acquisition of contingent conflict handling skills by Chinese managers in Hong Kong are addressed and two central problems of attitude change and learning style identified.

Teaching conflict management skills in corporate training: A perspective‐taking approach

Teaching conflict management skills in corporate training: A perspective‐taking approach

Evaluation of a program for improving conflict management skills of special services directors

Results are reported of an evaluation of a program for improving skills of public school special services directors in managing conflict between parents of handicapped children and multidisciplinary teams. Four directors were provided instruction in conflict management by means of four, 3 1 2 hour sessions that included behavioral specification of conflict management skills to be acquired, modeling of appropriate skills, role play exercises, performance feedback, and social approval for correct performance. Assessment of conflict management skills involved measurement of each director's conflict management performance prior to and following the program in simulation and in actual school settings. The results indicated that increases in conflict management skills occurred for all directors following the program. In addition, videotaped ratings of each director's performance made by other directors who did not participate in the program were higher after the programs were carried out.

Perspectives of women researchers on disarmament, national security, and world order

Synopsis Forty women scholars professionally active in the fields of disarmament, national security and world order from 17 countries responded to questions regarding their own current and planned research, their evaluation of existing work in these fields, their estimates of the possible major steps toward disarmament, and their views on whether women researchers approach disarmament questions differently than men. The respondents divided into (1) those seeking new conceptual frameworks in order to remedy security problems in the existing social order and (2) those searching for new social structure, seeing the existing order as itself an obstacle to peace. Both groups rejected current research as lacking significant concepts, bogged down in meaningless detail, too parochial, with too little attention to process and conflict-management skills. The New Frameworks scholars focus on better process models for describing international interaction. The New Order scholars focus on alternative, more localist models of the international order. Both groups show skill in relating macrolevel data to the human experience of conflict. Most preferred to be recognized as scholars as per se , not as women scholars, but many felt that their marginal status in a predominately male research field made them more objective, gave them a more wholistic view of the problems of war and peace, than their male colleagues. It is recommended that women be given more support as researchers in this field, and that their perspectives be taken account of.

Students against the school establishment: Crisis intervention in school conflicts and organizational change

Conflicts between students and school personnel, especially those related to the students' lack of decision making power, are aften handled in destructive ways due to the lack of structural means within educational organizations of conflict management and the general lack of conflict management skills of students and school personnel. Student-school conflicts often lead to organizational change by making the status quo intolerable. It is possible for individuals within and outside the school to facilitate the constructive resolution of student-school conflicts in ways which promote organizational growth and development.