The Influence of Gender on Conflict Management Style

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MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

MGT 6230

ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND LEADERSHIP

“The Influence of Gender on Conflict Management Style”

Zara Fathia Muflihani G1615926

Prepared for: Prof. Dr. Arif Hassan

1. Executive Summary

The purpose of this project paper is to study the influence of gender on conflict management style in organization. It aims to see whether there is differences style and ways of males and females act and communicate in organization and which conflict management style that both of them use for managing conflict. The study of influence of gender on conflict management in organization has done by many scholars and conflict management specialist. Conflict is an inevitable and common issue in our daily lives especially in organization. Organizational conflict is common in the workplace because employee have different opinion, goal or purposes, belief, and interests.

In recent era, one of the trends in workplace or organization is workforce diversity. The most interesting issue is the increasing number of women in the workforce. Based on data World Bank in 2014 provides the number of female participation in workforce achieved 50.29% and it is slightly different with the figure of male participation in workforce which 76.73%. With the great number of female participation in workforce, the possible effect of gender differences in the ability to manage conflict comes to mind. The study of influence of gender on conflict management has done by many scholar and conflict management specialists to know how males and females employee manage their conflict in the workplace and organization. Managing conflict play important role for organization because it involves implementing strategies to limit the negative aspects of conflict and to increase the positive aspect of conflict.

Conflict can significantly affect employee job description focus, turnover, even the risk of litigation. All of these factors in turn impact the prosperity of an organization, either constructively or destructively. Management can help resolve conflict by understanding the differences between males and females, so that manager can make suggestion to resolve the conflict effectively to strengthen their relationship. Also conflict management is a very important skill within an organization to achieve the organization’s objectives and goals. Therefore we conclude that conflict itself is not destructive and that, when constructively managed, it can help us dig into issues, understand problems and create solutions.

1. Objectives of Study

The main objective was to investigate the influence of gender on conflict management in organization.

1. To find out the differences communication style between males and females in organization.
2. To know which conflict management style that males and females use in organization to solve the conflict.
3.  Research Questions

1. Are there meaningful differences among males and females employee in communication style?
2. What types of conflict management style that males and females use in organization to solve the conflict?

1. Method

This is a narrative research that describe the differences among males and females in communication style in organization or workplace and explain the types of conflict management style that males and females use in organization to solve the conflict. Overall review has been divided into four main part: definition of conflict, gender differences in conflict management style, conflict management and empirical findings from several journals.

1. Literature Review

1. Definition of conflict in organization

Conflict is associated to the central processes of people and their association with the surroundings and is, therefore, an unavoidable part of organizational life (Jones and George, 2003). Rahim (2001) defined conflict as an interactive process manifested in incompatibility, disagreement, or dissonance within or between social entities. Conflict is common issue happen in every organization. Different scholars defined organization conflict in different ways. According Roloff (1987) defined conflict as organizational conflict occurs when members engage in activities that are incompatible with those of colleagues within their network, members of other collectivities or unaffiliated individuals who utilize the services or products of the organization. Organizational conflict is the discord that arises when the goals, interests or values of different individuals or groups are incompatible and those individuals or groups block or thwart one another’s attempts to achieve their objective (Jones & George, 2014).

1. Factors cause conflict

Conflicts may also arise when the behavior or actions of people, teams, or departments violate the rules, regulations, or social norms of an organization. There are some factors cause organization conflict (Starks, 2006). The first factor is differences in opinions, personalities, knowledge, education, and experience. The second is natural results of diversity based on such characteristics as age, ethnicity, gender, etc. The third is project or process differences. Then virtual and/or self-managed work teams and the last is rapid change.  According to McShane and Von Glinow (2008) there are six main conditions that cause conflict in organization setting such us, incompatible goals, differentiation, task interdependence, scarce resources, ambiguous rules, and communication problems.

1. Conflict management

In order to solve organizational conflict, many scholars ware conducted conflict management model. The most popular and widely used is Rahim’s organizational conflict inventory (ROCI-II). Rahim’s model of handling conflict varies according to two basic dimensions: concern for self and concern for others. These dimensions incorporate five conflict management styles. These style are integrating, compromising, avoiding, dominating, and obliging.

The Integrating style, also known as Problem Solving, indicates high concern for self and others. It involves collaboration between the parties that are willing to reach a mutual and acceptable solution through openness, exchange of information, examination and exploration of differences for arriving to a constructive solution that goes far beyond personal and limited visions of the problem. Rahim highlights the two distinctive elements of this style suggested by Prein (Rhaim, 2011): 1) confrontation that is characterized by open communication, clarify misunderstanding, examining the underlying causes of conflicts; 2) and problem solving. Confrontation is considered as prerequisite of problem solving that implies the identification of appropriate solutions aiming to provide maximum and reciprocal satisfaction of concern of parties involved.