| Conflict is inevitable and is part of social life. Song, Dyer, and Thieme (2006) stated "conflict management in firms appears to be more critical than ever" (p. 344). However, the lack of understanding the relationship between personality and conflict management styles is apparent. Very few research studies have examined the relationship between the five-factor personality and conflict management styles with inconsistent or even conflicting findings (Antonioni, 1998; Pepin, 2005; Whitworth, 2005). This lack of understanding may hinder organizational participants' especially leaders' effectiveness of handling interpersonal conflict in the workplace. This quantitative, correlational study examined the relationship between the five-factor personality at both the facet and domain levels and conflict management styles by surveying employees at a manufacturing facility of one of the Fortune 200 companies in the northeastern part of the U.S. The NEO PI-R, Form S and the ROCI-II, Form C were used. The findings of this research study revealed that the five-factor personality at both the facet and the domain levels were significantly related to preference of conflict management styles in a manufacturing setting and gender had significant correlations with two of the five conflict management styles, the Integrating style and the Dominating style. Due to the exploratory nature of this research study, the first recommendation for future research is to determine whether the findings from this research study can be replicated with large and random samples. |
