Impact of gender, organizational role, and multicultural status on conflict resolution style preference

This research involved primarily a meta-analysis of conflict resolution research derived from Blake and Mouton's (1964) dual concerns theory. Secondarily, focus group research assessed the “field validity” of the results. Dual concerns theory postulates that organizational conflict involves balancing the desire to obtain one's own goals (concern for production) versus the desire to retain interpersonal relationships (concern for people). By placing the two aspects on an axis called the “managerial grid,” Blake and Mouton mapped out five styles of managing conflict: forcing, avoiding, accommodating, compromising and problem-solving. Numerous studies validate the central ideas of the theory: respondents rank styles of resolving conflict depending upon the degree of concern for retaining relationships versus the degree of concern for meeting goals. However, there is great disparity among study results.; In this study, meta-analytic techniques were used to provide a clearer overall picture of conflict resolution rankings. Analyses were conducted of published and unpublished research results with statistical measures of conflict resolution style preferences, focusing on the variables of worker minority status (including ethnicity, gender, and foreign national), and organizational role status of referent group (including superior, subordinate, and peer). The results of the meta-analyses were: (1) Ethnicity and foreign national—insufficient studies for overall meta-analysis; tentative results using one instrument showed Asian ethnicities highest on avoiding, Middle Easterners highest on compromising, Hispanic Americans highest on accommodating, African Americans lowest on avoiding, and European Americans highest on problem-solving. (2) Gender meta-analysis indicated females were significantly more likely to use accommodating and compromising; males significantly preferred forcing. (3) Organizational role meta-analysis indicated respondents used avoiding significantly more with peers than with subordinates; and compromising style less with subordinates than superiors. Focus group results corroborated the results in general, but there was strong consensus about the need to regard each individual as a unique combination of many influences. Further research is needed particularly on multicultural status; however, due to the tendency for pertinent studies to favor more inclusive conflict resolution instruments than those utilized for the purposes of this research, other means of overall analysis should be considered.