A Study On Relationship Between Knowledge Workers’Empathy And Their Conflict Management Styles

This study is to assess the level of empathy of knowledge workers and to explore the correlation of knowledge workers’ empathy with their conflict management styles, so as to promote the empathy of knowledge workers and provide suggestion to build a harmonious relationship between employees.A total of226knowledge workers were selected to investigate and SPSS19.0was applied to analyze the data. Internal reliability analysis was used to identify the reliability of each questionnaire; Descriptive analysis, Independent-Samples Test and One-Way ANOVA were applied to investigate the characteristics of knowledge workers’ empathy and their conflict management styles; Stepwise regression analysis was used to analyze the relationship between knowledge workers’ empathy and their conflict management styles.The results showed the internal consistency reliability was satisfying and the items could express the content of empathy of knowledge workers accurately through factor analysis. With the method of principle components,4factors were extracted on the standard that eigenvalues was over1from the scale of IRI-C and2factors were extracted from the Conflict Management Style Scale.To analyze the influencing factors of knowledge workers’ empathy level with multiple linear regression. The results showed:gender、whether the knowledge workers had studied with the empathy-related courses、the subjective evaluation of their working environment and work satisfaction would affect the knowledge workers’empathy level and their conflict management styles.Using multiple linear regression analysis to research the relationship between knowledge workers’empathy and their conflict management style, the result showed that knowledge workers with high levels of empathy prefer collaborative conflict management style, and knowledge workers with low levels of empathy tend to select concession conflict management style. The above conclusions based on literature review and empirical analyses provide guidance for enterprise to improve knowledge workers’empathy level and reduce employee conflict.