Conflict Management Style Preference From Different Perspectives

Conflict is ubiquitous and in particular conflict at workplace is even unavoidable.Conflict at workplace not only includes the conflict between superiors and subordinates at the vertical level,but also the conflict between same-level employees at the horizontal level.If these conflicts can not be effectively managed,they will exert a negative impact on the development of the organization.In the workplace,confrontational and avoided conflict management styles are quite common.Confrontational conflict management style directly points out the questions,but can be seen insensitive.Avoided conflict management style doesn't talk about conflicts and uses euphemistic words,but it is difficult to let the otherside of conflict to figure out the problems.Currently,studies about conflict management at the workplace mostly discuss the conflict management styles of superiors or subordinates at the vertical level and all start from a subjective perspective of the two parties in the conflict.They have failed to discuss the horizontal level and the third-partys' preference for conflict management style.However,the quality of relationship among employees and colleagues in an organization and whether middle managers' ability to manage conflict with subordinates can be recognized by business owner will both influence the organization and personal career development to a certain extent and require the common concern of various levels of employees in the organizationBased on this,this study has expanded previous studies,started from the perspectives of same-level colleagues and the business owner,combined Transactional model of stress,Conservation of resource theory and Stereotype Content Model,and respectively probed into employees' preference for the conflict management styles of same-level colleagues and the influence mechanism of morality evaluation on selection preference,and business owner's preference for middle managers' selection of conflict management styles in handling conflict with employees and the influence mechanism of morality evaluation on selection preference.This thesis combines scene design and questionnaire survey method,conducts the survey on 327 in-service staff and 154 business owners,discusses different survey respondents' selection preference for confrontational and avoided conflict management styles under the perspectives of same-level colleagues and business owners and the mediating effect of morality evaluation on selection preference.Statistic methods such as independent sample t-test,MEMORE test,Logistic regression analysis,Process mediation effect test,and Bias-Corrected Bootstrap have been adopted to arrive at the following conclusions(1)Same-level perspective:Differences exist in employees'preference for the selection of confrontational and avoided conflict management styles of same-level colleagues and they prefer that their same-level colleagues adopt the confrontational conflict management style;morality evaluation on same-level colleagues mediated their preference for the selection of conflict management styles.(2)Business owner's perspective:Differences exist in business owner's preference for the selection of confrontational and avoided conflict management styles by middle managers when handling conflict with employees and they prefer that middle managers adopt the confrontational conflict management style;Business owner's morality evaluation on middle managers mediated their preference for the selection of conflict management styles.In summary,both the employees of the same level and the business owners in the workplace believe that the individuals who adopt confrontational conflict management style have a higher level of morality and prefer confrontational conflict management style.