M. Afzalur Rahim

A measure of styles of handling interpersonal conflict.

The article discusses a research on various styles of handling interpersonal conflict. For the measurement of conflict styles, seven non-random samples were used to generate and select suitable items. Five factorially independent and reliable scales for conflict styles from a national sample were constructed. These were used to test further validities of the scales against the measures of role status and sex. Results indicated that the test-retest and internal consistency reliability coefficients are satisfactory and compare favorably with other existing instruments.

Confirmatory factor analysis of the styles of handling interpersonal conflict: first-order factor model and its invariance across groups.

Confirmatory factor analysis of data (from 5 samples, n = 484 full-time employed management students; n = 550 public administrators; n = 214 university administrators; n = 250 bank managers and employees in Bangladesh; and n = 578 managers and employees) on the 28 items of the Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory-II were performed with LISREL 7. The results provided support for the convergent and discriminant validities of the subscales measuring the 5 styles of handling interpersonal conflict (integrating, obliging, dominating, avoiding, and compromising) and general support for the invariance of the 5-factor model across referent roles (i.e., superiors, subordinates, and peers), organizational levels (top, middle, lower, and nonmanagement), and 4 of the 5 samples.

Relationships of Leader Power to Compliance and Satisfaction with Supervision: Evidence from a National Sample of Managers

This study investigated the effectiveness of the bases of leader power, such as coercive, reward, legitimate, expert, and referent in influencing behavioral compliance with superiors wishes and satisfaction with supervision. Regression analyses of data from a national random sample of managers (N = 476), after demographic, job-related, and other extraneous variables were controlled for, showed that expert and referent power bases were positively associated with compliance and satisfaction and legitimate power base was positively associated with compliance but negatively associated with satisfaction.

Measurement of Organizational Conflict

Abstract The study reports on the development of an instrument containing factorially independent scales for measuring three types of organizational conflict: Intrapersonal, intragroup, and intergroup. The items for the instrument were selected through repeated factor analyses of data collected from three successive samples (N = 635) and/or feedback from the Ss. Data on the final instrument from a national sample of 1188 executives and a collegiate sample of 266 students provide substantial evidence of reliability and validity of the scales.

Referent Role and Styles of Handling Interpersonal Conflict

Abstract This study explored the relationship between referent role (superior, subordinate, and peer) and the styles of handling interpersonal conflict (integrating, obliging, dominating, avoiding, and compromising). These styles were measured by the Rahim (1983c) Organizational Conflict Inventory-II with a national random sample of managers (N = 1,219). The results of a multiple discriminant analysis indicated that the respondents were mainly obliging with superiors, integrating with subordinates, and compromising with peers. To a lesser extent, they were compromising and dominating with superiors and avoiding with subordinates.

Supervisory Power Bases, Styles of Handling Conflict with Subordinates, and Subordinate Compliance and Satisfaction

ABSTRACT Data from 301 American students of business administration who had at least 1 year of full-time work experience with their present supervisors showed that a reward power base was positively correlated with integrating and avoiding styles of handling conflict with subordinates; legitimate power was positively correlated with dominating style; expert power was positively correlated with integrating and dominating styles but negatively correlated with avoiding style; and referent power was positively correlated with integrating, obliging, and compromising styles but negatively correlated with dominating style. Legitimate power was positively correlated with behavioral and attitudinal compliance, and in addition, referent power was positively correlated with satisfaction with supervision. Integrating style was positively correlated with attitudinal and behavioral compliance and satisfaction with supervision; obliging style was positively correlated with attitudinal compliance; and compromising style ...

A Strategy for Managing Conflict in Complex Organizations

The management of organizational conflict involves the diagnosis of and intervention in conflict at intrapersonal, interpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup levels. A diagnosis should indicate whether there is need for intervention and the type of intervention needed. In general, an intervention is designed to attain and maintain a moderate amount of conflict a various levels and to enable the organizational members to learn the styles of handling interpersonal conflict so that the individual, group, and overall organizational effectiveness are enhanced.

A Structural Equations Model of Stress, Locus of Control, Social Support, Psychiatric Symptoms, and Propensity to Leave a Job

The main effects of (a) job stress on psychiatric symptoms and propensity to leave a job and of (b) psychiatric symptoms on propensity to leave a job and the (c) moderating effects of locus of control and social support on the relationships of job stress to psychiatric symptoms and propensity to leave a job were examined. Data collected with questionnaires completed by 526 members of the Chamber of Commerce in a southern state were analyzed using LISREL 7 (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1988). The results indicate that role overload and role insufficiency positively influenced psychiatric symptoms and that role insufficiency, role ambiguity, and role conflict positively influenced propensity to leave a job. Overall, the moderating effects of locus of control on the relationships of stress variables to psychiatric symptoms and propensity to leave a job were significant, but similar moderating effects for social support were not.

Ethics of managing interpersonal conflict in organizations

Although managers spend over twenty percent of their time in conflict management, organization theorists have provided very few guidelines to help them do their job ethically. This paper attempts to provide some guidelines so that organizational members can use the styles of handling interpersonal conflict, such as integrating, obliging, dominating, avoiding, and compromising, with their superiors, subordinates, and peers ethically and effectively. It has been argued in this paper that, in general, each style of handling interpersonal conflict is appropriate if it is used to attain organizations proper end.

Effects of emotional intelligence on concern for quality and problem solving

This study tested the relationships of the three dimensions of emotional intelligence (EQ) (self‐awareness, self‐regulation, and empathy) to managers’ concern for the quality of products and services and problem‐solving behavior of subordinates during conflict. The results of hierarchical regression analysis show that self‐awareness and self‐regulation are positively associated with problem solving, and self‐regulation was positively associated with concern for quality. There was a marginally significant main effect of empathy on quality and interaction effect of self‐regulation and empathy on concern for quality. The implication of the study is that supervisors, who are deficient in EQ, may be provided appropriate training in it that will improve their concern for quality and problem solving.