Gender differences

CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND

Introduction

Differences in the ways people think and act are inevitable (Newton, 1975). Such differences create conflicts. Conflicts occur for a number of reasons such as different expectation from the management and the working groups, different views of values, desired outcomes, and procedures (Monday et al., 1990; Mastenbroek, 1993).

Conflict is the central problem in organizational life and managers at all levels are faced with eruptions of interpersonal and departmental conflicts (Kelly, 1980; Bertinasco, 1990). Conflict management is recognized as a major issue facing organizations and conflict is a pervasive force affecting organizational development (Kiernan, 1992). Conflict is inevitable in workplace. It may produce positive and negative outcomes (Deutsch, 1973). The outcomes of conflict situations relate to the perceptions of conflict and the conflict management strategies employed by the parties involved. Destructively handled conflicts may lead to physical, verbal, and psychological violence (Johnson et al., 1995).

Eisenhardt et al. (1998) suggested that conflict in top management is inevitable and it is usually valuable. “Conflict at senior levels surrounding appropriate paths of action─what may be termed ‘substantive’, ‘cognitive’, or ‘issue─oriented’ conflict is essential for effective strategic choice” (p. 142). Conflict could be a dynamic force which prevents stagnation, stimulates interest and curiosity, and serves as a medium for airing problems (Morrill, 1991). Conflict that is effectively managed can result in increased creativity and innovation, a rethinking of goals and practices, and a better work group (Hocker and Wilmot, 1991; Nicotera, 1995). Rahim and Bonoma (1979) stated that a moderate amount of conflict is essential for attaining and maintaining an optimal level of organizational effectiveness. On the other hand, conflict that is not identified, understood, and managed effectively can lead to the dysfunctional effects of insufficient use of organizational resources, stress on the conflicting parties, and misdirection of the energies of those affected by the conflict left uncontrolled. This trend underlines a greater concern as an organizational phenomenon, and as a result, there is a greater concern with how conflict is managed by organization participants.

This study aimed at deepening our understanding of the preference of conflict management modes employed by Chinese in workplace and their concerns when handling conflict.

Statement of the Problem

Lack of understanding of conflicts can result in reduced motivation in work, low job satisfaction, negative work attitudes, poor work performance and high staff turnover rate (Weider-Hatfield, 1990). There is a need to understand the ways of conflict management in order to improve the effectiveness of the organization. There is constant communication among colleagues in the same department. The quality of the communication plays a significant role in the quality of management. Therefore, it is worth studying the conflict handling behavior of the colleagues working in the same department. The study aimed at expanding the scope of knowledge in this area.

Demographic Characteristics of the Employees
The subjects to be studied were ethnic Chinese employees working in different organizations in Hong Kong. The demographic background to be investigated included their sex (male and female), age, occupation, seniority, and position in the organization. There were five age groups among the respondents: below 25, 25—34, 35—44, 45—54, and 55 or above. The occupations of the respondents mainly covered trading, banking and finance, civil service, communication, manufacturing, and social service. The respondents were classified into five groups according to the duration of their service in their organization: below 5 years, 5—9 years, 10—14, 15—19, and 20 or above. The positions held by the respondents mainly included secretarial and clerical staff, technical staff, managers and administrators, and professionals. The study investigated whether the differences of the demographic background would have impact on the employees when facing conflict situations.

Conflict Handling Modes of the Employees
Conflict handling modes of the employees in this study refer to the ways in which employees respond to conflict within the department where they were working. In other words, this research focused on the way how the employees deal with the conflict such as disagreement over an issue, struggle over resources, or opposition of desires, and so on that arise within the same department or section, for instance, within the marketing department, accounts department, or human resource department of the same organization. The terms “conflict handling modes”, “conflict handling behaviors”, and “conflict handling styles” are used by different researchers. The terms “modes”, “behaviors”, and “styles” refer to the same notion in the context of conflict management. In this study, the term “conflict handling modes” is used to describe the way how employees respond to conflict, which carries the meaning of their behaviors and styles of dealing with conflict.

Concerns of the Employees The concerns of the employees refer to what the employees consider important when handling conflict. For example, some employees may be more concerned about interpersonal relationship while others may be more concerned about their personal interest. It is believed that different concerns lead to different attitude when facing conflict situation. For instance, if an employee is more concerned about the benefits of the organization, it can assumed that he will try to ensure the benefits of the organization when encountering conflict with his colleagues. This study investigated three areas of concerns including interpersonal relationship, personal benefits, and the benefits of the organization. The significance of those concerns was compared with the consideration of the demographic background of the respondents.

Implications of the Study to Business Administration
Conflict is unavoidable in workplace. It may produce positive or negative outcomes, depending on the how it is handled. This study aimed at exploring the understanding of the conflict handling modes of Chinese employees in their workplace. Better understanding of the employees’ concerns and tendency when facing conflict can enhance the management to better manage the staff in order to achieve the organization goals more effectively. It is believed that the research would provide useful data and insights for organizations to improve the work of handling conflict such as differences of interests, desires for resources, and so on.

Importance of the Study

Conflict management can produce positive and negative outcomes for the staff and the company, and therefore, affects the operation and development of the company. It is necessary to study the conflict management modes favored by staff. In Hong Kong, about 97% of the population are ethnic Chinese (So, 1998). Knowing about conflict management modes employed by Chinese employees is essential for effective management in the workplace in Hong Kong. Intragroup conflict is one of the major management issues in organizations. So it is worth studying the conflict management modes favored by Chinese staff in the same department of the organization for effective management.

Successful conflict management requires a positive perspective of conflict, the knowledge of constructive conflict management modes, and the way how a manager transforms relationships in a positive manner. Understanding of the concerns of staff when handling conflict and their preference of conflict handling modes can help shed light on the issue of the ways of enhancing the conflict handling exercise. It is believed that this study could improve our understanding in this area and such understanding can facilitate the management to better handle conflict and enhance the staff to employ appropriate conflict handling modes in workplace.

Scope and Delimitation of the Study

In the studies relating to conflict management, attention has been devoted to the employment of various conflict management strategies and the subordinates’ preferences of the strategies used. Those studies provide valuable information about conflict management. Nevertheless, not much attention has been paid to the concerns of employees when they are handling intragroup conflict.

The respondents of the study were a group of adult learners in a part-time management course at the researcher’s institute. The researcher was one of the lecturers of the programme. The respondents’ conflict management modes and interaction with their subordinates were investigated. The relevant data were collected through a questionnaire survey.

The limitation stems from the population sampled since it was limited to the number of students of the course. Different data might result if different groups of respondents from other organizations are sampled. In this study, the sample population represents Chinese employees in Hong Kong with a variety of different demographic background including the sex, age, occupation, seniority, and position. The diverse background of the respondents represents the different groups of the Chinese employees in Hong Kong that share their similarity in factors of sex, age, occupation, seniority, and position. Therefore, this small scale representation makes the results of the study able to provide useful data to understand the issue of preference of conflict handling modes of the Chinese employees in Hong Kong.

There is a possibility that the participants may misunderstand and misinterpret the meaning of the questions. The happening of this will cause distortion of the truth that is believed to be reflected by the data. In the research concerned, the participants’ original meanings of the questions in the survey form might be misinterpreted by the respondents. In this study, although the identity of the participants was hidden during the process of data collection, it was possible for the researcher to find out if the participants’ interpretation of the questions was correct. The possibility that the participants misunderstood the meanings would be minimized if the researcher could check the participants’ interpretation of the questions in the questionnaire. There was a random checking after the data were collected to ensure that the respondents had not misunderstood the questions and had provided the data that truly reflected their thoughts.

Definition of Terms

Intragroup Conflict
A process exists when one party perceives that the other has frustrated or is about to frustrate, some concerns of the first party have not gained universal acceptance within the group which both parties belong to, such as a department of an organization. Conflict appears among the staff when the staff concerned are aware of the existence of such conflict (Thomas, 1992).

Conflict Resolution
When conflict is considered detrimental to the organization, exercise of conflict resolution is to aim at minimizing conflict, which involves reduction or termination of conflict (Rahim, M. A., 2002).

Conflict Management
An exercise involves designing effective macro-level strategies to minimize the dysfunctions of conflict and enhancing the constructive functions in order to enhance learning and effectiveness in an organization (Rahim, M. A., 2002).

Conflict Handling Modes
Conflict handling modes refer to the ways in which people respond to conflict. Different modes are employed as individuals are affected by their concerns with the issues related to the conflict they are encountering (Thomas and Kilmann, 1974). The term “conflict handling modes” are used in this study to describe the way how employees respond to conflict, which carries the meaning of the behaviors and styles of handling conflict with colleagues in workplace.

The first chapter has served to introduce the problem of the study and its background. The second chapter consists of review of related literature about models explaining conflict handling modes and related studies. The third chapter outlines the steps used in developing and validating the instrument used in the research process, the selection of samples used in the research, steps required to administer the instrument and the analysis of the resulting data. The fourth chapter reports findings and discusses their significance in relation to the objectives of the study. The final chapter contains a summary, conclusion, recommendations, and implications of the study to business administration.
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

Review of Related Literature

The review of the literature related to the present research provides theoretical grounds that help generate insights concerning the direction and scope of the research.

Definition of Conflict

Conflict is natural and will inevitably occur when individuals with distinct needs and values attempt to work cooperatively (Deutsch, 1973). Positive and cooperative relationships among colleagues are significant in success in achieving organization goals. The manner in which conflict is managed will determine how successful the end result of cooperative efforts will be. An understanding of one’s conflict management mode will allow the management and staff to optimize their efforts by effectively resolving issues, settling differences, and implementing solutions. It was found that using more integrative conflict management mode reduces conflict, which in turn reduces stress in the workplace (Friedman et al., 2000).

Robbins (1978) suggested that conflict could be viewed as a dynamic process, where the relationship between two or more individuals in an organization could be analyzed as a sequence of conflict episodes. Kelly (1980) defined conflict as any kind of opposition or antagonistic interaction between two or more parties and conflict could be conceptualized as existing along a continuous range. At one extreme, there is no conflict but at another extreme, the highest state of conflict exists. All intensities of conflicts would fall somewhere along this continuum. Thomas (1992) considered conflict as a process that includes perception, emotions, behaviors and outcomes of two parties. Such process begins when one party perceives that the other has frustrated or is about to frustrate, some concern of the first party has not gained universal acceptance. According to Roloff (1987), “organizational conflict occurs when members engage in activities that are incompatible with those of colleagues within their network, members of other collectivities, or unaffiliated individuals who utilize the services or products of the organization” (p. 496). Rahim broadened this definition by conceptualizing conflict as an interactive process manifested in incompatibility, disagreement, or dissonance within or between social entities (ie. individual, group, organization, etc.). According to Rahim, conflict is defined as:

1. A party is required to engage in an activity that is incongruent with his or her needs or interests.
2. A party holds behavioral preferences, the satisfaction of which is incompatible with another person’s implementation of his or her preferences.
3. A party wants some mutually desirable resource that is in short supply and the wants of everyone may not be satisfied.
4. A party possesses attitudes, values, skills, and goals that are salient in directing his or her behavior but are perceived to be exclusive of the attitudes, values, skills, and goals held by the others.
5. Two parties have partially exclusive behavioral preferences regarding their joint actions.
6. Two parties are interdependent in the performance of functions or activities. (Rahim, M. F., 2002) This definition of conflict includes the dimensions of preferences and goals not just activities. Conflict occurs only when the parties experience or are aware of the conflict. This is called the threshold level of intensity (Rahim, 2002).

Conflict exists when there is an opposition of ideas, interests, or actions that result in a struggle over status, power, and resources. Opponents engaged in a conflict aim at neutralizing, harming, or eliminating each other (Opotow, 1991). In this context, conflict is often interpreted for its inclination to bring about negative behavior, making it appear wasteful and destructive. The normative paradigm of conflict perceives conflict by its extreme behaviors (eg verbal and physical aggression, assult, murder and so on) exhibited in only a small percentage of disputants. The normative view has a tendency to view conflict and aggression as one concept, leading to confusion that either over or under emphasizing conflict depends on the viewer’s perspectives (Laursen and Koplas, 1995). Boardman and Horowitz (1994) attempted to clarify this misinterpretation. Whereas aggression is narrow in scope and results in only negative outcomes, conflict has a broader range of possibilities. It can result in negative and positive outcomes. Constructive conflict management leads to desirable effects in terms of achieving the organizational goals while destructive conflict management results in poor cooperation and team spirit.

Effects of Conflict

Conflict frequently induces anxiety in those who associate conflict with negative or violent outcomes. Anxiety is rooted in the fear of being overwhelmed by the opponent’s aggression or in the fear of being so consumed with anger that one will destroy the other. These unconstructive outcomes have instilled in us a tendency to try to avoid or eliminate conflict (Coleman and Deutsch, 2000). Early organizational theorists such as Fayol, Taylor, and Weber viewed conflict as detrimental to the efficiency of the organization and took great strides to minimize and eliminate it (Russo and Eckler, 1994). Robbins (1978) pointed out that almost all efforts of behaviorists had been directed as resolving conflicts. When we fear conflict or perceive it as a negative experience, we harm our chances of dealing with it effectively. Conflicts are destructive when attention is diverted from important group to individual activities, undermines morale or self-concept, polarizes people thus reducing cooperation, or leads to irresponsible and harmful behavior. When conflict is feared or perceived as negative, the likelihood of a successful and valuable experience is hampered (Weeks, 1992).

Deutsch (1973), and Laursen and Koplas (1995) found that conflict has considerable potential and that it can serve as a mechanism that develops cognition and transforms relationships. The potential to transform relationships is one of the most promising aspects of conflict. It offers the disputants an opportunity for personal growth and the opportunity to deepen and alter personal relationships for the good. Through the turmoil that conflict provides, individuals are motivated to grow and to change. Conflcits have the potential to promote creative thinking and creative problem solving among the disputants. Coleman and Deutsch (2000) emphasized the fact that handling a conflict successfully can be a positive experience that allows the possibility to learn about themselves and others, create needed changes in the status quo, confront archaic ways of thinking, and foster new avenues of cooperation. Properly handled, conflict can incite activity in a stagnant mind causing it to stretch and mature. Conflict can force decision makers to define the problem, examine conflicting opinions, and ideally arrive at more creative outcomes by allowing divergent interests and beliefs to emerge.

A moderate degree of conflict may not necessarily be viewed as a cost by the parties involved. Theories of motivation are shifting from notion of tension reduction to the view that organisms tend to maintain optimal levels of stimulation (Mastenbroek, 1993). It is increasingly recognized that too little stimulation or tension may be as unpleasant to a person as an excess of it. Under conditions of low tension, people may welcome or seek innovation of divergent opinions, the challenge of competition, and at times, the excitement of overt hostilities. Conflict stimulates interest and curiosity (Mastenbroek, 1993). Blalock (1989) suggested that the confrontation of divergent views often produces ideas of superior quality. Divergent views are apt to be based on different evidence, different considerations, different insights, different frames of reference. Disagreements may thus confront an individual with factors which he or she has previously ignored, and help him or her to arrive at a more comprehensive view which synthesizes elements of his or her own and the other party’s position.

Nicotera (1995) suggested that conflict could increase group cohesion and group morale, improve work relations, and motivate group members. Properly managed conflict could also facilitate the growth of an organization or at least not be destructive to the organization’s objectives. Groups composed of members with different interests tend to produce higher quality solutions to a variety of problems than groups comprising members with similar interests and values.

Hocker and Wilmot (1991) pointed out that the parties involved in conflict fall under the influence of strong non-rational forces which push the parties toward increasingly destructive behavior. Viewed in this way, the possibility that conflict resembles a dangerous disease should be supposed. On the other hand, conflict behavior is also the instrumental, goal-oriented behavior of two largely rational parties. In fact, the aggressive pursuit of apparently conflicting goals by two parties may well lead to the constructive outcomes. Hocker and Wilmot (1991) further stated that such conflict tends to initiate a search for ways of reducing the conflict. Since one party’s gain is not necessarily another party’s loss. Two parties actively seeking to improve their own conditions may succeed in finding new arrangements which benefit both and such arrangements can make up progress for the parties and for the organization. Nicotera (1995) pointed out that conflict is generally believed to be able to promote creativity and produce change, and to have gained increased recognition.

While conflict has been increasingly viewed in a more positive way, the possible negative effects should not be ignored. If conflicts are not dealt with properly, negative outcomes such as lack of motivation, job dissatisfaction, poor interpersonal relation among the staff, and so on will exist.

Conflict Models

Integrated Model
Rahim (1986) combined various literature on conflict models and developed a theoretical model of organizational conflict that begins with antecedent conditions and includes behavioral changes, structural formation, decision process and conflict aftermath.

Antecedent conditions refer to the source of conflict, which can be behavioral, structural, or demographical. When conflicts exist, the behavior and attitude of the parties toward each party may be affected. As conflicts are intensified, perceptual distortion of parties may become progressively greater, and the parties refrain from a trusting relationship and redirect their energy toward the goal of winning. If there are differences in power between parties, for example, superior and subordinates, the parties may attempt to choose a style of handling conflict which reflects the power condition between them. The parties may restrict free communication and interaction and formulate a structure which discourages free exchange of information. All interactions between parties may accordingly become very formal, rigid, and cautiously defined. At this stage, the parties have to make decision to solve their disagreement. Methods like problem-solving, bargaining or arbitrating through third party can be used. In a superior-subordinate conflict situation, decision is often made by superior and communicated to the subordinate. Rahim (1986) pointed out that when conflict appears between peers, the superior of the peers is often called on to make a decision. Conflict aftermath refers to the situation after conflict is resolved or suppressed. In the event that conflict is resolved genuinely to the satisfaction of both parties, a more cooperative relationship can be established. On the other hand, if conflict is only suppressed, the underlying conditions of conflict may be aggravated and burst into a more serious situation which in turn generates another conflict episode.

Process Model
According to Thomas (1976), each conflict episode moves through five stages. From this perspective, conflict is very much an ongoing process as described in figure 2.1.

As shown in the figure, conflict in a relationship tends to occur in cycle or episode. Each episode is influenced by the outcomes of previous episodes and sets the stage for future episodes. Five major events are identified within a given episode: frustration, conceptualization, behavior, the reaction of the other party, and an outcome.

Frustration
It is the first in the sequence of events since conflict is defined as the process which begins when one party perceives that another has been frustrated.

Conceptualization
It involves defining the conflict issue, formulating ideas about the conflict issue, considering viable alternatives and possible outcomes.

Selection of a strategy
This stage comprises behavior in relation to handling the conflict that may include competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding, and accommodating.

Figure 2.1 Process Model of Conflict Episodes

Interaction
This stage takes place when communication between the parties involved regarding the conflict resolution begins.

Outcome
This is the final stage. It usually produces both short-term and long-term effects. Short-term effects are influenced by the extent to which both parties are satisfied while long-term effects are based on the extent to which both parties achieve their goals. This kind of knowledge on conflict process would be useful in influencing an ongoing episode. Knowing more about what effect one’s own behavior would have on others would help a party manage the behavior that occurs in the episode. The knowledge about the probable effects of behavior on outcomes would help the party steer interaction toward a desirable outcome (Gordon, 1991).

The review of conflict models provides a further understanding of the complexity of conflict behavior.

Types of Conflict

Research findings suggested that moderate amount of conflict at each level is necessary for optimal job performance (Rahim, 1896). Understanding of various types of conflict can help maximize the functions of conflict in workplace.

Deutsch (1994) stressed the importance of typing conflicts since different types of conflict require different approaches. He introduced the three categories of zero-sum, mixed motive, and pure cooperative. The zero-sum or purely competitive conflict is seen in the perception that if party A wins and party B loses, and if party B wins and party A loses. A mixed-motive conflict is a conflict where both can win, both can lose, or one can win and one can lose. Deutsch (1994) believed that most conflicts are mixed-motive conflicts. Each of the parties involved in the conflict have competitive and cooperative interests. These interests result in two separate practices of conflict resolution: cooperative and competitive processes (Deutsch, 1973). The third type is pure cooperative conflict where one party sacrifices his desires to satisfy the desires of the other party.

Organizational Level
Gordon (1991) described the four levels of conflict within an organization as intrapersonal conflict, and interpersonal conflict, intragroup conflict, and intergroup conflict.

Intrapersonal conflict
This conflict results from disparity between internal and external roles of an individual. When one’s values, needs, or capabilities are incompatible with a role requirement, intrapersonal conflict is created.

Interpersonal conflict
This conflict results from the disagreement between individuals about issues, actions, or goals. It is common between people whose positions require interaction with other persons to fill various roles in the same organization, for example, between superior and subordinate.

Intragroup conflict
This conflict is based on intellectual disagreement among individuals within a group or on emotional responses to a situation. A group may experience either substantive or affective conflict.

Intergroup conflict
This conflict is a conflict that takes place between groups on the same horizontal level or between groups on different level within an organization. It is common where both parties have different goals and can only achieve their goals at the other’s expense.

Conflict Management

With the recognition that conflict can be both useful and destructive, the emphasis has shifted from the elimination of conflict to the management of conflict. The goal of conflict management has been stated as keeping conflicts productive or at least not destructive (Deutsch, 1980), or as keeping conflicts creative and useful (Thomas, 1976). Crawley (1994) suggested that conflict management can apply intervention to reduce conflict if there is too much, or intervention to promote conflict if there is too little. The management of organizational conflict involves the disgnosis of and intervention in conflict. Rahim (1986) stated that an intervention is designed to attain and maintain a moderate amount of conflict at various levels, and to enable the organizational members to learn the modes of handling interpersonal conflict so that the individual, group, and overall organizational effectiveness can be enhanced.

Conflict Management Process

According to Rahim (1986), an effective management of organizational conflict involves diagnosis and intervention. The process of conflict management is shown in figure 2.2.

Diagnosis

Diagnosis of problem in the conflict management process is important because the underlying sources and nature of conflict must be identified before an intervention is made, or else, there is the possibility that one may try to solve a wrong problem. Therefore, a systematic diagnosis of the problem is needed in order to minimize the error. A comprehensive diagnosis should include the measures of analysis of the source and amount of conflict, mode of handling conflict and its effectiveness. Recently, many instruments have been designed to measure the amount of conflict and the modes of handling conflict (Rahim, 1983; Thomas and Kilmann, 1974; Womack, 1988). Diagnosis provides the basis for intervention. The results of diagnosis should indicate whether there is any need for intervention.

Learning &
Diagnosis Intervention Conflict Effectiveness

Figure 2.2 Process of Managing Conflict

Source: Rahim, M.A. (1986)

Intervention
Intervention may be needed if there is too little or too much conflict, or the organizational members are not handling their conflict effectively. There are two basic approaches of intervention in conflict management. They are behavioral and structural (Rahim and Bonoma, 1979). The behavioral intervention is mainly designed to manage conflict by enabling organizational members to learn the various behavioral styles of handling conflict to deal with different situations effectively. Traditionally, the theories of conflict resolution emphasized the areas of agreement of commonality existing between conflict parties by suppression or avoidance of the areas of disagreement. Behavioral and organizational development interventions, on the contrary, are designed to help the organizational participants to learn the integrative or collaborative style of behavior through which to find the real causes of the conflict and arrive at functional solutions. Rahim (1986) suggested that through techniques of role analysis, transactional analysis, team building, and intergroup problem solving, organizational members are enabled to deal with interpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup conflict respectively by changing members’ attitudes, values, norms, and beliefs.

According to Rahim (1986), the structural approach is designed to improve organizational effectiveness by altering the organization’s structural design characteristics: differentiation and integration mechanism, communication system, reward system and so on. It primarily attempts to manage conflict by changing the amount of conflict experienced by the employees at various levels. “Structural intervention is primarily designed to alter the amount of conflict by changing the structural sources of conflict and as such this intervention may affect the styles of handling conflict.” (Rahim, 1986, p.36)

Conflict Handling Modes

Different modes of handling conflict have been proposed. Follett (1940) proposed three main methods of dealing with conflict including domination, compromise, and integration. Domination is the most obvious way to resolve a disagreement but only one group (the winner) is satisfied and the other group (the loser) is dissatisfied. Compromise is a commonly employed technique but neither party in the conflict situation is completely satisfied. Considering the limitations of domination and compromise, Follett (1940) proposed that integration as the most promising method of conflict resolution. The important advantage of integration is that innovation is encountered so that a new solution to the disagreement is developed to satisfy both parties.

Since mid 1960s, a five-category scheme for classifying interpersonal conflict handling modes has been emerged in behavioral research (Thomas and Kilmann, 1978).

Blake and Mouton (1964) first proposed that different types of conflict handling behavior are considered on the basis of the attitudes of the managers toward production and people (see figure 2.3).

Forcing Problem Solving

Concern for Production

Withdrawing Smoothing

Concern for people

Figure 2.3 Blake and Mouton’s Conflict Grid (1964)

Rahim’s Conflict Model
According to Rahim (1983b), different modes of conflict management reflect the attitude of the conflict parties in relation to concern for self and concern for others (Figure 2.4).

Rahim and Bonoma (1979) differentiated the modes of handling interpersonal conflict along two basic dimensions: concern for self and concern for others. The first dimension explains the degree (high or low) to which a person attempts to satisfy his or her own concerns. The second dimension explains the degree (high or low) to which a person wants to satisfy the concerns of others. These dimensions portray the motivational orientations of a given individual during conflict. Studies by Ruble and Thomas (1976), and Van de Vliert and Kabanoff (1990) supported these dimensions. Combination of the two dimensions results in five specific modes of handling conflicts: integrating, obliging, dominating, avoiding, and compromising (Rahim and Bonoma, 1979).

Integrating
This style involves high concern for self as well as the other party involved in conflict. It is concerned with collaboration between parties (ie. openness, exchange of information, and examination of differences) to reach a solution acceptable to both parties. This style involves an effort on the part of individual actively to seek effective problem solving activities in order that all parties can achieve a mutually satisfying conclusion to the dispute. Often innovation ideas are adopted by integrating people who attempt to find a common ground of interest between people in a dispute.

CONCERN FOR SELF HIGH LOW

Figure 2.4 Rahim’s Two Dimensional Model of Conflict Behaviors (1983b)

Obliging
This mode involves low concern for self and high concern for others involved in conflict. An obliging employee attempts to play down the differences and emphasizes commonalities to satisfy the concerns of the other party. This mode requires giving up ones’ own needs for the sake of another. It is characterized by the belief that maintenance of harmonious interpersonal relationships is more important than achieving one’s own needs.

Dominating
This mode involves high concern for self and low concern for the other party involved in conflict. It has been identified with a win-lose orientation or with forcing behavior to win one’s position. Parties may be completely removed from the conflict by virtue of authoritative command or other social or organizational pressure. Dominating employees try to meet their objective and often ignore the need and expectation of the other party.

Avoiding
This mode is associated with low concern for self as well as for the other party involved in conflict. It is characterized by a denial of the issue and the belief that any attempt either to discuss or challenge the behavior of another is useless. It may take the form of postponing an issue or simply withdrawing from a threatening situation. This mode has been associated with the behavior of pretending that the conflict does not exist (Rahim et al., 1999).

Compromising
This mode involves moderate concern for self as well as the other party involved in conflict. It is associated with give-and-take or sharing whereby both parties give up something to make a mutually acceptable decision. This mode can be useful when goals of the conflict parties are mutually exclusive or when both parties, for example, labor and management, are equally powerful and have reached an impasse in their negotiation process.

Integrating and obliging are classified to positive-sum (win-win) mode, and dominating and avoiding are classified to zero-sum (win-lose/lose-lose) modes. Compromising is classified to mixed (no-win/no-lose) mode. It was suggested that compromising is the most appropriate for managing conflict (Blake and Mounton, 1964; Likert and Likert, 1976). However, other researchers held a different opinion. It was argued that one mode may not be suitable for all kinds of conflict situations. For conflicts to be managed functionally, one mode may be more appropriate than another depending on the situation (Kelly, 1980; Mastenbroek, 1993). In general, positive-sum modes are appropriate for dealing with the strategic issues. If conflict is frictional or rival, it can be used in several situations. Rahim (2002) suggested that each of the five modes of handling conflict is useful for different situations. The dual concern model that stresses the problem solving and bargaining dimensions of the modes of handling interpersonal conflict was then developed (Figure 2.5).

CONCERN FOR SELF

HIGH LOW Bargaining Dimension

Problem Solving Dimension
Figure 2.5 The Dual Concern Model:
Problem Solving and Bargaining Dimensions of the Modes of
Handling Interpersonal Conflict

Pruitt (1983) suggested and provided some empirical evidence from laboratory studies that there are four modes of handling conflict: yielding (obliging), problem solving (integrating), inaction (avoiding), and contending (dominating). These modes were based on the dual-concern model suggested by the scholars discussed above.

Thomas and Kilmann’s Conflict Model
Thomas and Kilmann (1974) developed his two-dimensional model based on assertiveness (efforts to fulfill their own concerns) and cooperativeness (efforts to fulfill the concerns of others).

Five conflict handling modes are plotted along these two dimensions: competing is assertive and uncooperative; collaboration is assertive and cooperative; avoiding is unassertive and uncooperative; accommodating is unassertive and cooperative; compromising is intermediate in both assertiveness and cooperativeness. The model is shown in figure 2.6.

According to Thomas and Kilmann (1974), the competing mode of handling conflict is associated with high assertiveness and low cooperativeness. The disputants put all their efforts into fulfilling their own concerns and goals while disregarding those of the other party. The conflict handling modes presented by Thomas and Kilmann (1974) echo those described by Rahim (1983a) and some of the names are the same─compromising and avoiding. Thomas and Kilmann (1974) discussed the conflict handling styles and the relevant abilities required to use such styles.

UNCOOPERATIVE COOPERATIVE

COOPERATIVENESS

Figure 2.6 Thomas and Kilmann’s Two Dimensional Model of Conflict Behaviors (1974)

Competing
Competing, which is termed “dominating” in Rahim’s two dimensional model of conflict behaviors, has a tendency to be skewed toward the use of whatever power is necessary to win from a particular position. When a disputant is handling a conflict with the competing mode, they assert their position in a forceful way to guarantee that their needs are met and their goals are achieved. Competing behavior may be manifested in standing up for your rights or overstepping the boundaries and imposing your will on the other party.

Russo and Eckler (1994) stated that competing is a win-lose situation and the outcome can be negative for either disputant. When one disputant wins by using the competing strategy, it may cause bitterness in the opposing disputant and destroy any possibility of future interactions. Thomas and Kilmann (1974) identified the skills employed in the competing mode as: the ability to argue or debate, the ability to use rank or influence, asserting opinions and feelings, standing firm, and the ability to state your position clearly. Friedman et al. (2000) considered the competing mode less effective in achieving a solution to the conflict.

Collaborating
Collaborating, which is termed “integrating” in Rahim’s two dimensional model of conflict behaviors, is considered to be both highly assertive and highly cooperative behavior (Thomas and Kilmann, 1974). Disputants employ this mode when they desire to completely satisfy the needs and goals of both parties in conflict. Conflicts are seen as a win-win situation. Cooperation is required for success as the disputants work with each other to find the most advantageous solution. Fisher and Ury (1991) emphasized that only a thorough examination of both disputants’ interests will result in a constructive, durable, and satisfying outcome. The only negative aspect to the use of collaborating, as a conflict management strategy, is that it is extremely time consuming.

Collaborating skills include the abilities to: listen, understand, and empathize, to confront situations in a non-intimidating manner, to analyze input and to identify the root cause of the problem (Thomas and Kilmann, 1974). Russo and Eckler (1994) believed that collaborating mode moves away from the self-centered approach of the other four conflict handling modes into a solution oriented approach. Collaborating conflict handling mode is particularly important if the disputants must continue to work together on future issues.

Compromising
Reasonable levels of assertiveness and cooperativeness are associated with the mode of compromise (Thomas and Kilmann, 1974). Compromising requires the disputants to relinquish some of their desires and concerns in order to obtain others. A solution during compromise occurs when an acceptable amount of needs and goals are attained with the least amount of individual loss (Russo and Eckler, 1994). It is unlikely that the solution will satisfy either disputant’s original needs or goals. However, there will be enough to result in a solution that both disputants can live with. Compromise is often thought of as negotiation. The skills used in compromise are: negotiating, the ability to find common ground, yielding on important issues, and the ability to access issues to ensure that the bargaining is fair (Thomas and Kilmann, 1974).

Avoiding
When a disputant’s behavior is low assertive and low cooperative, they are utilizing the conflict handling mode of avoiding. Friedman et al. (2000) believed that disputants who are lacking the skills of conflict management and conflict resolution often employ the mode of avoiding. In employing this mode, the concerns of both disputants are not satisfied. Disputants are apt to become complacent and the relationship between the disputants will stagnate.

Behaviors such as procrastination in solving an issue as well as discounting an issue or completely ignoring it are typical of the avoidance strategy. Avoiding skills are: the ability to withdraw from a situation, sidestepping of issues, timing-knowing when to postpone an issue, and the ability to delay in making a decision (Thomas and Kilmann, 1974).

Accommodating
The mode of accommodating is associated with low assertiveness and high cooperativeness. Accommodating, which is termed “obliging” in Rahim’s two dimensional model of conflict behaviors, occurs when one disputant abandons their own concerns in order to satisfy the concerns of the other party in conflict (Thomas and Kilmann, 1974). While accommodating may be a quick and ready means to an end the conflict, the outcome attained is not optimal. Quickly conceding to the both disputant’s desires will result in missed opportunities for mutual gains (Friedman et al., 2000). In addition, the disputant who accommodates the other may never get their needs met and will continue to be dissatisfied with the situation (Russo and Eckler, 1994). The ability to sacrifice, selflessness, obeying directives, and the ability to yield to another are the skills used when operating in an accommodating manner.

Review of Related Studies

This section discusses the theories and concepts related to the study of conflict handling behavior in workplace. The review of the related studies could help shed light on the hypotheses of the present study.

Conflict Handling Modes of Managers

There have been studies on how much of the communication between superiors and subordinates are devoted to conflict management. Thomas (1992) found that managers spend 20% of their time managing conflict, and middle managers spend 26%. Regarding the issues underlying conflicts in superior-subordinate relationship, Worchel (1986) found that the relevant conflict issues are scheduling and rostering, application of rules and procedures, the fairness of their evaluations and performance appraisals, insufficient resources, and opposing views. Superior and subordinate also dispute the quality of work performed and whether they have been treated with consideration and respect.

Bergmann and Volkema (1989) identified the underlying conflict issues for a superior-subordinate conflict as: goal conflict, input not accepted, task assignment too general, unfair evaluation, unrealistic workload, application of rules, superior not interacting with subordinates and no feedback. Each of the above is generally identified as the main issue resulting in a feeling of frustration in a superior-subordinate relationship. In their studies, they also found that the participants in conflict situation had a tendency to perceive the conflict as causing them to be upset, work harder, have lower job performance, feel guilty or become uneasy when the other party involved in the conflict was present. These results explain why Argylr and Furnham (1983) found that respondents described their relationships with a work superior as very low in satisfaction and high in conflict compared with other types of relationship in an organization. Tjosvold and Chia (1988) also observed from their survey that the overall perception of low satisfaction and high conflict exist in the relationships with work superiors.

Rahim and Buntzman (1989) carried out an investigation on the relationships of supervisory power bases to styles of handling conflict with subordinates, and subordinates’ satisfaction with supervision. They found that use of integrating style is associated with subordinates’ greater satisfaction with supervision. In 1995, Weider-Hatfield studied the relationships among conflict management styles, levels of conflict, and reactions to work. One of the variables of reactions to work is job satisfaction. The results of analyses indicated that low job satisfaction is associated with as high-dominating style, and a strong relationship between integrating mode and job satisfaction. These findings reveal strong relationship between conflict handling modes and job satisfaction.

Cultural Influences on Conflict Handling

Thoughts and feelings are always culturally shaped and influenced by one’s social situation and historical context (Rosaldo, 1989). “Individuals are individual-in-context. They do not exist separately from their social worlds” (Atkinson, 1999, p.642). Cultural influence should not be ignored when individual’s attitude and behavior, for example, behavior of handling conflict, are studied. To understand the culture of staff concerned, it is necessary to look at the composition of the population in the society. In Hong Kong, about 97% of the population are ethnic Chinese (So, 1998). Having been under the ruling of British government for a century, Hong Kong people have exposed themselves to western ideologies which have contributed a considerable part of their beliefs and behaviour. Nevertheless, with the vast majority of population being ethnic Chinese, Chinese culture still has the greatest influence on Hong Kong people. Chinese culture should be the most influential element in the cultural development of the Hong Kong society.

Characteristics

The salient features of Chinese culture examined in this section include obedience to the superior along the hierarchy, preservation of face (mianzi) and ingroup relationship (guanshi).

Obedience

Chinese concept of social behavior is shaped by the Confucian tradition (Lee, 1996). Chinese socialization includes training for obedience, proper conduct and impulse control but relative lack of emphasis is given to independence (Ho, 1996). Such moral ideal of respecting the authority is a significant characteristic of the socialization of Chinese people that is guided by the perception of filial piety. The obedience to the superior along the hierarchical ranking of authority (i.e. parents in family and managers in organization) is due to this filial piety. The Confucian concept of filial piety lies at the heart of Chinese culture and this leads to the socially accepted behavior of respect and obedience to the superior (Ho, 1994; Bond and Wang, 1981). For example, the son is expected to show obedience to the parents. The socialization of children aims at promoting interdependence, not independence and children are expected to respect their parents. Similarly, staff are expected to respect their seniors in workplace.

At the cultural level, Chinese may be characterized as highly concerned about a person’s hierarchical ranking within the institution. Gow et al. (1996) suggested that the strong emphasis on filial piety and obedience to authority, together with strict demands from parents shape the receptive attitude of Chinese. For instance, Chinese workers are not used to challenging the managers’ authoritative role. It appears that the cultural characteristic of obedience to superior would affect the way how Hong Kong workers behave in their organization.

Preservation of Face

The face of a person is a complicated concept which involves one’s dignity and respect from others. A person who has lost his or her face feel ashamed and embarrassed. Then the terms of interaction with others need to be reconstructed before the communication can smoothly proceed further. Goffman (1955) quoted in Bond and Lee (1978) defined that a person may be said to “have” or “maintain” face when what he or she does effectively presents his or her image that is supported by the judgements of the parties (people and institutions) involved in the situation. “Face” is an important consideration in interpersonal communication, especially in Chinese societies.

Bond (1991) stated that Chinese people highly value the preservation of “face” (mianzi) and like “pulling on relationship” (la guanxi) (p.59). Bond and Lee (1978) conducted a research on the way how Chinese people critcize their peers. Results showed that the subjects were motivated by face considerations when giving judgement, so that they moderated the severity of those judgements rather than reduced their number of critical responses. This approach was adopted to save their own face as objective evaluators by making the standard number of criticisms, but also save their peers’ face by moderating the severity of their comments. This reflects that the attitude of saving face prevails among Chinese colleagues. Face saving also helps protect group integrity and therefore is a valued behavior in groups (Bond and Lee, 1978).

Any society with geographically stable membership should have a stronger ideology about face saving as anonymity will be relatively unusual in such a society (Bond and Lee, 1978). A department of an organization should be regarded as a stable society since there is usually no or only a small change of the composition of the colleagues and the department usually lasts for a consecutive period of time. As a result, the ideology of face saving seems to be strong in a department and it appears that preservation of face is a predictable behavior among Chinese employees in their workplace and such behavior would have certain impact on the staff’s performance in their workplace.

Ingroup Relationship

Chinese people are trained to promote the harmony and integrity of the group as the basic model. Cheng (1990) stated that in Chinese culture, the role determines the behaviour of the member of the group. Achieving a state of harmony (he) within the group is highly valued and it can be achieved if one maintains appropriate role relationships within the group.

Bond (1991) suggested that “Chinese tend to communicate mainly with people whom they know, and within their circles of acquaintances” (p.52). Chinese make a clear distinction between established acquaintances and others. In Chinese communities, identification with their various ingroups is regarded important. Jin and Cortazzi (1998) pointed out that in Chinese culture of communication, Chinese rarely openly critize their peers within their group.

Hofstede (1980) mentioned that in societies of collectivistic culture, such as Hong Kong, people stress fitting in, belonging to the ingroup, and maintaining a “we” identity. The use of “we” identity and being a part of the ingroup shape Chinese communication process (Gao et al., 1996). Chinese people, driven by the sense of belonging to their ingroups, less frequently use first-person forms “I”, ‘my”, and ‘mine” but more frequently use the forms “we”, “our” and “ours” while giving opinion and feedback. This style of communication also helps promote the ingroup relationship (guanxi) (Bond, 1991). Chinese people like to express their concerns, opinions and objections with the identity of the group they belong to.

Regarding the issue of argument, Bond and Venus (1991) stated that there is less direct offense in an ingroup situation than an outgroup or private situation. The strong sense of ingroup relationship in Chinese culture probably affects the performance of the colleagues in inter-group projects.

As staff’s cultural background influences their behavior, it is likely that the significant Chinese culture of obedience to superior, preservation of face and ingroup relationship shape the staff’s culture of working. Hofstede (1991) claimed that Hong Kong is a high power-distance culture in which the less powerful members of organizations accept and expect that power is distributed unequally along the hierarchical lines. Because of the cultural background, Chinese staff tend to respect their seniors and dislike challenging them. They prefer asking questions in private. This can be explained by the Chinese perception of “face”. Members of collectivist societies such as Hong Kong pay more attention to face work. Preserving the face of others is an accepted behaviour (Ting-Toomey, 1998). Chinese colleagues try to save the face of their superiors so they choose not to ask questions in public (in front of the whole team). The fear that difficult questions will make their superiors lose face may stop them from asking questions before other colleagues. (Cortazzi and Jin, 1996) stated that Chinese people worry that their less thoughtful questions may be laughed at by others and as a result, they will lose face. Standing in front of the colleagues to answer or ask questions means taking risk of losing face. Owing to the concern of preserving face, Chinese staff tend to ask their superiors questions in private or after the official meeting as there is less risk of loss of face.

In fear of losing face before others, Chinese people are more reluctant to speak and dislike making mistakes in front of the whole group (Bond,1991; Tarone and Yule, 1989 and Sato, 1990). To avoid saying something inappropriate or making mistakes, they are inclined to choose not to speak in public. Fear of losing face and embarrassment may result in their employing the conflict handling modes that are less offensive.

Culturally shared values influence the way how parties belonging to a particular culture perceive the social phenomena and the behaviors they have in response to particular situations (Westwood, 1992). Researchers have argued that Chinese culture very much alters attitudes and interactions in conflict situation (Bond and Wang, 1983). Certain Chinese fundamental cultural values shape the way of handling conflict among the Chinese.

Chinese people are often characterized as conforming and respectful of, if not submissive to those in higher status (Wong et al., 1992). Chinese were found to want to avoid conflict with stranger and face-to-face confrontation (Tang and Kirkbridge, 1986). The study conducted by Westwood et al. in 1992 indicated that the Chinese executives favored the less assertive compromising and avoiding modes while the British displayed an inclination toward the more assertive collaborating and competing modes. They also investigated the influence of certain key Chinese values buried in the culture on conflict handling modes and resolution behaviors. It was found out that the persistence of Chinese culture lied centrally and significantly conformed to the Confucian philosophy and some of the cultural values that followed from this legacy had a bearing upon conflict behavior. Tang and Kirkbridge (1986) also found out that there are cultural differences in terms of conflict handling modes between the Chinese and British managers examined in their research. While both Chinese and British executives favored the compromising style, the Chinese executives showed tendency in favoring the less assertive “avoiding” behavior but the British managers showed a rather different pattern favoring the more assertive “collaborating” behavior.

Use of different conflict handling modes

Results of studies on the relationships between conflict types and work performance showed that substantive conflict enhances group performance, like affective conflict, but it can diminish group loyalty, work commitment, intent to stay in the present organization, and job satisfaction (Jehn, 1997; Jehn at al., 1999). As a result, interventions for conflict management should be designed to develop cultural norms to support disagreement among group members in connection with tasks and other related management issues without generating affective conflict among organizational members (Rahim, 2002).

Marriner (1982) studied whether some modes are associated satisfactory and unsatisfactory resolution outcomes. It was found that integrating (collaborating) is used with greater frequency, followed by compromising, with successful outcome. Avoiding is used with the greatest frequency, followed by dominating (competing), with unsuccessful outcome. While Chan (1989) conducted a study on the conflict management of four aerospace companies and found that integrating (collaborating) mode of conflict handling is associated with functional consequences, and negative consequences are associated with dominating (competing) and avoiding modes.

Burke (1970) and Renwick (1977) discovered positive relationships between a superior’s use of conflict and subordinate perceptions that conflict in the relationships was managed constructively.

Blake and Mouton (1970) asserted that for the manager collaborating “may be time-consuming in the short run but time-conserving over the long term” (p.420). Filley (1978) argued that when organizational parties are interdependent, as is the case in superior-subordinate relationships, a manager’s use of collaborating will evoke loner-term cooperation. Robbins (1978) stated that withdrawing (accommodating) can reinforce cooperation efforts, whereas “authoritative command” (similar to forcing (competing)) is “very effective in organizations since members recognize and accept authority of supervisors” (p.73). Finally, Thomas (1977) described specific sets of conditions under which each strategy might be a useful managerial skill.

Hackman and Oldham (1976) argued that specific job characteristics such as skill variety, task identity and significance, and autonomy affect employees’ perceptions of the meaningfulness of their work and the amount of responsibility they feel for their jobs, whereas participative decision making advocates have long argued that involving employees in making decisions that directly affect them offers employees challenge and a sense of accomplishment. Organizational communication researchers have found links between specific supervisory communicative behavior and subordinate outcomes. For instance, in a study of classified employees in a university setting, Wheeless, Wheeless, and Howard (1984) found that communication satisfaction with supervisors and supervisor receptivity to information were significant predictors of job satisfaction. Working from a theory of superior-subordinate communication that holds that freedom of expression and self-concept affirmation are important needs that employees want satisfied through the communicative traits of their superiors, Infangte and Gorden (1991) found that subordinates’ dissatisfaction with their superiors was strongly related to the perception that their superiors communicated with them in a verbally aggressive manner. In addition, results indicated the important role of superior’s affirming mode in affecting subordinates’ satisfaction and organizational commitment.

Weider-Hatfield and Hatfield (1996) investigated the relationships between managers’ conflict management strategies and subordinate outcomes. The study focused on the use of collaborating, forcing (competing), and accommodating and four types of rewards (system, job, performance, and interpersonal) subordinates might experience at work. The respondents included citizens of U.S., South America, Europe, the middle East, and the Far East. It was found that positive relationships between a manager’s collaborating modes and subordinates’ experiencing interpersonal and performance rewards and significant negative relationships between manager’s forcing modes and those same outcomes. No relationship was found between a manger’s accommodating modes and subordinates’ perceived rewards or between any of the modes and system rewards. The results echoed findings of Rahim and Buntzman (1990) and Richmond et al. (1983)’s studies that the superior’s use of forcing was inversely coorelated with the subordinates’ satisfaction with supervision. Burke (1970) also found that both forcing and avoiding are negatively related to subordinates’ perceptions of superior’s helpfulness (Figure 2.7).

Figure 2.7 A Model on the relationship among type of conflict, conflict handling modes, conflict outcome and job satisfaction

Superior-subordinate communication is probably the most researched area within the field of organizational communication. Downward superior-to-subordinate communication typically consists of job instruction, information designed to instill within employees a sense of mission and commitment to organizational goals (Tjosvold and Chia, 1988; Gibson et al., 1991). Upward communication from subordinate to superior usually involves information about the subordinate’s performance or problems, feedback about policies and practices of the organization, or message about what should be done and how it might be accomplished (Tjosvold and Chia, 1988; Gibson et al., 1991). Weider-Harfield (1990) stated that superior-subordinate communication is the most important area as a source of disagreement or disputes that pervades conflict development. In Bergmann and Volkema’s study (1989), they found that conflicts that were present between superior and subordinate were in greater proportions than other types of conflict in an organization, while Tjosvold and Chia (1988) reported that the most prevalent conflict in organizations is also associated with superiors and subordinates. From these findings, conflicts between superior and subordinate (or manager and staff) are particularly prevalent throughout an organization. On the other hand, horizontal communication among peer colleagues plays an important role in the management communication within the department of the organization. The relationship, cooperation, and support among the peer staff members have significant effects on the effectiveness of achieving the organizational goals. In order to understand conflict management in different dimensions, this research was designed to include the study of the conflict handling mode in both superior-subordinate and peer dyads.

The findings of the previous studies contribute to our understanding of important variables that managers might consider in assessing the potential functionality associated with various conflict handling modes.

Conceptual Framework

Studies on conflict handling provide knowledge about the preference of the types of conflict handling modes used, and the outcomes of using different modes. Study on the conflict management modes preferred by Chinese staff and their concerns when dealing with intragroup conflict can enhance our understanding of the application of conflict handling modes of Chinese in organizations.

The theoretical framework for this study was based on the two dimensional model developed by Thomas (1974) which identifies five conflict handling behavior modes. The two dimensions are the dimension of assertiveness (concerns for self) and dimension of cooperativeness (concerns for others).

Corresponding with the objective to determine the relationship between background variables of individual participants and their scores on their concerns in relation to conflict situations, the framework used in the research provides the concept of explaining objectives, hypotheses, formulation of the questionnaire, pilot survey, sampling procedures, data collection and data analysis methods. The basic tool of the research was a survey in the form of a self-completion questionnaire which included questions on the demographic background of the respondents and their conflict handling behavior.

The survey served the purpose of finding out the preferred conflict handling modes and the concerns of Chinese employees when handling conflict, and the relationships between such concerns and their demographic characteristics. A number of steps were involved in the process of conducting the research. The flow of framework of the present study is illustrated in figure 2.8.

Figure 2.8 Flow of the Framework of the Research

Hypotheses of the Study

Although the literature contains no explicitly validated taxonomy of rewards that might derive from conflict management modes, one emerging from equity theory research consists of 20 employee outcomes distributed among four categories (Huseman and Hatfield, 1990; Mile, Hatfield, and Husemsn, 1991, 1994). System rewards derive from employees’ membership in an organization─pay, fringe benefits, promotion and advancement, job security, and general working conditions. Job rewards are intrinsic to the job itself and derive from actual job performance─having responsibility, making important decisions, making use of one’s abilities, doing meaningful work, and doing challenging work. Performance rewards result from success on the job─perceptions of accomplishment, competence, achievement, confidence, and personal worth. Interpersonal rewards originate from others─recognition for good work, job friendships, status, appreciation, and a feeling of belonging.

The factor of subordinate rewards should exist in the organizations in which the staff within the department where the same cultural vales, for example, the Chinese cultural values, are shared, and such relationships could be interpreted in a way that the rewards that the staff expect should affect their attitudes in response to conflict situations.

Earlier studies found that cultural values play a significant role in the interaction between parties in conflict. The literature and studies on conflict management in organizations led to the researcher’s assumption that various concerns of individual staff members lead to different attitudes toward the conflict situation and their modes of handling the conflict. It was assumed that there should be relationships between the staff’s conflict handling behavior and their age, occupation, seniority, and position held in the organization.

The main question of this study is: “What are the attitudes of Chinese staff when handling conflict in their workplace?” This is to investigate their preference of conflict handling mode and their concerns that influence their attitudes.
Three subsidiary questions exist in this research. They are:
1. To what extent do the Chinese cultural values affect Chinese staff’s behavior in handling conflict in their workplace?
2. What are the major concerns of Chinese staff when handling conflict in their workplace?
3. How does the demographic background influence Chinese staff’s concerns when handling conflict in their workplace?

The objective of the study was to investigate the relationship between the preference of conflict handling modes employed in workplace and the cultural factors, and the relationships between the staff’s attitude when handling conflict and their demographic background including age, occupation, seniority, and position of the individual staff members. The following hypotheses would therefore be tested:

1. The compromising style of conflict management will show the highest frequency of utilization among the Chinese employees.
2. The competing style of conflict management will show the lowest frequency of utilization among the Chinese employees.
3. There will be no significant relationship between the sex of employees and their attitude of handling conflict.
4. There will be significant relationship between the age of employees and their attitude of handling conflict.
5. There will be significant relationship between the occupation of employees and their attitude when handling conflict.
6. There will be significant relationship between the seniority of employees and their attitude when handling conflict.
7. There will be significant relationship between the position of employees and their attitude when handling conflict.

Summary

The issue of conflict handling modes in organizations has received considerable attention from researchers during the past four decades. Conflict has been widely characterized as “disagreement in terms of needs”. Conflict is generally believed to be able to promote creativity and produce change, and to have gained increased recognition (Nicotera, 1995). Thomas and Kilmann (1974) defined the five categories of conflict handling modes in relation to the level of assertiveness and cooperativeness. The five modes include competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding, and accommodating. Conflict management has been the focus of a number of studies. Studies found that cultural values influence the conflict handling behavior and employment of different conflict handling modes lead to different outcomes.

CHAPTER III
METHODS OF STUDY AND SOURCES OF DATA

This chapter discusses the research design, and the methods and procedures of gathering and analyzing the data.

Research Design

There are many different kinds of instrument that can be used in data collection and each approach has its strengths and weaknesses. When deciding on the method to be employed for collecting data, the nature and objective of the research need to be taken into consideration.

The main purpose of this investigation was to investigate the attitudes of the respondents when handling conflict. This was a general exploratory study of conflict handling modes. It was a descriptive study, comparative in nature, in an area of business organizations. The findings might prove useful in establishing a basis for further investigations into the management of conflict in business settings in Hong Kong. Data for study were gathered by administration of a survey to determine the dominant conflict handling modes of the respondents. The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Handling Mode Instrument indicates a preferred method of handling conflict according to five recognized conflict handling behaviors: competing (forcing), collaborating (problem solving), compromising (sharing), avoiding (withdrawing), and accommodating (smoothing). The instrument has been adopted in a number of studies concerning conflict management modes in organizations. The choice of conflict handling modes of the respondents was measured by the score that the respondent obtained on the Thomas-Kilmann Conflcit Mode Instrument.

Through the analysis of the responses of the pilot survey, the researcher identified thirteen statements that reflect their concerns when handling intragroup conflicts, which were organized into the following three categories: (a) relationship with colleagues; (b) personal benefits; (c) benefits of the organization.

The data related to the sex, age, occupation, seniority, and job position were collected from the respondents’ responses to the questions in the questionnaire developed for this study. The resulting data assisted the researcher in comparing the respondents’ concerns when handling conflict in relation to their demographic background.

Study Variables

The dependent and mediator variables were measured according to the data collected in the self-completion questionnaire.

Dependent variables The dependent variable in the study was the participant’s score on the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (MODE) and on the Concern Statements relating to conflict. The preference of conflict handling mode was reflected by the pattern of responses of the respondents on the MODE instrument, which contained thirty pairs of forced choice statements representing five modes of conflict handling behaviors: competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding, and accommodating. Responses reflected the perceptions of subjects about their individual preferences for application of the conflict handling modes in conflicting situations. These modes were the five specific methods of dealing with conflict that were examined by Thomas and Kilmann (1974) and utilized in their Thomas-Kilmann Conflcit Mode Instrument (MODE).

Mediator variables Information related to each of the mediating variables including the sex, age, occupation, seniority, and position of the respondents was collected from the responses of the participants via a questionnaire developed by the researcher for such purpose. The design of questionnaire items was based on the hypotheses of this study.

The basic tool of the research was a questionnaire designed for the present study. The questionnaire comprised three parts. Part 1 of the questionnaire consisted of multiple questions about the demographic background of the respondents―sex, age, occupation, seniority, and position of the respondents (Appendix A).

This part aimed at collecting data for investigating the influence of the background of the respondents on their attitudes toward their colleagues and organization when handling conflict.
The five background categories were as follows:

A. Sex: Male
Female

B. Age: Below 25
25—34
35—44
45—54
55 or above

C. Occupation: Civil service
Banking and finance
Trading
Manufacturing
Communication
Social service Others

D. Seniority: The number of years of service in the organization:

Below 5 years
5—9 years
10—14 years
15—19 years
20 years or above

E. Position: Managers and administrators Secretarial and clerical staff Professionals Technical Staff Others

Part two of the questionnaire was a survey which adopted the Thomas-Kilmann Conflcit Mode Instrument (MODE). This part aimed at finding out the respondents’ preference of the conflict handling modes. The Thomas-Kilmann Conflcit Mode Instrument (MODE) has been widely employed to find out the individual member’s preferred conflict management mode in organizations (Appendix B).

Part three of the questionnaire comprised thirteen statements incorporating the self-reported responses from those forty one students in the class of the researcher in a preliminary questionnaire. Three categories of concerns were included in the survey. It was assumed that a checklist with choices to be made rather than open-ended questionnaire could elicit response more adequately. The advantage of using close-end questions was that it could avoid ambiguous and vague answers and therefore, the potential danger of the researcher’s making subjective interpretation would be reduced (Appendix C).

The study was to investigate the cultural influence on the preference of conflict handling modes, and the relationships between the demographic factors and the attitude of handling conflict. The factors to be investigated in the study include sex, age, occupation, seniority, and position of the respondents.

To facilitate the process of data analysis, it was necessary to standardize the expressions given by the respondents. To enhance the process of filling the survey, the questionnaire was designed in such a way that it should be easy to understand and easy to complete. It was believed that it would help minimize the possibility of giving responses without sincere reflection.

Although all the respondents were Chinese and English was their second language, they were studying management at tertiary level and had met the English language requirement of pursuing higher education. They would be able to understand the meaning of the questions in English, and therefore, there would not be necessary to provide a Chinese version of the questionnaire to enhance communication and understanding. To ensure the respondents’ comprehension of the questions, they were given 15 minutes in class to read the content to check if they had problems with the meanings. Some questions concerning the meanings of the questions in part 3 were raised and the researcher provided explanation for those few questions.

The survey was conducted in the summer of 2008. A total of 220 questionnaires were delivered. Each completed questionnaire was put inside a business envelope provided by the researcher. The students returned the questionnaires a week later during lessons so that they had enough time to complete the whole questionnaire. Most of the questionnaires were returned a week later and a small number were returned two to three weeks later. All questionnaires were returned within four weeks after they had been distributed. A cover letter to solicit students’ assistance to complete the questionnaire and explain the purpose of the study and the duration needed to complete the questionnaire was attached with each questionnaire,

Population of the Study

This study investigated the preference of conflict handling modes of Chinese employees in their workplace, their concerns when encountering conflict, and the relationships between such concerns and their demographic background including sex, age, occupation, seniority, and position of the individual staff members. The participants had enrolled in the management course at the researcher’s institute. They were the students of the researcher. The total number of students enrolled in the course was 226 in the academic year of 2008-9. Due to the reason of drop-out and defer of study, 6 students were not qualified as targets for the research. The sample in this study consisted of 220 students who had enrolled in the courses in the semester of May 2008.

In order to maximize the opportunity to successfully reach the sampled subjects, it was planned to distribute the questionnaires to them during lessons with explanation of the purpose of the study and the meaning of the questions. Students were asked to complete and return the questionnaires a week later. Returned questionnaires were analyzed and descriptive analysis was then carried out to ascertain the influence of various concerns proposed.

For those sampled subjects who were absent from the lecture, questionnaires with a cover letter was given to them in the next lecture and they were requested to return the completed questionnaires a week later.

Sampling Design

A pilot survey was done in order to get the responses from the respondents so that the final version of the questionnaire could be improved. Forty one students from the same class were asked to complete the pilot questionnaire in May 2008. Another important function of the survey was to gather ideas relating to the respondents’ concerns when facing conflict with their colleagues. They were requested to express their concerns in statement form. They were asked to return the pilot survey form a week later so that they had enough time to give feedback on the setting of the questionnaire and write their concerns related to conflict handling. All of the students completed the questionnaire. Several remarks regarding the clarity of the questions and the format of the questionnaire were made. The wording of several questions and the design of the survey form were amended based on the feedback given by the respondents. A number of statements in relation to their concerns when dealing with conflict were collected in this pilot survey. It was believed that the improved version of the questionnaire could better gather the relevant data for the present study. The statements of concerns were analyzed and classified into three categories with a total of thirteen statements.

Methods of Gathering Data

The self-completion questionnaires were distributed to the sample of 220 students who were working adults and studying the management programs at the researcher’s institute in the semester of May 2008. In order to have a higher response rate, students were given the questionnaires during lessons and were requested to complete and return the questionnaires in the next lesson.

A total of 97.3% (220 out of 226) of the sampled subjects were reached during the lessons. Reaching the targets in the class proved to be effective means of ensuring a high response rate. Two of the returned questionnaires were not usable due to incomplete answers. The final number of questionnaires that could be used for gathering the relevant data was therefore 218.

After the subjects had returned the completed the questionnaire, the researcher randomly selected 10% from the samples and gave them follow up telephone calls to check their understanding of the questions. The advantage of random selection was that it could prevent the possibility of the bias of the researcher. For instance, the researcher might have personal preference of some students and then tended to choose them for random checking. Those students might be the most outstanding and smartest students and as a result, such selection would not serve the purpose of checking the subjects’ comprehension of the questions in general. The randomly selected respondents were contacted within a week after they had returned the survey form.

Statistical Treatment

Returned questionnaires were analyzed in the summer of 2008. Descriptive analysis was then carried out to investigate the popularity of the five conflict handling modes, the concerns of the respondents regarding the intraconflict encountered, and the relationships between those concerns and the demographic characteristics of the respondents.

Use of different conflict handling modes
Of the 218 usable questionnaire collected, the following represents the distribution of the use of the five conflict handling modes. There were a total of five modes in the conflict handling mode instrument survey. Compromising mode was the most favored mode and the least favored style was the competing mode.

The other part of this study concerns the respondents’ concerns when handling intragroup conflict in their department. Three categories of concerns were studied: relations with colleagues, personal benefits, and benefits of the organization. It was found that the demographic background influenced the tendency of the individual concerns.

Summary

The basic tool of the research was a survey in the form of a self-completion questionnaire which included questions about the demographic background of the respondents, questions on their conflict handling modes, and their concerns and attitude when facing conflict. The self-completion questionnaires were distributed to the sample of 220 students who were the students of the researcher direct. They were asked to fill the questionnaire and return it a week later so that they had enough time to recall their experience relating to conflict management. A total of 220 questions were returned and 218 questionnaires were usable for data analysis.

In order to have a higher response rate, the questionnaires were delivered to the students during lessons. All the survey forms were collected in June 2008. Returned questionnaires were analyzed in the summer of 2008. Descriptive analysis was then carried out to study the data with reference to the hypotheses proposed.
CHAPTER IV
PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND
INTERPRETATION OF DATA

In this chapter, the findings of the study will be presented and discussed. The demographic characteristics of the respondents will be summarized and described first followed by the analysis of the data with discussion of the preference of conflict handling modes and the relationships between various demographic characteristics and the concerns of the respondents when dealing with conflict.

Demographic Characteristics of the Respondents

The demographic characteristics of the respondents are summarized. Out of the sample population of 226 students of the management course, a total of 220 of them were reached and responded by filling in the questionnaire. Only two of the returned questionnaires were not usable due to reasons of non-completion, double and missing answers. It was not possible to trace those two respondents as they were not required to write their name on the questionnaire. The total number of questionnaires used for the study was 218. The percentage of the usable questionnaires was 99%. Demographic characteristics of the respondents were represented below with the help of tables. They would also be compared with those of the student body.

Sex

Of the 218 respondents, 58.7 percent were female while 41.3 percent were male (Table 1).
Table 1: Distribution of Respondents by Sex

Sex
Number
Percentage (%)
Male
90
41.3
Female
128
58.7
Total
218
100

Age

Of the 218 respondents, almost half of them (49.5%) were within the age group of 25-34, while those of 24 or below constituted slightly lower than a quarter of the subjects (23.8%) and those of 36-45 constituted 17.5% (Table 2). Less than 2% of the respondents (1.8%) belonged to the age group of 55 or above. The vast majority (73.3%) were below the age of 35. It should be considered a normal distribution as people within this age range constitute a high proportion of students of part-time courses.

Table 2: Distribution of Respondents by Age

Age Range
Number
Percentage (%)
Below 25
52
23.8
25 – 34
108
49.5
35 – 44
38
17.5
45 – 54
16
7.4
55 or above
4
1.8
Total
218
100

Occupation

The occupations of the respondents were diverse (Table 3). The majority of the respondents worked in the field of trading (19.7%). About seventeen percent worked in the field of banking and finance (17.4%) and civil service (16.5%) respectively. There were around fifteen percent working in the field of communication, transport, and related service (14.6%). About twelve percent worked in the field of manufacturing (12.4%) and social service (11.5%) respectively. The proportion of these occupations among the respondents is presented in table 3.

Table 3: Distribution of Respondents by Occupation

Trade
Number
Percentage (%)
Trading
43
19.7
Banking and finance
38
17.4
Civil service
36
16.5
Communication
32
14.6
Manufacturing
27
12.4
Social service
25
11.5
Others
17
7.9
Total
218
100

Seniority

Of the 218 respondents, slightly more than half of them (53.2%) had served in the organization less than 5 years. Around one third of the respondents (32.6%) had worked in the same organization for 5 to 9 years. Not more than fifteen percent had worked in the same organization for ten years or more (14.2%) (Table 4).

Table 4: Distribution of Respondents by Seniority

Years of Service
Number
Percentage (%)
Below 5 years
116
53.2
5 – 9
71
32.6
10 – 14
17
7.8
15 – 19
9
4.1
20 or above
5
2.3
Total
218
100

Position

The proportion of positions held by the respondents is shown in table 5. As to the position in employment, 34.9 percent were secretarial and clerical staff. This was the majority of position held by the respondents in this study. The next major work responsibility held by the respondents was technical work. Slightly more than one fifth of the respondents were technical staff (22.5%). This work does not require management of people but requires the respondents to provide technical service and professional knowledge is needed. Compared with technical staff, about ten percent were professionals (11%). This work requires a higher level of professional knowledge and experience. Around one fifth (18.8%) of them were managers and administrators. This group of employees had to manage subordinates in their department.
Table 5: Distribution of Respondents by Position

Position
Number
Percentage (%)
Secretarial and clerical staff
76
34.9
Technical staff
49
22.5
Managers and administrators
41
18.8
Professionals
24
11
Others
28
12.8
Total
218
100

Comparison between Profiles of Respondents and the Student Body

After the summarization and description of respondents’ demographic characteristics, the data were analyzed by comparing respondents’ profiles and the student body. When the distribution of various characteristics between respondents and the student body was made, it was generally found that they were similar, indicating that the sample was representative of the population.

Preferred Conflict Handling Modes

The findings relating to preference of conflict handling modes are shown in table 6. The data collected in part 2 of the questionnaire showed that the majority of the respondents prefer compromising style. This finding supported hypothesis 1 formulated in chapter 3 that Chinese employees would favor the compromising mode most when dealing with conflict in workplace. This hypothesis was set with reference to the assumption that the Chinese cultural values including respecting the seniors, valuing relations, and avoiding losing face have significant influence on the attitude and behavior of Chinese employees in relation to conflict handling. As the respondents of the study were ethnic Chinese, it was believed that they were influenced by the Chinese culture when handling conflict with colleagues. It was assumed that Chinese employees would favor avoiding mode since quanxi (relations with people) is highly valued in Chinese culture. The result indicated that the assumption was correct as the majority of the respondents preferred compromising mode of conflict management (33.5%) as reflected in their responses in the survey form. According to the data collected concerning the preference of conflict handling modes, the least favored style was competing mode (8.7%). This finding supported hypothesis 2 that the most assertive conflict management mode, competing, would be have the lowest frequency of use among the Chinese employees. It is believed that such preference is affected by the Chinese cultural values such as valuing relations with people and avoiding loss of face, and therefore, Chinese would not favor the assertive mode to handle conflict.

According to the findings, the second popular mode was avoiding (23.9%). The third most preferred conflict handling mode was accommodating (21.1%), followed by collaborating (12.8 %).

Table 6: Conflict Handling Modes in order of Percentage

Order
Conflict Handling Modes
Number
Percentage (%)
1
Compromising
73
33.5
2
Avoiding
52
23.9
3
Accommodating
46
21.1
4
Collaborating
28
12.8
5
Competing
19
8.7

Total
218
100

The results showed that the less assertive modes, compromising and avoiding, were most favored by the respondents. This finding echoed the results of the study conducted by Westwood et al. in 1992. As explained by Tang (1985), the traditional value of “Jen”, “Li”, and “Filial Piety” influenced Chinese to respect hierarchy and maintain relationship through mutual adjustment. The values of “face”, “reciprocity” and ‘particularism” persuade Chinese to harmonize and adopt a non-aggressive approach to conflict resolution. Tang (1985) presented that Western executives show a greater tendency to utilize the more aggressive conflict handling modes because they emphasize individualism and self-reliance. Chinese staff, on the other hand, prefer the less aggressive modes.

Based on the data collected, compromising was preferred most by the respondents. Traditionally, the Chinese seniors are usually more dominating with their subordinates. Hofstede (1985) showed that Chinese societies such as Hong Kong were characterized by large power distance and collectivism. As a result, the Chinese in these societies tend to show their respect for authority. Also, Tang (1985) suggested that Chinese traditional values of “Jen”, “Li” and “Filial Piety” have shaped the Chinese to be submissive to authority and respect hierarchy. Subordinates are taught to be obliging and submissive to their superiors. Based on these theories, it is reasonable to assume that the Chinese culture shape the staff’s modes in handling conflict with their superiors in the workplace.

Other than the most preferred compromising mode, avoiding and accommodating are the next two modes most preferred by the respondents. As compared with competing, these two modes are less assertive. Compromising involves give-and-take process by which both parties give up something to agree on a mutually acceptable decision. Avoiding involves denial of the issue and the belief that any attempt either to discuss or challenge the behavior of another is hopeless and futile. Accommodating occurs when one disputant abandons their own concerns in order to satisfy the concerns of the other party in conflict.

While it is believed that the less assertive modes are favored by Chinese employees due to the influence of Chinese cultural vales, the finding of this study raised the following question: If Chinese employees are influenced by the Chinese cultural values when handling conflict, it could be assumed that the accommodating mode, which is the least assertive and most cooperative mode, should be most favored. On the contrary, accommodating was the third most favored mode preferred by only around one fifth of the respondents (21.1%). This finding could be explained in light with the influence of western culture. Since Hong Kong was a British colony for more than a century and Hong Kong has been constantly exposed to foreign culture, the western culture also plays a significant role in shaping the thoughts and behaviors of Hong Kong people. It could be the case that because of the influence of western culture, for example, the idea of individualism, the most unassertive mode, accommodating, is not the most favored mode next to compromising, but avoiding, the less assertive mode that does not require abandoning oneself to satisfy others, is most favored next to compromising.

The idea of individualism would have affected the Chinese in Hong Kong in employing the conflict handling mode. As a result, the conflict handling mode that requires total submission of oneself would not be popular among Chinese employees. As a result, the conflict handling mode that is less assertive but does not require self sacrifice for the sake of satisfying others was more favored.

Relative Influence of Individual Concerns

The first level of analysis centered on the relative influence of individual concerns by comparing the mean score of each concern statement and the overall mean. Table 4.7 shows the list of statements of concerns in order of the individual mean. There are four levels of influence (no – little – moderate – much) on a four-point Likert scale to be circled by respondents. The average mean is 2.89. The pattern and order confirmed the pattern of the order by individual mean. The concerns investigated in this study include:
Relationship with Colleagues; Personal Benefits; and Benefits of the Organization.

Table 7: Statements of Concerns in order of Mean Score

Order
Statements of Concerns
Mean
1
I want to maintain a harmonious relation with my colleagues.
3.68
2
I want to be a well accepted colleague
3.61
3
I should get what I deserve.
3.44
4
I don’t want to be ignored.
3.22
5
I like to be trusted
3.18
6
I try to convince people that I am right.
3.03
7
The organization cannot satisfy every one.
2.91
8
Completion of work should be the first priority.
2.72
9
It is important to let people feel respected.
2.68
10
Effective conflict management can help colleagues develop a sense of belonging to the organization.
2.45
11
I don’t want to state clearly my feelings and desires.
2.32
12
Conflict delays the work progress.
2.29
13
Effective conflict management can improve the efficiency of work.
2.11

Among the thirteen statements, six of them had a mean above 3.00. The statements that “I want to maintain a harmonious relation with my colleagues” and “I want to be well accepted” had the highest mean (3.68) and second highest mean (3.61) respectively. It indicated that the influence of the desire of good interpersonal relationship was high. It was evident that the majority of respondents were concerned about maintaining a good relationship with colleagues. On the other hand, it would be possible that respondents were influenced by the expectation of having a better development in the company with a good interpersonal relationship. It could be interpreted in the light of the pragmatic need as having a good relationship with colleagues means finding it easier to get the help and assistance from colleagues when needed, and it would enhance the efficiency of completing tasks at work. This would be considered a significant factor for career success, and that is an important area of personal benefits.

The concerns related to personal benefits —“I should get what I deserve” and “I don’t want to be ignored”— had the third and fourth highest scores of mean of 3.44 and 3.22 respectively.

Comparison among the means of individual concern statements and with the overall mean indicated certain trends in the influence of respondents’ concerns on conflict management when similar concern statements of the same nature clustered together. There was a strong inclination towards interpersonal relationship and personal benefits; while consideration of organizational benefits was of lowest priorities. This observation would be further verified by the comparison among background categories to be discussed below.

Influence of Various Concern Categories

After considering the influence of individual statements on respondents’ concerns relating to conflict management, the influence of the concern categories would be investigated. When the statements were formulated, there was an underlying structure; each of the statements actually belonged to one of the following three concern categories: (A) Relations with Colleagues, (B) Personal Benefits, and (C) Benefits of the Organization.

The summated weighted totals given to all the statements under each concern category were derived and compared among themselves. Those categories which got a higher mean score represented the higher influence of that factor in leading the respondents to react in situation involving conflict with their colleagues.

Table 4.8 lists the concern categories, the specific statements involved, and their mean. It was found that the order of influence and the category mean was as below.
No. 1 (A) Relations with Colleagues (3.09)
No. 2 (B) Personal Benefits (3.23)
No. 3 (C) Benefits of the Organization (2.49)

Table 8: Categories of Concerns in order of Category Mean

Relations with colleagues
Average Mean: 3.09
Order
Statements of Concerns mean 1
I want to maintain a harmonious relation with my colleagues
3.68
2
I want to be a well accepted colleague.

3.61
3
I like to be trusted.
3.18
4
It is important to let people feel respected.

2.68
5
I don’t want to state clearly my feelings and desires.

2.32

Personal benefits
Average Mean: 3.23
Order
Statements of Concerns mean 1
I should get what I deserve.
3.44
2
I don’t want to be ignored.
3.22
3
I try to convince people that I am right.

3.03

Table 8: Categories of Concerns in order of Category Mean (cont’d)

Benefits of the organization
Average Mean: 2.49
Order
Statements of Concerns mean 1
The organization cannot satisfy every one.
2.91
2
Completion of work should be the first priority.
2.72
3
Effective conflict management can help colleagues develop a sense of belonging to the organization.
2.45
4
Conflict delays the work progress.
2.29
5
Effective conflict management can improve the efficiency of work.
2.11

Relations with Colleagues and Personal Benefits topped the list, with their means higher than the overall mean of 2.89. It was evident that both Relations with Colleagues and Personal Benefits were prime factors in influencing the respondents to respond to conflict situations. The average mean of Relations with Colleagues was lower than that of Personal Benefits. It appears that Personal Benefits seem to be a more influential factor. If the score in the concern statement “I don’t want to state clearly my feelings and desires” is not included in the category of Relations with Colleagues, the average mean will be 3.29, a bit higher than that of Personal Benefits. In fact, that statement represents the behavior of not expressing one’s needs directly. A relatively low score in this concern statement means the respondents’ willingness to express their needs. This indicated that Chinese employees tend to let people know their wants. Nevertheless, such outspoken behavior does not necessarily mean that a more assertive mode of conflict handling like competing and collaborating will be employed as expressing one’s desire and insisting on it even though it may upset others are two very different acts. To conclude, this finding could not be a strong piece of evidence to disconfirm the suggestion that relations with colleagues is a major concern of Chinese employees when handling conflict in workplace.

The mean scores in the statements in the concern of Personal Benefits were the third, fourth, and sixth highest scores of means among all the thirteen concerns. Perhaps the reward from the personal benefits would be less important than that from a good interpersonal relationship with colleagues. This may be due to the influence of Chinese culture. Chinese people tend to value guanxi (relations with people) and harmonious atmosphere within the group―the department where the respondents are working together. Harmonious relations may provide more satisfaction than the benefits an individual can get out of the conflict situation. When dealing with conflict, it should be noted that the interpersonal relationship plays a significant role in people’s preference of the way how the conflict is handled.

Benefits of the organization came last on the list with the average mean of 2.49 in this category indicating that the average respondents treated these factors as of only “little” or “moderate” influence. It seems that the respondents did not care much about the benefits of the organization compared with their personal benefits and relations with colleagues. It is uncommon to see workers in Hong Kong would sacrifice themselves for the benefits of the company without considering their personal benefits including career advancement or monetary reward. The findings indicate that staff in Hong Kong are more concerned about their situation than the organization’s.

Probing deeper into the statements involved, there were some more highlights to make. Most of the statements in the category of Relations with Colleagues had a mean higher than the average mean of 2.89, with the exception of two statements that scored a mean lower than the overall one. All the statements in the category of Personal Benefits had a mean higher than the average mean of 2.89. These findings indicated that the influence of concerns of these two categories on the respondents to respond to a conflict situation was high. On the other hand, all statements in the categories of Benefits of the Organization had a mean lower than the overall mean, with the exception of one statement that scored a mean a bit higher than the average one, indicating their relatively insignificant influence. The statement that scored a bit higher than the overall mean was “The organization cannot satisfy everyone”. This statement refers to the respondents’ concern about the benefit of the organization by showing understanding of the limitations of the organization such as financial constraints and limited resource. Based on this understanding, one possible consequence of respondents’ response to conflict may be adopting a less assertive mode including compromising, accommodating, or avoiding attitude to handle the conflict. On the other hand, this statement also reflects respondents’ acceptance of the reality that the desires of staff may never be satisfied and it could be possible that such concern is related to their consideration of their relation with the organization other than the benefits of the organization. That could explain why the score of this statement was a bit higher than the average mean.

The above comparisons verified the relative influence of individual concerns. Further investigation would be made on the influence of demographic characteristics of the respondents on the means of concern categories.

Relationship between Demographic Characteristics and Concern Categories

In this section, the relationship between the demographic characteristics and the concern categories will be analyzed descriptively. Through the cross tabulation of each demographic characteristic and the relevant means in each concern category, the mean score obtained by each sub-group of respondents was calculated. By comparison of these figures, the difference and the extent of each sub-group of respondents being influenced by different concern categories could be drawn (Table 9).

Table 9: Mean Score of Concern Categories by Demographic Characteristics

A
B
C

Relations with Colleagues
Personal Benefits
Benefits of the Organization
Mean
3.09
3.23
2.49
SEX

Male
3.10
3.21
2.48
Female
3.08
3.25
2.50
AGE

Below 25
3.04
3.22
2.51
26 – 34
3.11
3.24
2.48
35 – 44
3.21
3.24
2.44
45 – 54
3.02
3.29
2.52
55 or above
3.09
3.10
2.56
OCCUPATION

Trading
3.12
3.21
2.47
Banking and finance
3.08
3.20
2.50
Civil service
3.10
3.25
2.51
Communication
3.07
3.27
2.50
Manufacturing
3.06
3.22
2.47
Social services
3.10
3.21
2.51
Others
3.08
3.16
2.47

Table 9: Mean Score of Concern Categories by Demographic Characteristics (cont’d)

A
B
C

Relations with Colleagues
Personal Benefits
Benefits of the Organization
Mean
3.09
3.23
2.49
SENIORITY

Below 5 years
3.08
3.24
2.43
5 – 9 years
3.11
3.23
2.54
10 – 14 years
3.10
3.26
2.57
15 – 19 years
3.06
3.21
2.63
20 years above
3.10
3.18
2.61
POSITION

Secretarial and clerical staff
3.12
3.27
2.66
Technical staff
3.07
3.17
2.19
Managers and administrators
3.10
3.25
2.72
Professionals
3.11
3.16
2.33
Others
3.02
3.29
2.39

The table shows the mean of each subgroup of the demographic characteristics of the respondents. The following part discusses the comparison of the relationships between those characteristics and the concern categories with reference to the mean scores.

Sex

The means obtained by the male and female in Relations with Colleagues were very close (male: 3.10, female: 3.08). The same finding was observed in the category of Benefits of the Organization (male: 2.48, female: 2.50). The similar score of mean could be explained by the influence of the Chinese culture. However, the mean obtained by the female in Personal Benefits was slightly higher than the male (female: 3.25, male: 3.21). The traditional view that the male as more achievement and career-oriented could offer explanation to this phenomenon. Since the personal benefits concerned in the conflict may be temporary and does not affect the career advancement, male employees may not pay much attention to it. On the contrary, female employees would be more focused on the immediate result to their current work situation, such as longer working hours, shorter holidays, extra duties, and so on. The results suggested that male employees would be more focused on career development and less attentive to the relatively short-term benefits. That could be an explanation for the finding that the male scored lower in the concern category of Personal Benefits. Nevertheless, the difference of the mean scores between male and female was not significant to draw a conclusion regarding the influence of sex on the three areas of concerns.

Age

There was no significant trend of scores of mean in the concern categories of Personal Benefits and Benefits of the Organization in relation to the age range. The results indicated that age should not be a factor influencing the staff’s attitude toward their benefits and the organizations’ benefits when conflict arises in the department.

As shown in the data, the influence of the concern of relations with colleagues on one’s attitude toward conflict handling increased with the age. This could be explained by the assumption that people experience more interpersonal problems and the negative effects of conflict when growing up, and therefore, tend to prefer maintaining a better interpersonal relationship and avoiding possible interpersonal conflict in the workplace. However, the respondents in the age group of 45 – 54 years old obtained the lowest score in the concern of Relations with Colleagues (3.02). These people had worked in the society for more than twenty years and had got many experiences of conflict. In general, the respondents in this group had served at the organization for a relatively longer period. Therefore, this finding reflected that these people with longer working experience and higher seniority at the organization would feel less worried about facing conflict in the workplace. This finding suggested that working experience could enhance people’s psychological strength in handling conflict.

Moreover, people within this age group usually would have reached the highest state of their career path. Under such circumstances, they would very much value their work performance in terms of providing betters service for the organization. Since the respondents in this group had served for a longer period at the organization, they had a stronger sense of belonging to the organization, and put the benefits of the organization at a high priority.

Occupation

It appears that the scores in the three categories of concerns were not related to the occupation of the respondents. The results showed that the respondents’ concerns when facing conflict in workplace were not much affected by the corporate cultures of various kinds of organizations such as civil service, banking and finance, trading, and so on. Instead, their responses were more affected by other factors such as age, seniority, and position.

Seniority

The results showed that the scores of the means in the concern category of Benefits of the Organization increased as the number of years of service at the organization increased, but the scores obtained by the groups of 15 – 19 years and 20 years or above were similar. Since the respondents in these groups who had worked at the organization for a relatively longer time, it would be reasonable to assume that they would work at the current organization for the future and have a stronger sense of belonging to the place where they were working and as a result, they would be more concerned about the benefits of the organization. On the contrary, those who had worked at the organization for a relatively shorter period, it would be very likely that they would change their organization. Therefore, they may just consider the current organization a temporary instead of a permanent place of their service. This view of their organization could explain the reason for their low score of the mean in the concern of Benefits of the Organization.

Position in the Organization

According to the data, the technical staff scored the lowest in the concern of Benefits of the Organization (2.19) while the managers and administrators had the highest mean score (2.72). As the position reflected the responsibility and importance of the staff member in the organization, those holding a managerial position were supposed to be more responsible for the development and growth of the organization. Their work performance usually could have serious impact on the performance of the whole department as they were the leader of their team. With this sense of responsibility and importance, usually the managers would be more concerned about the benefits of the organization when dealing with conflict among their colleagues.

The mean score of secretarial and clerical staff was the second highest in the concern category of Benefits of the Organization (2.66). Since the work of the secretarial and clerical staff is closely related to the daily operation of the organization, if the operation of the organization is affected, the respondents of this group may experience frustration and troubles at work. That could cause unpleasant experience to them. As a result, their concern for the smooth operation of the organization was reflected in their scores in the concern of Benefits of the Organization.

The comparison of the concern factors and the demographic background provides us more ideas regarding the influence on staff’s attitude when encountering intragroup conflict.
CHAPTER V
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Summary

The 218 respondents participating in the study were working adults who had enrolled in a management course offered by the researcher’s institute. On the whole, they were all ethnic Chinese and most of them were within the age of 25 to 34, without tertiary qualification, engaged in secretarial, clerical, technical, administrative, and management jobs.

The level of influence of the concerns was interpreted and compared by imposing numeric value to the responses and utilizing the means derived.

Based on the results of the study, it can be concluded that compromising was the most preferred conflict handling mode while competing was the least preferred conflict handling mode among the respondents.

These Chinese employees were influenced mainly by the concern of relations with colleagues. Variations of the influence of the three concern categories—Relations with Colleagues, Personal Benefits, and Benefits of the Organization—occurred across the age group, seniority, and position in the organization.

Conclusion

Hypothesis 1
The results showed that compromising was the most favorable mode among the respondents. It provided evidence to prove the validity of hypothesis 1 which assumed that the compromising mode of conflict management would show the highest frequency of utilization among the Chinese employees.

Hypothesis 2
The results showed that competing was the least favorable mode among the respondents. This finding supported hypothesis 2 which assumed that the competing mode of conflict management would show the lowest frequency of utilization among the Chinese employees.

Hypothesis 3
The study of the pattern of scores from the category of sex showed that the trends are the same from both male and female, from the highest of Relations with Colleagues to the lowest of Benefits of the Organization. It showed that there is no significant difference in the scale scores of men and women regarding the concerns in relation to conflict. It provided evidence to prove the validity of hypothesis 3 which assumed that there would be no significant relationship between the sex of employees and their attitude when handling conflict.

Hypothesis 4
Hypothesis 4 assumed that there would be significant differences in the scale scores of age. In general, for the concern of Relations with Colleagues, the scores increased with age. However, the respondents in the age group of 45 – 54 years old obtained the lowest score in the concern of Relations with Colleagues. In general, the respondents in this group had worked for a relatively longer period. This finding suggested that working experience could enhance people’s psychological strength in handling conflict. It provided a piece of evidence to prove the validity of hypothesis 4 which assumed that the would be significant relationship between the age of employees and their attitude when handling conflict.

Hypothesis 5
Regarding the relation between the concerns and the occupations of the respondents, the results indicated that the scores in the three categories of concerns were not related to the factor of occupation. As a result, the finding did not support hypothesis 5 which assumed that there would be significant relationship between the occupation of employees and their attitude when handling conflict.

Hypothesis 6
Having compared the factor of seniority and the concerns regarding conflict management, it was found that the respondents with lower seniority would more be driven by the concerns of Personal Benefits since they may want to change their jobs in future. On the contrary, respondents with higher seniority would more likely be concerned about the Benefits of the Organization. Respondents with different level of seniority had different concerns when dealing with conflict in the workplace. The finding provided a piece of proof to the validity of hypothesis 6 which assumed that there would be significant relationship between the seniority of employees and their attitude when handling conflict.

Hypothesis 7
In this study, the Chinese staff holding managerial position were found to be more concerned about the Benefits of the Organization. This group of respondents had a stronger sense of belonging to the organization and were more likely to identify themselves with their organization as they were more involved in strategic planning and decision making. Also, this kind of staff would be held responsible for the development and growth of the organization. Therefore, they would be more concerned about the benefits of the organization compared with those staff who were not holding managerial position in the organization. It can be concluded that there will be significant differences in the scale scores with the position of individual staff member. The results provided evidence to support the validity of hypothesis 7 which assumed that there would be significant relationship between the position of employees and their attitude when handling conflict.

Recommendations

Different conflict management modes produce different outcomes. In the study conducted by Marriner (1982), it was found that avoiding and competing, in general, tend to produce unsatisfactory conflict resolution outcomes, while compromising and collaborating, in general, tend to produce satisfactory conflict resolution outcomes. Pruitt (1983), and Pruitt and Carnevale (1992) also pointed out that collaborating mode can produce the best result in managing conflict. Friedman et al. (2000) suggested that people who tend to utilize more competing or avoiding conflict management modes experience higher levels of conflict and stress. Russo and Eckler (1994) acknowledged that avoiding conflict can be harmful if it is overused. Filley (1978) also pointed out that use of collaborating mode can lead to long-term cooperation between the parties involved in intragroup conflict such as conflict between superior and subordinate or conflict between fellow colleagues in the same department.

The results of the present study suggested that competing is the least favored mode while compromising and avoiding modes of conflict management are most preferred by Chinese employees. About one out of four respondents (23.9%) preferred avoiding when facing conflict. There appears to be a need to enhance Chinese employees to be able to use the conflict handling modes that can produce more satisfactory results, which are believed to be compromising and collaborating as suggested by the studies of Marriner’s study.

Since different modes should be appropriate for different situations, it is worth paying efforts to enhance Chinese employees’ understanding of the characteristics of different conflict management modes including the strengths and weakness of different modes, the appropriate situations for the use of different modes, and the effective ways of applying the modes in handling conflict so as to facilitate them to make proper judgment and take appropriate action in response to intragroup conflict in workplace.

As conflict is inevitable in workplace, effective conflict management is significantly important in the sense of improving organizational effectiveness. To serve this purpose, Chinese staff should receive adequate training on conflict handling. The training should include the concepts that conflict is inherent in organization and there is no need to fear conflict. Staff should realize that conflict should be managed instead of avoided, and that existence of moderate amount of conflict can lead to better organizational performance. Effective management of conflict can enhance individual and organizational performance. Despite the benefits of conflict brought to the organization, stress caused by conflict can affect staff’s effectiveness. McHugh (1992) suggested that a Total Stress Management (TSM) concept can help maintain a moderate level of stress. The model consists of four stages. Stage one is to help the staff to identify the problem. Stage two is to educate the staff in stress recognition and appreciation about the value of TSM. Stage three is to train the staff with the skill to prevent and identify stress that may cause damages. Stage four is to evaluate the result of TSM. It is believed that TSM can effectively ensure success in organizational development with optimal conflict and moderate level of stress on the staff.

Also, the staff should be trained to use the various modes in contingent manner. According to Thomas, K. W. (1979), the various modes are most effective for different situations as follows:

Competing
Competing mode should be used when quick, decisive action is vital, for example, in case of emergency. This mode should be employed for issues vital to company welfare. This is an appropriate mode for important issues where unpopular actions need implementing such as cost-cutting, enforcing unpopular rules or discipline.

Collaborating
Collaborating mode should be used to find an integrative solution when both parties of concerns are too important to be compromised. This is an appropriate mode employed to merge insights from people with different perspectives and gain commitment by incorporating concerns into a consensus.

Accommodating
Accommodating mode should be used when harmony and stability are especially important and when issues are more important to others than to the staff member. With the application of this mode, cooperation can be enhanced by the act of satisfying others. This is an appropriate mode to build social credits for later issues and to minimize loss.

Avoiding
Avoiding mode should be used when an issue is trivial, or more important issues are pressing. This is an appropriate mode for situations in which potential disruption outweighs the benefits of resolution, or others can resolve the conflict more effectively. This mode can help the parties concerned regain perspective in relation to the conflict.

Compromising
Compromising mode should be used when goals are important but not worth the effort of potential disruption of more assertive modes. This is an appropriate mode employed to achieve temporary settlements to complex issues and arrive at expedient solutions under time pressure. This mode is suitable for situations where opponents with equal power are committed to mutually exclusive goals.

Recommendation for Future Research

This study has concentrated on some employees in Hong Kong. They were the students of a management course offered at the researcher’s institute. The sample of the respondents cannot be taken as representatives of all Chinese employees in Hong Kong. It might well be the case that the concerns of employees in different organizations and departments are very diverse and there are differences in the corporate culture across organizations. The inherent study limitations suggest that a more comprehensive data base and greater generalizability of findings can be obtained through extending the sample population of the study so as to increase the degree of representation of the data.

While the present study provides relevant data of interest, it also raises some questions that suggest the direction for future research. Based on the results of the study, the Chinese culture has significant impact on the Chinese staff’s preference of conflict handling modes. Future research may compare the preference of conflict handling modes among staff of different cultures. Since Hong Kong is an international city, there are a number of international corporations which have employees with different cultural background. In order to better understand the cultural influence on Chinese staff in Hong Kong regarding the choice of conflict handling modes, the future research may focus on the comparison of different cultural influences on their preference of conflict handling modes in their workplace.

The findings of the study suggested that staff with different demographic background would show different concerns when encountering conflict. Gordon (1991) mentioned that the differences in concerns may influence the way each group views the other’s actions. The difference in perceptions of tasks, collaboration and goal orientation between groups can create role conflict. Intergroup conflict is worth studying as it is believed that the findings can provide useful information about the conflicts that occur between different departments, sections, or divisions within the same organization. A possible direction for future research is to investigate the relation between the intergroup conflict, for example, conflict among different departments, and the demographic background such as educational qualification and family background of the staff. Such research could enhance our understanding of the causes of intergroup conflict and how people react to this conflict.

As humans are affected by the social environment, it is worth investigating the change of preference of conflict handling modes of Chinese employees over time. For example, the study conducted by Tang (1985) suggested that the compromising and accommodating modes of conflict management are most preferred by Chinese while the study conducted by Westwood et al. in 1992 and the present study indicated that the compromising and avoiding modes are most preferred by Chinese. Therefore, studies that stress the change of preference with reference to different times will be useful for us to understand the relation between people’s preference of conflict handling mode and the social factors such as the political, economic, and cultural factors. These factors are not static but changing instead. Studies in this area should be significant in shedding light on the issue of conflict management.

Concerns of individual staff members play a significant role in influencing their behavior when handling conflict. Future research may compare various demographic factors and other dimensions of concerns other than the three categories studied in the present study. Research with a more comprehensive view of the concerns of Chinese employees in relation to the exercise of handling intragroup conflict can provide useful information for improving the effectiveness of management.

Implications

Any individual thought and behavior engaged in conflict should not be interpreted in isolation from the social context. As an attempt to investigate the factors affecting the preference of conflict handling modes and concerns of some Chinese employees in response to conflict in their workplace, the findings have shed light on the issue of conflict handling behavior of Chinese employees in workplace.

The pattern of concerns of Chinese employees in organizations varies according to demographic characteristics. The specific concerns of certain demographic groups can be predicted. It is evident that the Chinese cultural values, seniority and position of the staff members in the organization have certain impact on their way of managing conflict in the workplace. The understanding of the impact of the demographic characteristics on the employees when handling conflict can enhance the management to better handle the conflict among the employees and facilitate the staff to manage the conflict with their colleagues. Since conflict exists in every kind of workplace, it is important to facilitate the staff to handle conflict more effectively. Training of conflict management should be provided for staff of all levels. When designing the training programme of the use of the conflict handling modes, factors that influence the staff’s attitude in relation to conflict handling should be taken into consideration. This could help develop a better training programme for the Chinese employees in relation to their way of handling conflict so as to enhance the management effectiveness of the organizations.

.

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APPENDICES

Appendix A

Questionnaire

Introduction
The purpose of the study is to investigate the preference and concerns of Chinese employees related to conflict handling behavior in workplace. You are kindly requested to provide some personal background information, and your ideas and experience concerning conflict management. All data are treated with absolute confidence. Part 1

Information about yourself

Please choose your answer and put a “” in the space provided.

1. Your sex

1 __ male 2 __ female

2. Your age

1 below 25 _____
2 25 ― 34 _____
3 35 ― 44 _____
4 45 ― 54 _____
5 55 or above _____

Appendix A (cont’d)

3. What is your present occupation?

1 civil service _____
2 banking and finance _____
3 trading _____
4 manufacturing _____
5 communication _____
6 social service _____
7 others _____

4. How long have you served at your present organization?

1 below 5 years _____
2 5 ― 9 years _____
3 10 ―14 years _____
4 15 ―19 years _____
5 20 years or above _____

5. What is your current position in your organization?

1 Managers and Administrators _____
2 Secretarial and Clerical Staff _____
3 Professionals _____
4 Technical Staff _____
5 Others _____

Thank you very much for your kind support.

Appendix B

Questionnaire

Part 2

Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument

Instructions
Consider situations in which you find your wishes differing from those of another colleague in your department. How do you usually respond to such situation?

On the following pages you will find thirty pairs of statements describing possible behavioral responses. For each pair, please choose the statement that can better describe your own behavior, and circle the letter “A” or “B” accordingly. You may not find the A or B statements typical of your responses. Please select the ways which you would be more likely to respond.

Appendix B (cont’d)

Questionnaire

Part 2

Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument

1. A. There are times when I let others take responsibility for solving the problem. B. Rather than negotiate the things on which we disagree. I try to stress those things upon which we both agree.
2. A. I try to find a compromise solution. B. I attempt to deal with all of his and my concerns.
3. A. I am usually firm in pursuing my goals. B. I might try to soothe the other’s feelings and preserve our relationship.
4. A. I try to find a compromise solution. B. I sometimes sacrifice my own wishes for the wishes of the other person.
5. A. I consistently seek the other’s help in working out a solution. B. I try to do what is necessary to avoid useless tensions.
6. A. I try to avoid creating unpleasantness for myself. B. I try to win my position.
7. A. I try to postpone the issue until I have had some time to think it over. B. I give up some points in exchange for others.
8. A. I am usually firm in pursuing my goals. B. I attempt to get all concerns and issues immediately out in the open.
9. A. I fell that differences are not always worth worrying about. B. I make some effort to get my way.
Appendix B (cont’d)

10. A. I am firm in pursuing my goals. B. I try to find a compromise solution.
11. A. I attempt to get all concerns and issues immediately out in the open. B. I might try to soothe the other’s feelings and preserve our relationship.
12. A. I sometimes avoid taking positions which would create controversy. B. I will let him have some of his positions if he lets me have some of mine.
13. A. I propose a middle ground. B. I press to get my points made.
14. A. I tell him my ideas and ask him for this. B. I try to show him the logic and benefits of my position.
15. A. I might try to soothe the other’s feelings and preserve our relationship. B. I try to do what is necessary to avoid tensions.
16. A. I try not to hurt the other’s feelings. B. I try to convince the other person of the merits of my position.
17. A. I am usually firm in pursuing my goals. B. I try to do what is necessary to avoid useless tensions.
18. A. If it makes the other person happy, I might let him maintain his views. B. I will let him have some of his positions if he lets me have some of mine.
19. A. I attempt to get all concerns and issues immediately out in the open. B. I try to postpone the issue until I have had some time to think it over.
20. A. I attempt to immediately work through our differences. B. I try to find a fair combination of gains and losses for both of us.

Appendix B (cont’d)

21. A. In approaching negotiations, I try to be considerate of the other person’s wishes. B. I always lean toward a direct discussion of the problem.
22. A. I try to find a position that is intermediate between his and mine. B. I assert my wishes.
23. A. I am very often concerned with satisfying all our wishes. B. There are times when I let others take responsibility for solving the problem
24. A. If the other’s position seems very important to him, I would try to meet his wishes. B. I try to get him to settle for a compromise.
25. A. I try to show him the logic and benefits of my position. B. In approaching negotiations, I try to be considerate of the other person’s wishes.
26. A. I propose a middle ground. B. I am nearly always concerned with satisfying all our wishes.
27. A. I sometimes avoid taking positions that would create controversy. B. If it makes the other person happy, I might let him maintain his views.
28. A. I am usually firm in pursuing my goals. B. I usually seek the other’s help in working out a solution.
29. A. I propose a middle ground. B. I feel that differences are not always worth worrying about.
30. A. I try not to hurt the other’s feelings. B. I always share the problem with the other person so that we can work it out.

Appendix C

Questionnaire

Part 3

Concerns in relation to Handling Conflict

Below is a list of 13 concern statements. For each statement, please circle the level of influence of that particular concern on you when you are encountering conflict in your department.

Concerns
Level of Influence
1
I want to maintain a harmonious relation with my colleagues.

no little moderate much
2
I want to be a well accepted colleague.

no little moderate much
3
I like to be trusted.

no little moderate much
4
It is important to let people feel respected.

no little moderate much
5
I don’t want to state clearly my feelings and desires.

no little moderate much
6
I don’t want to be ignored.

no little moderate much
7
I should get what I deserve.

no little moderate much
8
I try to convince people that I am right.

no little moderate much
9
Effective conflict management can improve the efficiency of work.

no little moderate much
10
The organization cannot satisfy every one.

no little moderate much
11
Conflict delays the work progress.

no little moderate much
12
Effective conflict management can help colleagues develop a sense of belonging to the organization.

no little moderate much
13
Completion of work should be the first priority.

no little moderate much

Thank you very much for your kind support.

Appendix D

Letter to Students

Dear Student,

This research is part of my PhD’s study at Tarlac State University. The purpose of the study is to investigate Chinese employees’ preference of conflict handling modes and their concerns related to handling conflict in workplace. A survey has been prepared to obtain the data needed for the research. You are kindly requested to provide some personal background information, and your ideas and experience concerning conflict handling. This survey may take you about 20 minutes. All data are treated with absolute confidence.

Thank you for your kind support.

________________
Paul Cheung

Appendix E

Scores on the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument

The five modes are represented by the five columns labeled “competing”, “collaborating”, “compromising”, “avoiding”, and “accommodating”. In the column under each model is the range of possible scores on that mode – from 0 (for very low use) to 12 (for very high use). Each respondent’s scores were circled on each of the five modes.

Appendix E (cont’d)

Scores on the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument Competing Collaborating Compromising Avoiding Accommodating (forcing) (problem solving) (Sharing) (withdrawal) (smoothing)

1. A B
2. B A
3. A B
4. A B
5. A B
6. B A
7. B A
8. A B
9. B A
10. A B
11. A B
12. B A
13. B A
14. B A
15. B A
16. B A
17. A B
18. B A
19. A B
20. A B
21. B A
22. B A
23. A B
24. B A
25. A B
26. B A
27. A B
28. A B
29. A B
30. B A

Total number of items circled in each column:

__________ __________ __________ __________ __________ Competing Collaborating Compromising Avoiding Accommodating

Source: Content, S. H. (1986). Conflict Management Styles of Principals in Elementary and Secondary Schools. Los Angeles: University of California.

CURRICULUM VITAE

Personal Particulars

Name : CHEUNG Kin Wah Paul
Telephone : [phone]
Mobile : [phone]
Mobile : [phone]
E-mail : [e-mail]

Academic Qualifications

Year of Graduation : 1991
Institute : The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Award : Bachelor of Arts
Discipline : Religious Studies

Year of Graduation : 1995
Institute : The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Award : Postgraduate Diploma
Discipline : English

Year of Graduation : 2001
Institute : University of Newcastle
Award : Master of Education
Discipline : Guidance and Counseling

Year of Graduation : 2002
Institute : The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Award : Master of Arts
Discipline : English

Year of Graduation : 2005
Institute : University of Leicester
Award : Master of Education
Discipline : Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)

Professional Memberships

Association : Chartered Institute of Linguists
Membership : Member

Association : International Positive Psychology Association
Membership : Member

Working Experience

Duration : 1995 – 1998
Organization : Mongkok Workers’ Children School
Position : English Teacher
Duties : Teaching English to students of senior forms

Duration : 1998 – 2000
Organization : Centre for English & Communication
Position : Language Officer
Duties : Teaching business English and providing translation service

Duration : 2000 – 2001
Organization : Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education
Position : Lecturer
Duties : Teaching English and communication to students of Diploma and Higher Diploma Programmes

Duration : 2001 – present
Organization : School of Continuing and Professional Education, City University of Hong Kong
Position : Instructor
Duties : 1. Serving as course coordinator and academic advisor for various programmes
2. Teaching courses and conducting workshops in English, communication, and psychology
3. Serving as admission tutor responsible for interviewing and assessing the applicants during the admission process

Duration : 2005 – present
Organization : English Platform
Position : Director
Duties : 1. Planning and implementing the business strategies of the organization 2. Developing business of consultancy services and training programmes in Hong Kong and Mainland China 3. Designing and developing English and communication courses for working adults and college students
4. Conducting workshops and delivering lectures for educational institutes including universities, schools, and publishers

Voluntary Service

Duration : 2003 – present
Organization : The Polytechnic University of Hong Kong
Position : Mentor
Duties : 1. Helping the mentees, the current undergraduates of the university, develop fully their potentials 2. Facilitating them to plan and achieve their educational, personal, and social goals 3. Enhancing their career development 4. Empowering them to face the challenges in society

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