Organizational conflict: A comparative analysis of conflict styles across cultures

This study investigated the impact of culture on styles of handling interpersonal conflicts. The Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory was used to collect data on the conflict management styles of integrating, obliging, avoiding, dominating, and compromising. Two regions of the world were chosen: Middle Eastern countries and states (n=913) and the United States (n=144). MANCOVA was used to analyze the data. The results indicate that Arab Middle Eastern executives use more of an integrating and avoiding style in handling interpersonal conflict while U.S. executives use more of an obliging, dominating, and compromising style. Implications of the findings and future research are discussed.