The Influence of Gender on Conflict Management Style

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The obliging style, also known as accommodating indicates low concern for self and high concern for others. An obliging person neglects and sacrifices personal concern so to satisfy the concern of the other party. This style is associated with a non-confrontation element characterized by the attempt of minimizing differences and emphasizing commonalities to satisfy the concern of the other party. As suggested by Rahim this style may take the form of selfless generosity, charity, or obedience to the party’s order. An obliging person can be defined as a “conflict absorber” terms describing a reaction of low hostility or even friendliness to a perceived hostile act.

Dominating Style, also known as competing, indicates high concern for self and low concern for others. A dominating person stands up for own rights and ignore others’ needs and expectation; try to defend personal positions that he believes being as correct and right. This is a win-lose style expression of a forcing behavior in order to win one’s position.

The avoiding style, also known as suppression, indicates low concern for self and others. Therefore an avoiding person fails to satisfy personal concern as well as the concern of the other party. It has been associated with withdrawal, buck-passing, sidestepping situations. As suggested by Rahim this style may take the form of postponing an issue until a better time, or simply withdrawing from a threatening situation. This style often reflect little concern toward the issues or parties involved in conflict, and the attitude to refuse or denying to acknowledge the existence of a conflict in public.

The compromising style indicates intermediate concern for self and others. The styles sees both parties involved in give and-take or sharing solutions, whereby both parties accept to give up something to make mutually acceptable decisions. A compromising person or party gives up more than a dominating but less than an obliging person or party. Similarly a compromising person or party addresses an issue more openly than an avoiding person or party but does not explore alternative solutions as an integrating person or party. Rahim suggested that would be possible to get more insights if using the taxonomy of game theory for reclassifying the five styles of handling interpersonal conflict: integrating style can be reclassified to a positive-sum on nonzero-sum style, compromising to a mixed style, and obliging, dominating, and avoiding to zero-sum or negative-sum. Although he indicated this possibility he warns on the risk of using the taxonomy “win” and “lose” used by the game theory for this reclassification. This may be misleading, as matter of fact, Rahim highlights that each of the five styles of handling interpersonal conflict may be appropriate, depending on the situation, therefore considered as a situation dependent “winning style”

- Gender differences in conflict management style

According to Organizational Behavior book by McShane and Von Glinow (2008), Men and women also tend to rely on different conflict management styles. Generally speaking, women pay more attention than do men to the relationship between the parties. Consequently they tend to adopt a problem solving style in business settings and more willing to compromise to protect the relationship. Men tend to be more competitive and take a short-term orientation to the relationship. Of course we must be cautious about these observations because gender has a weak influence on conflict management style.

Some research has concluded that men as a group are more likely to use conversation to emphasize status, knowledge, and/or control, while women as a group are more likely to use conversation to create understanding and connection between the parties (Tannen 1991,1993). It has also been reported that even when actual behaviors appear identical, the genders may conceptualize differently (Wilmot and Hocker 2001). Wilmot and Hocker state that men are more likely to see that self as independent, while women tend to see the self in relationship with others. Effective negotiation requires a view toward interdependence rather than power over others. It also requires mutual empathy. According to the research, it may be that women come to the negotiation task more likely to possess the more effective perspective and approach.

Studies also have indicated that in male-female interactions, males tend to dominate the conversation (Wilmot and Hocker 2001). Furthermore, studies show that females may be more willing to trust but are unforgiving of trust violations (Wilmot and Hocker 2001). Gender differences, in situations where they truly exist, may relate to culturalization. That is, in some cultures (such as the United States), men may perceive a direct approach as aggressive or insulting. Variations in culture create variations in what are presumed to be gender-typed behavior and roles. Craver (2002) compared negotiation performance of male and female law students over sixteen years in a law school negotiation course. His data suggest that gender does not significantly influence negotiation results.

Patricia Gwartney-Gibbs studied the ways in which gender affects conflicts at workplace, their origins, processes and outcomes (Birkhof, 2001). Women seem to be more sensitive to conflicts and tend to report more interpersonal types of them while facing disputes based on the assumption of the society on gender stereotypes and work responsibilities. Comparative studies about men’s and women’s experiences at workplace conflict disputes and community mediation by Terrell Northrup and Marshall Segall showed that women feel more vulnerable in day-to-day relations, which contributes to women choosing to avoid conflicts as it may cause aggression and violence (Birkhoff, 2001). A number of studies conducted by Holt and Devore (2005) were on gender differences in conflict management styles. They analyzed self-reported data on conflict styles of organization members and came across the conclusion that males in individualistic cultures are more competing, while females are compromising. Sone and Cardona also found that women tend to be more accommodating, compromising or avoiding (Sone, 1981; Cardona, 1995; Thomas and Thomas, 2008, p. 10). According to the authors’ personal observations, men are more fearless and aggressive in conflicts, thus are able to push their way through to top positions and negotiate a higher salary. Based on the report of Institute for Women’s Policy Research in 2012, female full-time workers made only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, a gender wage gap of 23 percent.

The first journal I read is The Influence of Gender on Conflict Management Style; A Study among Employees