Examining conflict management style preferences of practitioner faculty by gender and age

Conflict is unavoidable and widespread within the workplace setting. Achieving effective resolution when faced with employee peer-to-peer work conflicts presents challenges as well as opportunities within modern organizations. Knowing if there is an association between conflict style choice and key demographic variables would be beneficial to organizational leaders when creating employee training and development initiatives. A quantitative study using comparative and correlational analysis was conducted to examine the potential relationships between gender and age and the conflict management style preference of practitioner faculty. Data was gathered using the Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory--II Form C with members of the online division of a Florida-based university and members of a national adjunct faculty organization. The results of the study led the researcher to conclude that there is no evidence to support a correlation between gender or age and a preferred conflict management style. The researcher's results indicated that the preferred conflict management style for both males and females was the integrating style.