Conflict management: A gender comparison of store managers in the apparel industry within the Northeast region of the United States (Connecticut, New York, New Jersey)

The purpose into the research inquiry of "Conflict Management: A Gender Comparison of Store Managers in the Apparel Industry Within the Northeast Region of the U.S." is to discover whether there are gender differences in conflict management styles and, coincidentally, to resolve differences in findings from previous studies that have methodological deficiencies of one sort or another. This specific study samples 1,000 managers of apparel retailers in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. A questionnaire sought responses from the intended subjects by using Rahim's Organizational Inventory (ROCI-II), which is a self-reporting tool to measure the five styles of handling interpersonal conflict with subordinates.; An analysis of variance was performed comparing male managers against female managers within each of the five conflict handling styles in order to accept or reject the 5 null hypotheses. The results revealed that there are no significant differences between male and female store managers in their utilization of the avoiding, compromising, dominating, integrating, and the obliging conflict style. However, a three-way General Linear Model (Univariate) revealed a significant difference with gender x career management experience within the integrating conflict style. This was also evident with career management experience x heritage/national origin within the integrating conflict style. These findings indicate that there is a gap amongst managers when handling conflict in a collaborative fashion. Hence, organizations could administer training in order to bridge this gender gap amongst managers so conflict could be dealt with more effectively.