The relationship between conflict management methods and trust in supervisor: a research on five-star hotels in Afyonkarahisar

Nowadays businesses, especially hotel managements, have become important structures in which employees are intensively in interaction with each other. Considering that existence of conflict is unavoidable where there is presence of people, hotels are the enterprises where supervisors and employees can experience intensive conflicts. The concept of conflict is also closely related to the matter of trust that bases the relationships between employees in organizations upon strong foundations. The concept of trust is vitally important for supervisors and employees in terms of organizational success, productivity and permanence. In this context, the concept of conflict in organizations brings up the mutual and various dimensions of perceptions of trust of employees and supervisor.The aim of this study is to determine perceptions of conflict management methods of the employees working in five-star hotels in Afyonkarahisar and their level of trust in supervisor. Accordingly, the survey of this study is conducted on 330 employees working in five-star hotels in Afyonkarahisar. The survey consists of three parts. The first part consists of demographic characteristics of employees, the second part consists of levels of trust in supervisor and the third part consists of expressions to determine the perceptions of the conflict management methods. Whether views of the survey participants on conflict management methods and trust in supervisor differ significantly according to demographic characteristics are tested through independent samples t-test and ANOVA analysis. In addition, the relationship between conflict management methods of the survey participants and their trust in supervisor are analyzed through correlation and regression analysis.The results of this study revealed that problem solving and dominating were the most used methods whereas taking organizational precautions was the least used methods by the supervisor. Besides, a strong positive relationship was found between conflict management methods and trust in supervisor. Additionally, according to the results of the regression analysis, problem solving appears to be the most important conflict management method which affects trust in supervisor.Keywords: Conflict Management Methods, Trust in Supervisor, Hotels, Afyonkarahisar.