Interpersonal conflict handling styles: the role of ethical approaches

Conflict which has been studied by different academic disciplines has also been one of the main focuses of research conducted within the context of organizations. Conflict in organizations may be experienced at different levels such as interorganizational, interdepartmental and interpersonal. While conflict at interpersonal level has been studied with different aspects (i.e. amount of conflict intensity, functional/dysfunctional), conflict handling styles due to its relevance in managing conflict has been one of the main concern of such studies. Traditionally five conflict handling styles (integrating, obliging, compromising, avoiding and dominating) with two dimensions (concern for self and concern for other) are defined as a result of immense number of research. The relationship between ethical approaches and conflict handling styles have been studied rarely even though ethical concerns would be a significant source of conflict potential. With this frame, taking into consideration the increasing importance of ethical issues currently, this study provides the main argument as whether there is a relationship between ethical orientations of individuals to ethical approaches and their tendency to choose one of the conflict handling styles. In the study the relationship between ethical orientations and conflict handling styles are analyzed within the framework of three ethical approaches as deontology (the extent to which an action is consistent with an individual?s duties or unwritten universal principles), ethical egoism (the extent to which one chooses an action based on maximizing interests of relevant actors) and relativism (the extent to which an action is considered acceptable in a culture/country/belief system). Using an ethical conflict scenario as a simulator an adapted Multidimensional Ethics Scale (MES) and Rahim?s Organizational Conflict Inventory-II (ROCI-II) were applied as a measurement instrument to 426 academic staff from Turkish public universities. With a valid sample of 373 academic staff, the results indicated that orientations in all three ethical approaches did have a potential in explaining the preferred conflict handling style.