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Unit 14: Conflict Management

neither low nor high. At moderate levels of conflict, employees are motivated to resolve Notes
conflicts, but these do not disrupt the normal work activities.

14.6 Resolving Conflicts

Managers have at their disposal a variety of conflict management styles: avoiding,
accommodating, competing, compromising and collaborating. The way they handle conflict
depends on the degree to which they seek to satisfy their own concerns (assertiveness) and the
degree to which they try to satisfy the other person's concerns (cooperativeness).
The Figure 14.2 below shows the five conflict management styles using these two dimensions.

Figure 14.2: Conflict Management Styles Collaborating

Competing
Assertive

Assertiveness (Desire to Satisfy one's own concerns) Compromising

Unassertive Avoiding Accommodating
Uncooperative Cooperative
Cooperativeness
(Desire to Satisfy another's Concerns)

Source: K.W Thomas, "Conflict and Conflict Management," in M. D Dunnette, "Handbook of Industrial
and Organisational Psychology" Chicago, IL: Rand McNally. (1976).
1. Avoiding: Managing a conflict with an avoiding strategy involves just what the term
sounds like: not seeking to meet your own objectives or the objectives of the other person.
Avoiding is a style low on both assertiveness and cooperativeness. Avoiding is a deliberate
decision to take no action on a conflict or to stay out of a conflict situation.
2. Accommodating: In an accommodating strategy, one person attempts to satisfy another
person's objectives. Appropriate situations for accommodating include those when you
find you are wrong, when you want to let the other party have his or her way.
Accommodating is cooperative but unassertive.
3. Competing: A competing strategy involves attempting to win, with the presumption that
others will lose. Under this strategy, you want to satisfy your own interests and are
willing to do so at the other party's expense. Competing is a style that is very assertive and
uncooperative.
4. Compromising: In a compromising strategy, the parties reach a mutually acceptable solution
in which each person gets only part of what he or she wanted. Often, this means the parties
decide to "split the difference". The compromising style is intermediate in both assertiveness
and cooperativeness, because each party must give up something to reach a solution to the
conflict.

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