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Essays and Web Resources on Conflict Style Inventories

This page contains free essays on conflict style inventories. Some are located on our site. Some are located on other sites and have links to them. Want to suggest additions? Send a note to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .


What is a conflict style inventory? This short introductory essay explains what conflict styles are and how knowledge of them helps in managing relationships.

Detailed comparison of Style Matters with the Thomas Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument.

Which conflict style to use? Go to a simple one-page summary of things to think about in deciding whether to confront or avoid conflict.

You can request a free Trainer's Guide by Ron Kraybill for training with Style Matters: The Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory.

A remarkable collection of quotes, cartoons, and stories about conflict and negotiation can be downloaded for free from the Program on Negotiations at Harvard. A full 61 pages by Joshua Weiss, PhD. It's really a treasure trove for trainers and writers on conflict and peacebuilding!

Also from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard, a blog with useful posts about negotiation skills.  Yes, it is very "Fisherian", ie: in the tradition of Roger Fisher, co-author with Bill Ury of the best-seller negotiation primer Getting to Yes.   That means there is a certain feeling in the essays that all negotiations are with Westernized urban professionals cutting deals over a boardroom table.  If you're dealing with protracted identity based conflict or conflicts over fundamental issues of injustice or with people from collectivist societies, the offerings soon get a bit thin.  That said, the Fisher and Ury tradition is still excellent on certain fundamentals of horsetrading and the PON is a good resource for basics.

"Cross Cultural Conflict Resolution in Teams", by John Ford, gives an excellent over-view of cultural issues in teams. Ford is a veteran South African mediator/trainer now based in California. He writes with the authority of one who has spent a lifetime navigating cultural differences. He gives a nice summary of the differences between individualist versus collectivist cultures, pointing out that although in America the majority culture is individualistic in orientation, in places like California nearly half the population comes from cultural backgrounds that have strong collectivistic influences. Users of the Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory, which has users self-identify their own cultural background and gives differing instructions accordingly, may find this essay of particular interest.

Brief introductory essay to basic concepts of conflict style inventories, entitled "What is Your Conflict Style:Conflict Style," from the Journal for Quality and Participation, Summer 2004, by Conerly, Keith, Tripathi, Arvind. The essay describes the five-style framework of conflict styles devised by Mouton and Blake in the 1960s, that underlies the most widely used conflict style inventories, including the Thomas Kilmann, the Jay Hall instrument, the Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory, and others.

Four page essay, "Addressing Conflict in the Family Business". Not extensive coverage but a decent intro. The last half of the essay draws on the five style model used by the Thomas Kilmann and the Kraybill Conflict Style Inventories as a tool to suggest constructive responses.

Scholarly essay on conflict style inventories, "What Goes Around Comes Around: The Impact of Personal Conflict Style on Work Conflict and Stress", by Raymond Friedmann and Simon Tidd, in the International Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2000, pp32-55 . More than most people will want to know about conflict style inventories, but if you seek scholarly literature, with lots of references and some comparison among the inventories in use at the time of writing, here's a solid one.

This article examines use of the conflict style inventory as a tool in coaching people to improve their relationships. The essay is addressed to people working in higher education, but almost everything in it can be quite easily transposed to other settings. Of special interest to trainers will be the section which includes outlines of training sessions to train people in the conflict style inventory materials.

The cultural dimensions of conflict management style are examined in this essay entitled: "Conflict management style: accounting for cross-national differences" by: Morris, Michael W.; Williams, Katherine Y. Leung, Kwok, and published in the: Journal of International Business Studies v. 29 no4 (1998) p. 729-47. This scholarly research essay focuses in particular on the use of avoiding and competing as responses to conflict in Asia and the U.S.

Jon Sebastian has written a lengthy scholarly study called "The Intercultural Mediation Project, The Blere Project: A Study of Conflict Management in an Intercultural Context". Researchers used the Thomas Kilmann to study and compare conflict management practices among Germans, French and Americans. The study results were inconclusive but this is a good resource for people wanting to get up to speed on the literature related to conflict style management in general and crossculturally in particular. There's a nice comparison of individualistic versus collectivist cultural responses to conflict on page 9.

The gender dimensions of conflict styles are examined at "Conflict Resolution Style and Experience in Management: Moderating the Effects of Gender" at http://murphylibrary.uwlax.edu/digital/jur/2002/sutschek.pdf

Another study on gender and conflict style, entitled, "A gender-based categorization for conflict resolution" by Sheryl D. Brahnam, Thomas M. Margavio, Michael A. Hignite, Tonya B. Barrier, Jerry M. Chin, suggests that women are more likely to use collaborative/cooperative strategies and men are more likely to avoid. Journal of Management Development, March, 2005, 197-208.

"Results of this study indicate that, when compared with their male counterparts, women are more likely to utilize a collaborative conflict resolution style and men are more likely to avoid conflict. As collaboration is generally considered more productive and avoidance more disruptive in the conflict resolution process, the study suggests that women may possess more effective conflict resolution attributes than their male counterparts." For more info.

"Predictors of women's workplace conflict management styles" is a PhD dissertation written by Gerald Dean Charbonneau, Wayne State University. The research sought to determine whether social characteristics such as feminism, race, age, single head of household status, religion, and social class explain differences in conflict management among women. Here is a brief summary of the dissertation.

"Lessons Learned of Mediation in Indian Country: Exploring and comparing transformative mediation process and theory and American Indian values and processes", by Kristine Paranica is an essay on the cultural dimensions of making peace among the Sioux, the Chippewa, and several smaller groups. The essay does not deal with use of conflict style inventories, but is a useful read for anyone interested in expanding their awareness of how culture shapes expectations of how to make peace.

"Give and Take: The Accommodating Style in Managing Conflict" by Dale Eilerman provides an indepth analysis of one of the five styles of conflict (called Harmonizing in the Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory). Eilerman draws on the Myers-Briggs to add additional insights to this style.

"Here is an excellent introduction to the Thomas Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, addressed in particular to managers.   Since the Thomas Kilmann is based on the same logical framework as the Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory (the Blake Mouton Axis) most of what you read here holds true for the KCSI as well.   http://www.stc.org/intercom/PDFs/2007/20070708_20-23,48.pdf

For input on Avoiding as a response to conflict:  A University of Wisconsin site offers a 3 minute video clip of a Harry Webne-Behrman, a facilitator/trainer, giving a lecture on barriers to negotiating in a cooperative style.  He describes three categories of barriers: personal, interpersonal, and structural or systemic barriers.   The lecturer says that because conflict is so uncomfortable, many people choose an avoiding response to conflict, leading to what he calls a "culture of avoidance."    Training tip: A trainer could screen this clip in a workshop and ask people to share examples of these barriers in their own lives.   Or a teacher might assign students to review the clip and come to class with such examples ready for discussion.
Here's an entire doctoral thesis on conflict avoidance:  "Linking Goals to Avoidance in Interpersonal Conflict Situations: A Cognitive Approach" , by Qi Wang, who submitted this to the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, MD, in 2006.  This is far too research-oriented to interest most trainers, but researchers may find the literature review useful, as well as the  six varieties of of avoidance Wang identifies, summarized on pp. 167ff.  Wang correctly points out that avoidance has received far less study than, say problem-solving, so her work marks an early effort to deepen scholarly understanding of avoidance as a strategy.  Someone planning to spend a lot of time in a culture that relies heavily on avoidance may find sections of the thesis valuable to get a fine-grained appreciation of the art of avoidance.
This blog entry lists seven scholarly essays on the dynamics of avoidance and demands in marital relationships.
Blogger/trainer Susan Shearouse, founder of Frameworks for Agreement, describes the impact on one workshop participant of discovering that her conflict style in Storm settings was even more confrontive than in Calm settings.  "Get Over It, It's Just the Way I Am!", February 18, 2010.

Resources for Learning and Teaching the Skills of the Cooperating and Compromising Styles

Blogger Larry Barkan offers a short sequence for asserting our needs with others.  In "How to Be Assertive" Barkan says:
1) Start with getting clear on what you want;
2) Ask permission from the person you are about to present a request to;
3) After receiving permission, pause until you have eye contact with that person;
4) Begin with the words, "Will you..." and keep it short.  The longer you speak, believes Barkan, the weaker your request;
5) Stop talking and wait in silence.

Yes, the approach is formulaic, and it clearly reflects the individualist cultural assumptions of its author.  But in the right setting, with the right people, there is a lot of power in the quiet, clear, direct approach suggested here.   This essay is well-worth the five minutes it takes to read it.   People of all style preferences will benefit, but Harmonizing and Avoiders may find this particularly empowering.

The Negotiator's Bible: 100+ Tips and Tricks to Being a Negotiation God is a concise set of quotes from various people on negotiations, a significant number of which are useful when using Cooperating or Compromising Styles.   Like many web resources, some of these tips are "too cute", too simplistic.   Nevertheless, you can get a lot of helpful pointers here.

"Interpersonal Skills for Dealing with Conflict: Respect and Support in Action" by Tricia Jones, PhD, and Jessica Jameson, PhD is a 23 page Powerpoint presentation on topic of utmost important to anyone committed to responses to others that honor and support them.  This is a detailed, carefully reasoned, and sophisticated set of tools with discussion exercises to support them.   The language assumes a university level reading audience.

The Conflict Resolution Education Center has a superb library of web resources for teachers and trainers of peace and conflict resolution in general. 
 

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