oa Van conflictescalatie tot pesterijen op het werk: een analyse met de conflicthanteringstijlen uit de Dual Concern Theorie

From conflict escalation to workplace bullying: an analysis with the conflict management styles of the Dual Concern Theory

E. Baillien, I. Neyens, H. De Witte & G. Notelaers, Gedrag & Organisatie, volume 21, June 2008, nr. 2, pp. 113-136

Various studies report a relationship between conflicts and conflict escalation and workplace bullying. This study examines whether conflict management styles of team members explain the escalation of conflicts into workplace bullying. Inspired by the Dual Concern Theory, we assume that conflict escalation will lead to bullying when the team scores high on 'forcing' and 'avoiding'. When 'problem solving' and 'yielding' are dominant, workplace bullying will decrease. Hypotheses are tested within 5420 respondents. The results show a significant contribution from the interactions 'conflict frequency – forcing', 'conflict frequency – problem solving', and 'conflict frequency – avoiding'. This, however, is not the case for the interaction between conflict frequency and yielding. Further analyses confirm the hypotheses: the number of conflicts is more strongly related to bullying in case of a high score on forcing or a high score on avoidance. Besides, conflict frequency is more weakly related to bullying in case of high problem solving.