CONFLICT MANAGEMENT : A STUDY OF SOME OF ITS DETERMINANTS

style – our dominant style. The effectiveness of the style would depend on the type of the situation and the people one is dealing with (Level and Galle, 1988). Pareek (’97) has outlined eight approaches to conflict management namely resignation, withdrawal, diffusion, appeasement, confrontation, compromise, arbitration and negotiation. The first four are avoidance modes and the last four are approach modes. Understanding variables which influence the process of conflict management will help achieve such flexibility. The aim of the present study was to indentify the effect of type of situation (educational and management institutes), gender (male and female) and thinking styles (legislative, executive and judicial) on the style of conflict management. A step wise multiple regression analysis showed legislative style of thinking to be a significant predictor of the use of diffusion style to manage conflict. The appeasement and arbitration styles were predicted to be used by people with an executive and judicial style of thinking. An overall paired sample ttest revealed that people are more likely to use approach rather than avoidance modes of conflict management. Various shortcomings of the present study and directions for future research are discussed