Conflict Management in Work Teams: The Role of Social Self-Efficacy and Group Identification

Abstract

The current study examined the relationships between conflict management patterns within work teams and individuals' group identification, and social and global self-efficacy. Four hypotheses were tested: 1. The individual's level of group identification is positively correlated with constructive behaviors in conflict situations. 2. The level of global and social self-efficacy is positively linked with active modes of conflict management. Hypotheses 3 and 4 proposed interaction effects of group identification and social self-efficacy on patterns of intra-group conflict management.

Sixty seven members of scouts', pre-military communes, 48 females and 19 males, representing 13 work teams, participated in the study.

Rahim's (1983) conflict inventory was used to assess the subjects' conflict management patterns. The social self-efficacy was measured by an adapted version of Muris' (2001) instrument, and global self-efficacy by Chen & Gully (1997) questionnaire. Group-identification was assessed by Henry et al. (1999) questionnaire.

The results indicated positive association of group identification with the integrative conflict management pattern and negative association with the dominance pattern. The findings lend support to the hypothesis about positive association between self-efficacy and active conflict management modes. An interaction effect of group identification and social self efficacy was found on three out of five conflict management patterns: compromising, dominance and avoidance.

Keywords: intra-group organizational conflict, self-efficacy, group-identification