Women's Ways: The Impact of Job Status in the Organization on Women's Management Styles

Abstract

We examined the degree to which differences in women's conflict styles can be attributed to status in the organization. Differential use of competing strategies was clearly linked to organizational status, while status differences in the use of accommodation, collaboration, avoidance, and compromise were less strong. Managers and women with more education preferred to compete in conflict encounters, using avoidance and collaboration much less as a strategy to resolve conflicts. Older women, nonmanagers, and women with only a high-school education used accommodating and compromising strategies, rather than competition, to resolve conflicts.