Affective and Substantive Conflicts and Interpersonal Conflict Management Styles in the Turkish Organizational Context

Previous literature on affective and substantive workplace conflicts has been dominated by studies on intragroup efficiency and effectiveness with little attention paid to the relationship between these types of conflicts and interpersonal conflict management styles. To improve understanding of how different types of
conflicts are managed by employees this thesis has explored the relationship between affective and substantive types of conflicts and interpersonal conflict management styles in the Turkish organizational context through a web-based survey design.

Two separate analyses were run to investigate the relationship between types of conflicts and interpersonal conflict management styles. In the first round of analyses a general affective-substantive conflict typology was used for interpersonal conflict identification. Second round of analyses were based on an asserted distinction between affective, task-related substantive and organization-related substantive conflicts.

Analyses conducted with the former affective-substantive typology reported a negative correlation between affective conflicts and integrative styles. Results attained from both analyses reveal that substantive conflicts are negatively correlated to integrative and positively correlated to dominating styles.

Additional statistical analyses showed that affective components of interpersonal tension, friction, dislike, annoyance, animosity, and distrust are evident in both types of affective and substantive conflicts.