Conflict Management Styles and Aggressive Communication in Email: An Examination of Organizational Interactions
Year: 2012
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Organizational communication in today's workforce takes place through many communication channels, with face-to-face and email being two of the primary channels (Cheney, Christensen, Zorn, & Ganesh, 2004).While there is an abundance of research on conflict management styles in face-to-face contexts (Folger, Poole, & Stutman, 1997;Rahim, 1992;Thomas, 1976) and on argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness in face-to-face contexts (Infante & Rancer, 1982;Infante & Wigley, 1986;Rancer & Avtgis, 2006), there is less research on conflict and these types of communicative behaviors in computer-mediated contexts, more specifically email (Martin, Heisel, & Valencic, 2001;Turnage, 2008).This study examined a) conflict management styles utilized between peers most often in organizational email interactions compared to faceto-face, and b) the levels of trait argumentativeness and trait verbal aggressiveness coworkers display when communicating via email in organizations between peers versus face-to-face.The findings of this study indicate that a) individuals are more likely to use the competing conflict management style in organizational email versus face-to-face, b) that trait argumentativeness and trait verbal aggressiveness show no differences in both email and face-to-face contexts., and c) verbal aggressiveness is endorsed more often in the email context.iv
Author: Andrea Lauren Mitchell
Institution: University of Akron
Language: English
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2605078428