Construction of instrument for identifying conflict in working team

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Construction of instrument for identifying conflict in working team

A. Redlich,

S.D. Gurieva

Annotation

In modern society all spheres of our work and life are permeated with communications, which influence, determine and construct our indicators of success, satisfaction.

The process of communication can be transformed in different directions, from the formation of long-term, trusting relationships, to conflict confrontation, resistance. In this regard, it is important to expand the knowledge of effective tools for identifying, regulating and forming constructive relationships between teams, groups, neutralizing the negative consequences of incipient or existing conflict. In this article, we present the problem of studying the different communication styles between members of work groups, which often leads to an increase in intergroup conflicts.

This is detrimental to interpersonal relationships and work productivity. The subject of the study is the study of team interaction styles that are predictors of tensions leading to inter-group conflict. The task for developing this instrument is based on the assumption that different communication styles between group members lead to group dynamic tensions that may be stimulating and helpful for the team development, but also for generating conflict.

The main research question is: “How can team developers and conflict counsellors identify different communication styles in work groups and treat conflicts at a very early stage?” The purpose of this paper is to develop a tool for examining communication styles in work groups. The construction of the instrument and quality control is described, from theoretical justification to factor-analytic reduction of 12 items into 4 scales and quality control of the scales. The result is an easy-to-use tool with satisfactory quality that can be applied to groups with many members. It allows group members to carefully evaluate different communication styles and identify relevant differences. Based on it, group members can directly discuss the differences between communication styles and, if a tense situation or conflict arises, deal with them constructively. As a result, this will indicate better group work, trainings, examinations and further optimization of interaction tools.

Keywords: communications, identity, working group, conflict.

Аннотация

А. Редлих, С.Д. Гуриева. Создание инструмента для выявления конфликтов в рабочей группе

В современном обществе все сферы нашей работы и жизни пронизаны коммуникациями, которые влияют, определяют и конструируют наши показатели успешности, удовлетворенности. Процесс коммуникации может трансформироваться в различных направлениях от формирования долгосрочных, доверительных отношений до конфликтного противостояния, сопротивления. В связи с этим важно расширять знания об эффективных инструментах выявления, регулирования и формирования конструктивных взаимоотношений между коллективами, группами, нейтрализации негативных последствий зарождающегося или существующего конфликта. В данной статье представлена проблема изучения различных стилей общения между членами рабочих групп, что часто приводит к росту межгрупповых конфликтов. Это пагубно сказывается на межличностных отношениях и производительности труда. Предметом исследования является изучение стилей взаимодействия в коллективе, которые являются предикторами напряженности, ведущей к межгрупповому конфликту. Задача разработки данного инструмента основана на предположении, что различные стили общения между членами группы приводят к групповому динамическому напряжению, которое может быть стимулирующим и полезным для развития команды, но также и порождать конфликты. Основной вопрос исследования: как разработчики команд и консультанты по конфликтам могут выявлять различные стили общения в рабочих группах и лечить конфликты на самой ранней стадии?

Цель данной работы - разработать инструмент для изучения стилей общения в рабочих группах. Описаны построение инструмента и контроль качества, начиная с теоретического обоснования, факторно-аналитической редукции 12 пунктов в 4 шкалы и контроля качества шкал. В результате получился простой в использовании инструмент с удовлетворительным качеством, который можно применять в группах с большим количеством членов. Он позволяет членам группы тщательно оценить различные стили общения и выявить соответствующие различия. На его основе члены группы могут напрямую обсуждать различия между стилями общения и в случае возникновения напряженной ситуации или конфликта конструктивно решать их. В результате это будет свидетельствовать о более эффективной работе в группе, проведении тренингов, экзаменов и дальнейшей оптимизации инструментов взаимодействия.

Ключевые слова: коммуникации, идентичность, рабочая группа, конфликт.

Introduction

Modern society is a powerful and large-scale flow of information exchange between people. All spheres of our life, work, leisure F. Lyutens (Lyutens, 1999) are permeated with communication. The ability to manage communication, especially in conflict situations, is considered an important and determining indicator of success in any sphere of our life. For many centuries, the problem of achieving mutual understanding, harmony and trust has been a priority in many works and studies, being an object of close study of philosophers, thinkers, politicians, psychologists, economists, etc. “Trust is a psychic state which makes us rely on an opinion which we consider credible and thus refrain from our own study of the question which could be studied by us” (Zinchenko, 1998, p. 78). And this is not accidental, because effective communication in conflict situations is primarily aimed at the success of both parties, both teams, etc. in achieving mutually beneficial conditions. W. Mastenbroek paid particular attention to the problem of interdependence. He perceived negotiation as “the ability to pursue self-interest combined with the awareness that interdependence is inevitable” (Mastenbroek, 1993). The researcher repeatedly emphasized that it is through interdependence that an effective process emerges: participants follow interests that they cannot satisfy on their own and at the same time their interests overlap.

This skill is needed in all areas of social interaction with people: at work, in the family, in teamwork, etc. And sometimes we need to come to some kind of agreement to achieve our goals and pursue our interests. Success of our cooperation with other people may depend on various factors: whether we have experience in negotiations or not; personal traits of negotiating parties (Gurieva, Udavikhina, 2015); or success may be the basic principle for constructing relations between people, the mechanism of trust that is based on differences in perception of the trust phenomenon, trust situations, objects and basic functions of trust (Gurieva et al., 2016).

J. Camp, P.T. Steele and T. Beasor, R. Fisher, R. Fisher W.L. Ury, B. Patton developed the idea of building mutually beneficial, constructive communication in order to reach a mutually acceptable solution (agreement) (Camp, 2012; Steele, Beasor, 2004; Fisher, Ury, Patton, 2013). For example, an attempt has been made to systematize communication styles (focus on action, process, people and idea), justifying the influence of the following range of factors: from personal characteristics to the interests and needs of participants (Gurieva, Udavikhina, 2014).

The communication process can be transformed into a conflictual interaction, accordingly, according to many researchers (Kramer, 2004; Steele, Beasor, 2004) there is a need not only to emotionally regulate their own behavior, guided by trust, oriented towards long-term relationships, but also to understand and possess effective tools that allow to manage and neutralize the negative consequences of conflict, especially in teamwork. It is the main focus of this article.

The need to understand the algorithm of intergroup conflicts in team interaction poses a number of challenges to the researcher, one of which is to diagnose the communication styles that lead to tensions and, consequently, to conflict. From this perspective, it is important to analyze intergroup conflicts systematically, taking into account the positions, roles, emotions of the parties involved. Therefore, it is necessary to expand the arsenal of management tools to manage intergroup conflicts (Samoilov et al., 2015а). P.V. Samoilov, A.I. Fedoseev, L.V. Smarchkova, S.L. Zhitenev developed methods for effective conflict intervention by stages of conflict analysis, using an expert method based on different aspects of relationships. For example, understanding the internal structure between the parties to the conflict is important in order to determine the structure of the relationship; in order to maintain an “optimal level of conflict intensity” it is necessary to determine the consequences of conflicts, the degree of willingness of the parties to implement changes; in a situation of detailed conflict, a step-by-step consideration of the conflict is necessary, etc. (Samoilov et al., 2015b, p. 206).

1. L.A. Imamgalieva draws attention to the connection between the main directions of conflict management (conflict avoidance, conflict suppression and management itself) and the use of special methods in each direction (Imamgalieva, 2017).

2. Conflicts occupy a significant place in the system of social relations, in the system of which a manager should have the skills to promptly resolve or settle arising conflicts. In case the manager fails to resolve the conflict, mediation can be considered as an additional method (Gizatullin, 2018, p. 67). Thus, there is no doubt that conflicts are a natural phenomenon in the structure of social interaction in modern society, and the study of the most effective tools for their resolution is the main topic of our research.

Purpose and development of an instrument for the survey of individual conflict styles in groups. Goal setting

The subject of the study is the study of team interaction styles that are predictors of tensions leading to inter-group conflict. The task for developing this instrument is based on the assumption that different communication styles between group members lead to group dynamic tensions that may be stimulating and helpful for the team development, but also for generating conflict. This kind of instrument should deliver hints to tell the difference in the communication styles of members in the working group. In addition, the rating instrument, when developed, should achieve the following criteria, compare (DeVellis, 1991):

1. The instrument facilitates the localization of the members of the working group, dependent on their preferred communication styles and on the four theoretical dimensions mentioned in the previous sections (Redlich, Mironov, 2009, p. 85-109). Each member of the group gets a position in the four-dimensional room.

2. The items (rating scales) are concerned with concrete communication behaviors of group members in a normal team discussion.

3. Each group member assesses him/herself and all other members in the group (Bales, Cohen, 1979).

4. The rating instrument consists of up to 12 items, so that it can be used in groups of up to 20 members with reasonable time-consuming (DeVellis, 1991).

5. The items contain possible answers on a bipolar scale. Corresponding to the Circumplex Model, high scores on the scales correspond to problematic communication and low to medium scores correspond to rather favorable communication (Leary, 1957).

6. A division into a positive and negative scale pole will be explicitly avoided. All wording of items and scale points are positive and well acceptable for self-assessment (Saucier et al., 2001).

7. The arithmetic median estimations of group members (by others) should facilitate the identification of similarity and difference between the group members in the four-dimensional space. It may possibly refer to tensions in the working group (compare Symlog- rating procedures (Bales, Cohen, 1979).

Questionnaire development: Item selection

During one of the first steps different forms of communication were collected with verbal questioning of group members with and without leadership responsibilities. In light of the interviewed the communicative behavior “are important for the relevant and human quality of working group discussions”, e. g., “talks seriously” or “takes initiative”. The interviewed persons were 13 executives and 37 group members of different North German businesses from trade, management, industry, banks and other service companies. They were recruited by the human resources department of their company and interviewed by telephone. It was arranged that they were not working in the same group. They came from 50 working groups. Altogether, 120 communicative behaviours were collected.

These were examined on redundant information and consequently reduced by 4 experienced experts (2 female team developers and 2 male team developers). In a second step the remaining communicative behaviours were sorted into the four theoretical established dimensions. Again, some of them would be eliminated, because the experts could not adequately agree on assigning them. That reduced their number to 78. In a third step, the same experts compiled them into contrasting shapes as bipolar items. Those items the experts could not adequately agree on were eliminated. Finally, 5-7 items per dimension that best represented the expert's opinion were chosen. Altogether, 28 items were chosen.

In a fourth step the items were reduced to three items per dimension which made it possible to assess the communicative behavior of group members on a nine-stage bipolar questionnaire. The items were used in a pilot study on 30 students at Hamburg University (69% female). The students were employed while studying and worked at a company off campus at least a month in a team setting. They assessed themselves as well as all members of the team. With the instruction to assess everyone it should be insured that no selection effect arises that, for example, inconspicuous group members are not adequately presented. Altogether, 162 people were assessed (74 males and 88 females). The data was analyzed by an exploratory factor analysis (Principal component with Varimax Rotation) (calculated by SPSS, see (Field, 2013)). It resulted in 4 factors corresponding to the theoretical defined dimensions. The number of items should be kept small, to keep the survey applicable to larger groups. Therefore, only the items with the three largest loadings were chosen for the final version of the survey.

Quality examination of the survey

For quality examination of the instrument with these 12 items the survey should correspond to the previously mentioned criteria. Firstly, the sample and the descriptive characteristics of items are examined. The mean should not differ more than one scale point from the scale midpoint. The standard deviation should not differ less than 2 scale points and no more than 4 scale points on the nine-stage bipolar questionnaire, to guard against, for example, a double peaked distribution. Given these conditions, the above mentioned circumplex-structure should be ensured. In addition, it should be examined, whether the factor structure corresponds to the four dimensions. Also, is proved if it is sufficiently similar in different samples. Finally, the internal consistency of the four scales should follow the usual criteria and yield a Cronbach of 0.7.

For this estimation the study will need about 1000 people who work in groups. It is estimated that one can expect about 5 people per working group (see (Kozlowski, Bell, 2003, p. 341ff)). Then, about 200 people (a) should assess all other members of their team and (b) themselves. To guard against a selection effect, where, e. g., inconspicuous members of the working group are underrepresented, all members of the working group should be assessed and not just a few.

Sample

While riding the train or bus, 200 people (half women, half men) from large cities in North Germany were contacted. They were spoken to between two stations with at least 30 minutes driving time in between. The people were asked if they were prepared for 20-30 minutes to participate in a research project about teams and to assess the members of their team and themselves. People who said that they worked less than one month so far or do not work in a team did not participate in the study. After it turned out that very few people wanted to disclose their demographic information, like age, gender, executive or union member, occupation, etc. and group (task, occupation, position in the hierarchy, etc.), it was decided to do without this part of the assessment. After that, the wanted number of 200 people who worked at least a month in a working group and willing to participate was achieved.

There is information on 1104 people available. 21 of them supplied wrong values or did not understand the instructions correctly or dropped out or did deny the use of their data in retrospect. Their information was deleted. Without the 21 deleted cases and without later discovered missing information on certain items or people, there was information on 931974 group-members available (see below). These cases came from 179 people (91 females and 88 males). The group size contained between 3 and 13 people. The mean is 5.4 people per group. For both, the median and mode equals 5. The distribution is slightly leaning towards the left side: 95% of the cases were in groups with 3 to 9 members, % in groups with 4-6 members.

Distribution of assessment

The following table 1 displays the means and standard deviations of the items. The values show that all means are close to the scale mean, within % of one scale point from 0. The standard deviations show that % of group members are assessed inside two scale points from the mean. This means that of the sample is rather outside the scale values. One can say that the items fulfil an important condition of the above mentioned Circumplex Model. While the majority of group members of the sample are in the positive mid area of the scales and display a coordination supporting role, while only a few members are assessed in the negative cooperation hindrance extreme areas.

Examination of the factor structure

To answer the question, whether the items assigned by the experts to the four dimensions can be localized on the factors, a factor analysis was conducted on this large record, whose results are presented here (see table 2). The four factors that were created by a Principal Component Extraction Model with Varimax Rotation explained 70.4% of the variance. The communalities of items are in an appropriate area, because they are in between 0.80 (“tends to be reserved - takes the initiative”) and 0.55 (“focuses on the topic on hand - expresses several ideas at once”). Even this weakest value of 0.55 fulfilled the criteria, suggested by Furntratt (Furntratt, 1969, p. 71) that at least 50 % of the solved variance of a variable (item) should fall on its factor; i. e., that the quotient of the squared factor loading (here 0.30) and communality (here 0.55) should be above 0.50 (here 0.54).

Table 1