engleski

Conflict management strategies: what to expect from economics and business students in the workplace?

The purpose of this paper is to identify the implementation of conflict management strategies in the population of final year students of economics and business administration. In order to identify student preferences, we used the Dutch Test for Conflict Handling (DUTCH), which has previously been proven as a reliable and valid measurement instrument with good psychometric qualities. The questionnaire consists of 20 items grouped in five sections pertaining to five conflict management strategies: problem solving, yielding, forcing, avoiding, and compromising. Besides detecting general student preferences regarding conflict management strategies, the goal was to examine whether there are statistically significant differences with regard to respondents’ gender, study program and the degree of career ambition. Results based on the sample of 107 final year students of the Faculty of Economics University of Rijeka, Croatia showed that problem solving and compromising were the most widely used conflict management strategies, while yielding was used the least. Significant differences in implementing conflict management strategies were detected with regard to the study program. Furthermore, female students were found to have the strongest preference towards the strategies of problem solving and compromising, while male students prefer forcing as strongly as compromising and problem solving. Business schools have the obligation to prepare students for modern business environment in which many concepts have been revisited and revised. Fragmentation has been replaced by integration of capabilities, capacities and resources, and increased interdependence leading to co- sourcing, partnerships, alliances and various other short and long-term cooperation agreements. Understanding behavioral patterns among individuals studying economics is very important because they will be future managers and leaders. Considering their conflict management behavioral preferences, it can be concluded that the surveyed students exhibit the right attitude and are therefore well prepared for their future working conditions and demands.

Conflict, Conflict management strategies, Senior year students, Dutch Test for Conflict Handling (DUTCH), Cooperation, Problem solving

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