Conflict Management Styles and Communication Competence of Nurses

Nurses take the biggest role in the hospital while getting high level of stress owing to various conflicts. The outcomes of the right functional conflicts improve the communication quality and accelerate the sense of creativity and innovation spirit It also enhances the productivity of an organization; however, the outcomes of the reversed functional conflicts may cause various problems including deteriorated development, stability, productivity, and relationship among the members of the organization In this extent, it is very important to access the way of communication and manage the conflicts effectively to ultimately solve such issue. Thus, this study is designed to understand the nurses’ conflict management styles and communication competence and compare their communication competence for each conflict management style. The subjects of the study were the nurses working in a university hospital and the subjects were derived through convenience sampling. Except for the nurses with less than a year experience and those who did not work in three shifts, total of 210 female nurses less than 41 years old were selected. The instruments used in the study were the Conflict Management Styles Scale made by Kilmann & Thomas(1975) and then translated and revised by Lee, Gun-hyeop(2007) as well as the Communication Competence Assessment Tool developed for college students and adults. The term ‘Professor’ addressed in those instruments was adjusted to ‘A person in charge of education’ to meet the characteristic of the nurses. The period of the data collection was from Sep. 8, 2009 to Sep. 15, 2009 and the data collected was analyzed in terms of frequency, percentage, average, standard deviation, and One-way ANOVA using SPSS WIN 12.0. The results of the study are shown as follows; 1. The conflict management styles included 32 people of collaborating style (18.4%), 9 people of competing style (5.2%), 5 people of avoiding style (2.9%), 37 people of compromising style (21.3%), 41 people of accommodating (23.6%) and 50 people of mixed style (28.7%) indicating that the nurses tended to use various styles complexly rather than using a certain style depending on the person involved or circumstance in a conflict-arousing situation. The accommodating style was the highest while avoiding was the lowest besides the mixed style. 2. The communication competence of the nurses was shown to be overall 3.23±.24 scores. The scores of each competence were 3.40±.30 for the process of perceiving, 3.28±.41 for the process of role performance, 3.19±.53 for the process of self-presentation, 2.86±.48 for the process of planning, and 3.22±.53 for the process of message conversion indicating the highest score in the process of perceiving(3.40±.30) and lowest score in the process of planning(2.86±.48). 3. According to the comparison made between the communication competences of each conflict management style, the process of self-presentation and the process of planning. As the results showed, the nurses tended to use various styles complexly rather than using a certain style in a conflict-arousing situation and the accommodating style was the highest besides the mixed style. In terms of communication competence, the process of perceiving was the highest more than average while the process of planning was shown to be the lowest. Therefore, it is necessary to make an effort and educate the nurses for more active conflict management like the problem solving and compromising style. Also, it is advised to educate communication method to improve the mutual communication competence by establishing strategic mid- and long-term goals. One thing to mention is that the study was oriented by self-reporting survey and it raises an issue on potential error and bias. For this reason, the further studies should be made based on more objective analysis targeting more dynamic members experiencing conflicts in the hospital setting.

Author dc:creator

• 김, 세은

Contributors dc:contributor

• 박, 지원
• 대학원 간호학과
• 200724093

• 갈등관리유형
• 의사소통능력

Language dc:language

ko

Identifier

http://dcoll.ajou.ac.kr:9080/dcollection/jsp/common/DcLoOrgPer.jsp?sItemId=000000010469
000000010469

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.ajou.ac.kr:201003/981