Social exchange and conflict management tactic selection among police officers

Date

2007-08

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Abstract

There has been a lot of research done in the areas of conflict management and social exchange theory. However, no work has been done to understand how these two concepts affect law enforcement officers conflicts between themselves and there colleagues. This study is aimed at understanding how the underlying elements of relationship, task, and the availability of alternatives indicative of the social exchange process as well an officer’s demographic characteristics influence their decisions concerning conflict management styles. In order to assess these influencing factors, 143 police officers were surveyed utilizing both the social exchange measure created and pilot tested by the researcher as well as the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument. Correlations were run to see if there were relationships between social exchange and conflict styles. Then regression analysis was used to see if an officer’s score on the social exchange measure could be predictive of there conflict style preferences. This study found no significant relationship between social exchange and conflict management style preferences among police officers. However, when the same analyses were run with demographic characteristics and conflict styles, it was found that the more years of service a police officers has the more likely they are to avoid conflict with there colleagues. The implications and limitations of the study are also discussed.

Description

Keywords

Conflict management, Police officers

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