A Study on Conflict Management Styles for Decision Making in Sri Lankan Construction Projects

Abstract

Abstract: Traditional project managers believe that the conflicts among project stakeholders are a threat to project deliverables. This is because the traditional project managers believe that the conflicts may bring negative results for the project management success. Though the modern project managers believe that a sustainable decision-making process can assist to achieve the overall project success. In this study the data collected through a questionnaire survey. Final conclusion for the research objectives was achieved by analyzing the collected data from 68 respondents. This research was investigated based on different kinds of approaches and methods when dealing with conflicts with all the counter parts. Further, the research was focused on studying the project conflict management styles which assisted for better decision making for all major stakeholders of organization structure. Stakeholders of Sri Lankan construction projects mostly adopt active strategies to resolve the project conflicts. Further, the project conflict approach is problem solving but without bargain. Hence, most of the stakeholders actively participate to resolve the conflict while more are concerned about the fulfillment of the needs of counterparts. When considering the gender roles in adopting approaches, females have a tendency to adopt a slightly more positive approach than males. Additionally, males adopt the same conflict management approach for every management level; whereas conflict management approach used by females differ according to the counterpart managerial level. Keywords: Project Conflict, Conflict Management Approaches & Styles, Decision Making