Bases of Power and Conflict Intervention Strategy: A Study on Turkish Managers

Purpose – This study developed an influence perspective for managerial intervention in subordinates conflicts, which helped to represent various strategies identified in the literature in a single model. Managers’ power base was then related to their intervention strategies. Drawing upon Social Judgment Theory, anchoring of subordinates positions was studied as a moderating variable. Methodology – Thirty nine supervisors and their 165 subordinates from several organizations in Turkey filled out a questionnaire reporting power base of supervisor and their intervention strategy utilizing the Critical Incident Technique. Findings – Referent power of superior led to mediation in subordinates’ conflicts. However, mediation decreased while restructuring, arbitration, and educative strategies increased with increased anchoring of subordinates’ positions. These latter strategies mostly relied on reward power of manager. Subordinate satisfaction was highest with mediation and lowest when supervisors distanced themselves from the conflict. Limitations/Implications – The present study could only test the moderating effect of escalation as an anchoring variable. Future studies may look at the anchoring effect of whether the dispute is handled in public or in private, and whether the parties have a competing versus collaborative or compromising styles. Practical implications – Training of managers in mediation may be essential in cultures where they play a focal role in handling subordinates conflicts. Such training may have to take into account their broader influence strategies and use of power. Originality/Value – An influence perspective is useful in integrating the vast array of managerial intervention strategies in the literature. Furthermore, the anchoring effect provides a theoretical explanation for managers’ use of more forceful intervention with less cooperative subordinates

Bases of Power and Conflict Intervention Strategy: A Study on Turkish Managers

Purpose – This study developed an influence perspective for managerial intervention in subordinates conflicts, which helped to represent various strategies identified in the literature in a single model. Managers’ power base was then related to their intervention strategies. Drawing upon Social Judgment Theory, anchoring of subordinates positions was studied as a moderating variable. Methodology – Thirty nine supervisors and their 165 subordinates from several organizations in Turkey filled out a questionnaire reporting power base of supervisor and their intervention strategy utilizing the Critical Incident Technique. Findings – Referent power of superior led to mediation in subordinates’ conflicts. However, mediation decreased while restructuring, arbitration, and educative strategies increased with increased anchoring of subordinates’ positions. These latter strategies mostly relied on reward power of manager. Subordinate satisfaction was highest with mediation and lowest when supervisors distanced themselves from the conflict. Limitations/Implications – The present study could only test the moderating effect of escalation as an anchoring variable. Future studies may look at the anchoring effect of whether the dispute is handled in public or in private, and whether the parties have a competing versus collaborative or compromising styles. Practical implications – Training of managers in mediation may be essential in cultures where they play a focal role in handling subordinates conflicts. Such training may have to take into account their broader influence strategies and use of power. Originality/Value – An influence perspective is useful in integrating the vast array of managerial intervention strategies in the literature. Furthermore, the anchoring effect provides a theoretical explanation for managers’ use of more forceful intervention with less cooperative subordinates

A Critical Review of Implicit Leadership Theory on the Validity of Organizational Actor-National Culture Fitness

According to implicit leadership literature, actor-national culture fitness is a necessity to be labeled as a leader. However, studies which focus on implicit leadership theory and national culture have some contradictory findings. A systematic review of these studies reveals that participants could score high on opposite implicit leadership values and a sufficient theoretical explanation for these surprising results have not been given so far. This paper argues that showing full harmony with the cultural expectations of followers is not a necessity to be seen as a leader. Actors who can fill the cultural gap with their different cultural values can also be labeled as leaders. This paper contends that organizational actors with cultural values differing from those of the followers with certain cultural orientations are more likely to be labeled as leaders. People from individualistic societies may be more prone to label 'team oriented leadership' dimension as their outstanding leadership prototype whereas people from masculine societies may show 'humane oriented leadership' as their outstanding leadership prototype. (C) AIMI Journal

Effect of cisapride on gastric emptying in patients with gastro-oesophageal reflux disease

To investigate the effect of cisapride in gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GERD), gastric emptying time, measured using scintigraphy, and reflux symptoms were compared before and after cisapride therapy in 30 patients with endoscopically proven GERD. Gastric emptying time was also measured in 20 age-matched controls. Patients with GERD were treated with 30 mg cisapride orally three times daily for 7 days. Gastric emptying time was significantly reduced following cisapride therapy in 28 of these patients (71.6 +/- 18.1 min versus 57.9 +/- 13.9 min), although it was still longer than the gastric emptying time of the control group (i.e. 46.2 +/- 8.1 min). In addition, cisapride relieved heartburn, which is a representative symptom of GERD. These findings suggest that cisapride may be useful in treating reflux symptoms and oesophagitis in patients with GERD