Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

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Date of Award

2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Halmos College of Arts and Sciences - Department of Conflict Resolution Studies

First Advisor

Mary Schwoebel

Second Advisor

Neil Katz

Third Advisor

Dustin Berna

Keywords

Conflict resolution, workplace, job satisfaction

Abstract

Workplace conflict is a part of everyday work life for many employees, from educationalinstitutions to businesses, and can occur for multiple different reasons. Research has shown that employees spend a significant amount of their life in the workplace and that addressing unresolved conflict is one of the costliest aspects of running an organization. The literature suggests that providing employees with the opportunity to experience greater job satisfaction may reduce the occurrence of workplace conflict. This quantitative study explored the experience of workers employed in various organizations and institutions. The theoretical frameworks applied in the study were Systems Theory and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The critical research questions set out to identify the validity of historical job satisfaction surveys and seek ways to improve their content and effectiveness. Two hundred and sixty participants from multiple organizations and institutions were included and the main objective was to highlight the importance of addressing and resolving workplace conflict. The results revealed that there are areas of opportunity to improve management training in order to increase employee job satisfaction. Specifically, there is a need for more and better evidence about how to increase job satisfaction in ways that will mitigate workplace conflict. This needs to begin with improving job satisfaction surveys.

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