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Avoiding, obliging, asserting, or integrating? A survey experiment on municipal managers’ choice of conflict management strategies
Public Management Review (2021)
  • Rusi Sun
  • Shuyang Peng, University of New Mexico
  • Yuguo Liao, University of Missouri-St. Louis
Abstract
The factors influencing a municipal manager’s choice of approaches to coping with a disagreement with their city council are not completely understood. This research examines two contextual factors – issue criticality and the municipal manager’s informal power – that influence the decision to use four strategies: avoiding, obliging, asserting, and integrating. Results from a survey experiment suggest issue criticality is positively associated with the integrating approach and negatively related to the obliging approach. Moreover, the municipal manager’s informal power encourages the use of the asserting style while suppressing the possibility of using the avoiding or the obliging modes.

Keywords
  • Conflict management,
  • municipal manager,
  • survey experiment
Disciplines
Publication Date
2021
DOI
10.1080/14719037.2021.1977525
Citation Information
Rusi Sun, Shuyang Peng and Yuguo Liao. "Avoiding, obliging, asserting, or integrating? A survey experiment on municipal managers’ choice of conflict management strategies" Public Management Review (2021)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/yuguo-liao/16/