Constructing a Cross-Cultural Measure of Conflict in Organizations: a Comparison between an Italian and a Spanish Sample.

Conflict is “An interactive process consisting of incompatibility, disagreement, or dissonance between individuals, groups, or organizations”. (Rahim, 2001). In this research we aimed at developing a multidimensional scale of organizational conflict. Furthermore, we wanted to explore the differences in conflict perception between a Spanish and an Italian sample of employees. The factor structure of the measures is not different across samples, suggesting cross-cultural stability of the measure. Most relevant differences (d>.8) were found for measures of leader-followers conflict on tasks (d = 1.16) and emotional aspects (d = 2.08), then for measures of conflict between the person and their role (d = 1.25) and between work and family. The study suggest that the Italian group perceives a higher level of conflict compared to the Spanish sample.