The study by Koslowsky, Aminov, and Schwarzwald examined the relationship
between power distance and managerial style. Although power distance is often used
as a measure of national culture differences and compared across countries, this study
measured preferences for power distance between police officers and their supervisors
within a single country. Data were collected from 151 police officers and matched with
40 of their supervisors on the Israeli Police Force. The data showed that greater the
power distance, the more likely supervisors used a task-oriented managerial style and
harsh tactics toward subordinates.
The next two studies examined the effect of the environment on conflict in the
Middle East. The first study suggests that the environment does not matter. The
second study suggests that it does.
The study by Elbanna, Ali, and Dayan examined the relationship between strategic
decision making, conflict and two environmental factors: uncertainty and munificence.
The study used both semi-structured interviews and surveys. Data were collected in
two cities in Egypt: Cairo and Alexandria. The data indicate that participants did not
distinguish task from affective conflict. The data also indicate that the higher the
perceived level of conflict, the lower the perceived level of decision effectiveness. The
interviews with those participating in the study showed that they recognized that these
organizations were operating in an unstable and uncertain environment. Yet those
environmental factors did not affect the relationship between conflict and decision
effectiveness. Managers operating in the Middle East recognized the problems with
their uncertainty of their environment, but tended to discount environmental factors,
since the environment is largely outside of their control.
The study by Karam shows how conservation of resource theory can explain why
conflict-related stress in the workplace was related to higher levels of organizational
citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Moreover, the more cohesive the workgroup, the more
conflict-related stress increased the frequency of OCBs. Data were collected from 553
employees across Lebanon who continued to go to work during the 34 days of the
military conflict between Hezbollah and Israeli Defense Forces during July of 2006.
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This study illustrates how the cohesiveness of workgroups can influence the positive
effect of context-related work stress on organizational citizenship behaviors.