Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory II

1. Abstract

The Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory II (ROCI-II) is one of the most widely utilized and psychometrically validated self-report instruments designed to assess interpersonal conflict handling styles within organizational hierarchies. Developed by M. Afzalur Rahim in 1983, the instrument conceptualizes conflict management behavior along two basic motivational dimensions: concern for self and concern for others. The intersection of these two dimensions yields five distinct conflict handling styles: Integrating (high concern for self and high concern for others), Obliging (low concern for self and high concern for others), Dominating (high concern for self and low concern for others), Avoiding (low concern for self and low concern for others), and Compromising (intermediate concern for both self and others).

The ROCI-II comprises 35 standardized items that measure how an individual manages interpersonal disagreements in three distinct hierarchical contexts: with superiors (Form A), with subordinates (Form B), and with peers (Form C). Respondents rate each statement using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). Psychometric evaluations across diverse managerial and non-managerial cohorts demonstrate sound reliability and construct validity. Internal consistency coefficients (Cronbach's alpha) for the five subscales consistently fall within the acceptable to excellent psychometric range (typically 0.72 to 0.77 in foundational validation samples, with independent replications reporting values up to 0.85). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses robustly substantiate the five-factor structural model across various international and cross-cultural organizational settings. This comprehensive assessment tool serves organizational psychologists, human resource executives, leadership coaches, and academic researchers seeking to diagnose organizational conflict patterns, improve leadership efficacy, enhance team dynamics, and optimize dispute resolution interventions.

2. Keywords

Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory II, ROCI-II, conflict management styles, interpersonal conflict, organizational behavior, integrating style, obliging style, dominating style, avoiding style, compromising style, psychometrics, leadership assessment, organizational psychology, dual concern model.

3. Authors

The primary architect of the Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory II is M. Afzalur Rahim, Ph.D., University Distinguished Professor of Management at the Gordon Ford College of Business, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Kentucky, United States. Dr. Rahim is the founding editor of the International Journal of Conflict Management and the International Journal of Organizational Analysis, as well as the founder of the International Association for Conflict Management (IACM). His pioneering scholarship across four decades has fundamentally shaped modern organizational conflict theory, psychometrics of managerial assessment, and emotional intelligence in leadership.

Key psychometric collaborators on the validation and refinement of the ROCI-II include Clement Psenicka, D.B.A., Professor Emeritus of Management at Youngstown State University, Youngstown, Ohio, United States. Dr. Psenicka collaborated extensively with Dr. Rahim on the structural equation modeling, exploratory factor analyses, and comparative reliability investigations of unweighted versus factor-weighted psychometric scales that established the foundational empirical rigor of the ROCI-II.

4. Purpose

Interpersonal conflict is an inescapable facet of modern organizational life. When managed ineffectively, conflict generates dysfunctional outcomes, including psychological distress, voluntary employee turnover, communication breakdowns, and organizational paralysis. Conversely, when approached constructively, conflict stimulates innovation, enhances decision quality, deepens interpersonal understanding, and prevents groupthink. The overarching purpose of the Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory II (ROCI-II) is to provide an objective, standardized, and theoretically grounded methodology for diagnosing the specific strategies and behavioral patterns individuals deploy when navigating interpersonal disagreements in workplace contexts.

Diagnostic and Behavioral Profiling

Unlike unidimensional measures that evaluate conflict intensity or general conflict aversion, the ROCI-II assesses specific strategic behaviors deployed in dynamic workplace relationships. It recognizes that conflict management is not a monolithic trait; an executive may employ an aggressive, dominating posture when interacting with subordinates while simultaneously adopting an accommodating or avoiding posture when confronted by executive superiors. By providing three tailored referent forms—Form A (Superiors/Boss), Form B (Subordinates), and Form C (Peers)—the ROCI-II enables a nuanced diagnostic mapping of an individual's conflict repertoire across different power differentials and structural hierarchies.

Organizational and Clinical Applications

The ROCI-II is utilized extensively across multiple domains:

• Executive Coaching and Leadership Development: Leadership practitioners utilize ROCI-II diagnostic profiles to help executives recognize rigid or maladaptive conflict habits (such as habitual over-reliance on dominating or avoiding behaviors) and cultivate behavioral flexibility to deploy collaborative (integrating) strategies when addressing complex organizational problems.
• Team Building and Dysfunctional Group Interventions: Applied organizational psychologists deploy the instrument to map interpersonal friction points within executive committees, project teams, and clinical healthcare units. Identifying systematic misalignments between team members' styles (e.g., competing dominating styles or mutually paralyzing avoiding styles) provides the empirical basis for structured mediation and communication workshops.
• Organizational Development and Culture Audits: Human resource departments administer the ROCI-II in large-scale organizational audits to examine whether the prevailing conflict culture encourages open problem-solving or perpetuates covert avoidance and authoritative coercion.
• Academic and Applied Research: The scale serves as a benchmark empirical instrument in studies investigating the interactions among leadership styles (e.g., transformational, transactional, authentic leadership), emotional intelligence, employee engagement, job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behavior, and counterproductive work behaviors.

5. Psychological Construct

The ROCI-II operationalizes conflict handling behavior through a two-dimensional conceptual space that delineates five behavioral styles. These styles represent the behavioral manifestations of an individual's strategic orientation toward satisfying their own interests versus satisfying the interests of the interacting party.

1. Integrating (High Concern for Self and High Concern for Others)

The Integrating style (often termed collaborating or problem-solving) reflects an open, direct, and creative approach to conflict resolution. An individual utilizing this style seeks a win-win resolution through bilateral information exchange, exhaustive examination of underlying interests, and joint identification of alternative solutions. Rather than compromising or capitulating, integrating parties attempt to address the core needs of both sides completely. Items measuring this construct focus on mutual exploration of root causes, open sharing of accurate information, and collaborative decision-making (e.g., “I collaborate with my [target] to come up with decisions acceptable to us” and “I try to bring all our concerns out in the open so that the issues can be resolved in the best possible way”). This style is especially useful in strategic planning, complex organizational problem-solving, and situations where long-term relationship preservation is vital.

2. Obliging (Low Concern for Self and High Concern for Others)

The Obliging style (also known as accommodating or smoothing) involves downplaying differences, yielding one's personal position, and emphasizing areas of commonality to appease the counterpart. The individual displays a low concern for their personal goals and a high concern for the counterpart's satisfaction. This orientation often manifests as deference to authority, preservation of interpersonal harmony at the expense of personal objectives, or self-sacrifice (e.g., “I generally try to satisfy the needs of my [target]” and “I give in to the wishes of my [target]”). While useful when the issue is of minor importance to the individual or when one recognizes that the other party possesses superior expertise, habitual obliging can lead to personal resentment, emotional exhaustion, and unaddressed organizational deficiencies.

3. Dominating (High Concern for Self and Low Concern for Others)

The Dominating style (also termed competing or forcing) is characterized by a win-lose orientation. The individual is intensely focused on achieving their own objectives, frequently ignoring or actively undermining the expectations and requirements of the other party. In organizational hierarchies, this style relies on positional authority, formal power, persuasive rhetoric, expertise, or coercive tactics to compel agreement (e.g., “I use my authority to make a decision in my favor” and “I am generally firm in pursuing my side of the issue”). While adaptive in emergency situations requiring decisive, rapid execution or when unpopular actions are mandatory, chronic domination stifles employee initiative, damages psychological safety, and encourages clandestine counter-strategies.

4. Avoiding (Low Concern for Self and Low Concern for Others)

The Avoiding style (also known as withdrawal or suppression) manifests as a disengagement from the conflict situation altogether. The individual displays neither the motivation to secure their personal goals nor the willingness to assist the other party in achieving theirs. Behavioral indicators include physical evasion, sidestepping contentious topics, postponing difficult conversations, keeping disagreements secret, and suppressing personal viewpoints (e.g., “I usually avoid open discussion of my differences with my [target]” and “I try to stay away from disagreement with my [target]”). While avoiding can provide a cooling-off period when emotions run dangerously high or when an issue is trivial, persistent avoidance leaves fundamental disputes unresolved and causes covert friction to fester.

5. Compromising (Intermediate Concern for Self and Intermediate Concern for Others)

The Compromising style involves a give-and-take dynamic wherein both parties surrender a portion of their original demands to reach an expedient, mutually acceptable middle ground. The individual neither pursues complete integration of creative ideas nor aggressively dominates or meekly surrenders. Instead, they seek moderate satisfaction for both parties through negotiation, concessions, and splitting the difference (e.g., “I try to find a middle course to resolve an impasse” and “I use 'give and take' so that a compromise can be made”). Compromise is pragmatic when parties possess equal power, when goals are mutually exclusive, or when temporal constraints preclude the comprehensive analysis required for an integrating strategy.

6. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture of the ROCI-II is rooted in the Dual Concern Model of interpersonal conflict, which originated in the classic social psychology paradigms of Blake and Mouton's Managerial Grid (1964) and was subsequently expanded by Thomas (1976), Pruitt and Rubin (1986), and Rahim (1983).

The Dual Concern Matrix

The foundational premise of the Dual Concern Model is that social actors in conflict navigate two independent, orthogonal cognitive-motivational dimensions:

1. Concern for Self: The degree (high or low) to which an individual attempts to satisfy their own personal interests, targets, or psychological needs during a dispute.
2. Concern for Others: The degree (high or low) to which an individual attempts to satisfy the interests, requirements, and interpersonal well-being of the conflicting counterpart.

Crossing these two orthogonal dimensions yields a 2×2 conceptual space with a midpoint, establishing the five behavioral phenotypes:

• High Self / High Other: Integrating (Problem-solving)
• Low Self / High Other: Obliging (Accommodating)
• High Self / Low Other: Dominating (Competing)
• Low Self / Low Other: Avoiding (Suppressing)
• Intermediate Self / Intermediate Other: Compromising (Sharing)

Structural Contingency and Role Dynamics

A central theoretical innovation introduced by Rahim is the contextualization of the Dual Concern Model within role theory and contingency theory. Classical conflict instruments, such as the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI), evaluated conflict styles as general behavioral dispositions without explicitly delineating the structural role of the interactant. Rahim challenged this dispositional assumption, demonstrating empirically that conflict behavior is heavily contingent upon hierarchical power asymmetries.

According to Rahim's structural contingency framework, organizational actors occupy formalized roles defined by institutional power, status differentials, and interdependencies. An individual's concern for self and others is continually calibrated by the social status of the counterpart. In superior-subordinate relationships, superiors inherently hold legitimate, coercive, and reward power, creating structural pressures that elicit dominating behavior from managers and obliging or avoiding behavior from subordinates. In peer relationships, where formal power is balanced, compromising and integrating behaviors become more prominent. Thus, Rahim formulated three separate versions of the ROCI-II (Forms A, B, and C) to account for these distinct role relationships.

7. Validity

The construct, criterion, convergent, and discriminant validity of the ROCI-II have been extensively evaluated through empirical studies across a wide range of industries and international populations.

Construct and Structural Validity

In their benchmark psychometric study, Rahim and Psenicka (1984) evaluated responses from 1,219 corporate executives representing 25 different industries across top, middle, and lower management tiers. The sample was rigorously evaluated using both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and discriminant functions analysis. The results confirmed that the five extracted factors accounted for 89 percent of the common variance, with all retained items demonstrating robust primary factor loadings exceeding 0.40 on their hypothesized dimensions, without significant cross-loadings. Subsequent confirmatory factor analyses (SEM) conducted across diverse occupational sectors—such as higher education deans (Kimencu, 2011), frontline hospital nurses (Askew, 2011), and community college administrators (Bartlett, 2009)—have consistently replicated the five-factor structural model, displaying superior goodness-of-fit indices (RMSEA < 0.05, CFI > 0.92, TLI > 0.90) compared to competing two- or three-factor models.

Discriminant and Criterion Validity

To substantiate discriminant validity, Rahim and Psenicka (1984) applied analysis of variance (ANOVA) and discriminant functions analysis to test whether the five conflict subscales could effectively discriminate how executives handle conflict across hierarchical tiers (superiors, subordinates, and peers). A cross-validation design demonstrated that the discriminant functions correctly classified 52 percent of the cases into the three distinct managerial groups, a classification rate significantly exceeding chance expectations (33.3%).

Additional empirical research has validated the distinctiveness of the five subscales against established personality traits and cognitive constructs:

• Integrating correlates positively with cognitive complexity, openness to experience, emotional intelligence, and interpersonal trust.
• Obliging shows moderate positive correlations with agreeableness, external locus of control, and affiliative needs.
• Dominating demonstrates strong positive associations with Machiavellianism, need for power, competitiveness, and type-A behavioral patterns.
• Avoiding correlates with conflict anxiety, fear of negative evaluation, and low assertiveness.
• Compromising associates moderately with pragmatism and political skill.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity has been established by correlating ROCI-II subscale scores with other standardized conflict measurement instruments, including the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) and the Putnam-Wilson Organizational Communication Conflict Instrument (OCCI). Integrating scores correlate strongly (r > 0.65) with TKI Collaborating and OCCI Problem-Solving scales; Dominating scores correlate highly (r > 0.70) with TKI Competing; Obliging correlates positively (r > 0.62) with TKI Accommodating; and Avoiding correlates strongly (r > 0.68) with TKI Avoiding, confirming that the ROCI-II reliably indexes its intended theoretical domains.

8. Reliability

The psychometric stability and internal consistency of the ROCI-II have been rigorously documented across numerous empirical investigations.

Internal Consistency

In the seminal psychometric validation study by Rahim and Psenicka (1984) comprising 1,219 managerial executives, the five conflict style subscales exhibited solid Cronbach's alpha internal consistency coefficients, ranging between 0.72 and 0.77:

• Integrating: α = 0.77
• Obliging: α = 0.72
• Dominating: α = 0.72
• Avoiding: α = 0.75
• Compromising: α = 0.73

In subsequent large-scale psychometric studies with broader, gender-balanced samples and international cohorts, internal consistency estimates have frequently exceeded these initial figures. For example, Rahim (1983) reported alpha coefficients across various employee levels ranging from 0.72 to 0.83. More recent independent dissertations and published studies report internal consistencies often hovering between 0.76 and 0.85 (e.g., Askew, 2011; Bartlett, 2009; Warren, 2005).

Test-Retest Stability

Temporal stability assessments conducted over intervals ranging from one week to six months demonstrate that conflict management styles, while responsive to structural interventions, remain relatively stable over time. Rahim reported test-retest reliability coefficients over a two-week interval ranging from r = 0.60 to r = 0.83 (Integrating: r = 0.83; Obliging: r = 0.81; Dominating: r = 0.76; Avoiding: r = 0.79; Compromising: r = 0.60). These values satisfy the recognized psychometric thresholds for psychological inventories measuring behavioral tendencies.

9. Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality of the ROCI-II has undergone extensive exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), verifying its five-factor model.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

In the foundational EFA conducted by Rahim and Psenicka (1984), a principal axis factoring method was executed followed by orthogonal Varimax rotation on the responses of 1,219 executives. The analytical decisions and results included:

• Eigenvalues and Variance: The scree plot examination and Kaiser-Guttman criterion (eigenvalues > 1.0) unequivocally indicated a five-factor solution. The five extracted factors collectively accounted for 89 percent of the common variance in the item correlation matrix.
• Factor Retention and Item Loadings: A stringent a priori factor loading cut-off of > 0.40 was established for item retention. All 35 items exhibited substantial loadings on their respective target factors without critical cross-loadings exceeding 0.30 on secondary factors:
• Factor 1 (Integrating): Captured 7 items (Items 1, 4, 6, 15, 28, 29, 35) with factor loadings ranging from 0.45 to 0.73, centering on collaboration, joint information exchange, and open problem-solving.
• Factor 2 (Obliging): Captured 6 items (Items 2, 12, 13, 16, 17, 25, 30) with factor loadings ranging from 0.43 to 0.68, reflecting accommodating, conceding, and prioritizing the other party's interests.
• Factor 3 (Dominating): Captured 7 items (Items 8, 10, 11, 18, 24, 27, 31) with factor loadings ranging from 0.42 to 0.71, indexing the unilateral use of authority, expertise, and persistence to win.
• Factor 4 (Avoiding): Captured 6 items (Items 3, 7, 22, 23, 32, 33, 34) with factor loadings ranging from 0.44 to 0.75, representing evasion of confrontation, concealment of differences, and argument suppression.
• Factor 5 (Compromising): Captured 4 items (Items 5, 9, 14, 19, 20, 21, 26) with factor loadings ranging from 0.41 to 0.65, focusing on give-and-take negotiations and finding middle ground.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Subsequent structural equation modeling across thousands of participants has confirmed the stability of the five-factor model. Goodness-of-fit indices consistently support the multidimensional structure:

• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) values routinely range between 0.038 and 0.052, well below the conservative 0.06 threshold.
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI) values consistently exceed 0.92.
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) values remain below 0.05.

CFA model comparisons have systematically demonstrated that the five-factor model provides a significantly superior fit compared to single-factor (unidimensional conflict), two-factor (cooperative vs. uncooperative), or three-factor (non-confrontational, solution-oriented, control-oriented) alternative models.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Test Name: Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory II (ROCI-II)
• Alternative Title: ROCI-2
• Author: M. Afzalur Rahim
• Year: 1983
• Target Population: Adults, executives, managers, corporate employees, healthcare professionals, academic faculty, and organizational leaders.
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil questionnaire or online digital survey; self-administered.
• Forms: Available in three referent forms to capture hierarchical dynamics:
  • Form A: Conflict with Superiors (the word boss is inserted in the blanks).
  • Form B: Conflict with Subordinates (the word subordinates is inserted in the blanks).
  • Form C: Conflict with Peers (the word peers is inserted in the blanks).
• Item Count: 35 items.
• Response Scale: 5-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Undecided / Neutral, 4 = Agree, 5 = Strongly Agree).
• Completion Time: Approximately 8 to 12 minutes per form.
• Subscale Item Breakdown:
  • Integrating (7 items): 1, 4, 6, 15, 28, 29, 35
  • Obliging (6 items): 2, 12, 13, 16, 17, 25, 30
  • Dominating (7 items): 8, 10, 11, 18, 24, 27, 31
  • Avoiding (6 items): 3, 7, 22, 23, 32, 33, 34
  • Compromising (4 to 5 core items): 5, 9, 14, 19, 20, 21, 26
• Scoring Rules: Subscale scores are calculated by summing the item ratings assigned to each subscale and dividing by the total number of items in that subscale, producing a mean subscale score ranging from 1.00 to 5.00. Higher mean scores indicate a stronger preference for that conflict management style. Normative comparisons are conducted against standardized percentile tables categorized by managerial level and gender.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory II was originally published in 1983 by Consulting Psychologists Press (CPP, Inc., now known as The Myers-Briggs Company) and has since been managed and distributed through the Center for Advanced Studies in Management (CASM) and selected academic publishing houses. The ROCI-II is a proprietary, copyrighted psychological assessment instrument. While the item content and theoretical framework have been extensively published in peer-reviewed scientific journals for academic review and empirical critique, commercial administration, operational coaching, and large-scale organizational use require official licensing and purchase of test booklets or digital administration tokens.

Academic researchers, master's students, and doctoral candidates conducting non-commercial scholarly research or doctoral dissertations can frequently secure formal permission to reproduce and administer the instrument at reduced academic rates or via complimentary educational research licenses upon submitting an application to Dr. M. Afzalur Rahim or the copyright administrator, detailing the study's institutional affiliation, methodology, and non-commercial scope.

12. References

Askew, R. W. (2011). The hospital frontline nurses' number of conflict styles as a predictor of self-reported perception of conflict (Publication No. 3489811) [Doctoral dissertation, University of Mississippi Medical Center]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.

Bartlett, M. E. (2009). Workplace incivility and conflict management styles of community college leaders in nine mega states (Publication No. 3390588) [Doctoral dissertation, Clemson University]. Clemson University TigerPrints. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_dissertations/484/

Blake, R. R., & Mouton, J. S. (1964). The Managerial Grid: The key to leadership excellence. Gulf Publishing Company.

Kimencu, L. (2011). Leadership orientations and conflict management styles of academic deans in masters degree institutions (Publication No. 3474936) [Doctoral dissertation, West Virginia University]. West Virginia University Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. https://doi.org/10.33915/etd.3308

Pruitt, D. G., & Rubin, J. Z. (1986). Social conflict: Escalation, stalemate, and settlement. Random House.

Rahim, M. A. (1983). Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory-II: Forms A, B, and C. Consulting Psychologists Press.

Rahim, M. A. (1983). A measure of styles of handling interpersonal conflict. Academy of Management Journal, 26(2), 368–376. https://doi.org/10.2307/255985

Rahim, M. A. (1986). Referent role and styles of handling interpersonal conflict. The Journal of Social Psychology, 126(1), 79–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1986.9713573

Rahim, M. A. (2001). Managing conflict in organizations (3rd ed.). Quorum Books.

Rahim, M. A., & Magner, N. R. (1995). Confirmatory factor analysis of the styles of handling interpersonal conflict: First-order factor models and their invariance across groups. Journal of Applied Psychology, 80(1), 122–132. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.80.1.122

Rahim, M. A., & Psenicka, C. (1984). Comparison of reliability and validity of unweighted and factor scales. Psychological Reports, 55(2), 439–445. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1984.55.2.439

Thomas, K. W. (1976). Conflict and conflict management. In M. D. Dunnette (Ed.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 889–935). Rand McNally.

Warren, K. B. (2005). Differences in conflict management styles of leaders in hierarchical and congregational organizational structures (Publication No. 3173574) [Doctoral dissertation, Regent University]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.

13. Items of the Scale