Conflicts and management styles in the Sri Lankan commercial building sector

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand the prevailing conflict management styles in Sri Lankan commercial building industry from the main stakeholders' perspective. The dual concern theory is applied to this study as a theory foundation. Design/methodology/approach: The Sri Lankan commercial building industry is currently experiencing a construction boom after 30 years of civil war. Creating a dispute free environment through well conflict management is one of the main ways to keep the continuous demand and development of construction. However, the Sri Lankan construction sector is arranged in such a way that they directly approach the dispute resolution rather than avoiding the dispute initially through proper conflict management. Four cases are selected for this study with the intention of conducting meetings with three main stakeholders of each case who represented client, consultants and contractors, respectively. Findings: The research findings reveal that compromising is the most common conflict management style used by the industry. Forcing style obtained the second place in the ranking whereas obliging and avoiding received third and fourth places. Originality/value: This study is conducted to provide a full picture of conflicts faced by the Sri Lankan commercial building industry and their proper management so that the future projects will use this information to diminish the destructive effects of conflict situations and provide a real value for money.