Role of Organizational Culture, Organizational Communication and Temperament in the Choice of Conflict Management Styles among Plant Turnaround Maintenance Employees in PETRONAS Petro-Chemical Companies in Malaysia: A Conceptual Framework

Purpose: This purpose of this study is to explore the relationships among organizational culture, organizational communication, and conflict management styles, with moderating effects of temperament in plant turnaround maintenance employees in petro-chemical companies of PETRONAS, Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach: This is a cross-sectional survey study that will utilize both quantitative and qualitative methods so as to have a broad view of the survey design as well as the depth of qualitative such as interviews and discussions. The quantitative data for the study will be collected in the form of self-administered questionnaire comprising the Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory (ROCI-II) (Rahim, 2001), Hofstede (2001; Yoo et al, 2011) Culture Value Scale (CVSCALE), Lahaye Temperament Analysis (1984), Down and Hazen (1976) Communication Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ) as well as demographic information about the respondents. Data will be collected from TAM in-house and contract employees in PETRONAS petrochemical companies in East and West Malaysia. Findings: There are only a few studies in the social dimension of plant turn-around maintenance process. As the petrochemical industry is an important economic process, learning of cases in some of the major processing plants can help others to emulate the process so that overall efficiency of plant turn-around maintenance can be increased across the industry. Relevance of the findings and implications with respect to contribution of knowledge to academia and insight into the social dimension of plant turnaround maintenance industry cannot be over emphasized. Originality/value: Studies investigating the influence of organizational culture, organizational communication and temperament on the choice of conflict management styles have demonstrated that individual differences and culture influence how a person perceives and handles conflict. However, these findings have not been linked to the plant turnaround maintenance workers in Malaysia. By filling this gap, the results from this study will provide fertile ground for future research and hypothesis generation in all four fields, as well as broad implication for research and industry.