| Course | MT340 Conflict Management and Team Dynamics |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 4 |
| Paper type | Conflict style self-assessment |
| Length | About 1,090 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MT340 Unit 4
High on Accommodating, Low on Collaborating: An MT340 Unit 4 Conflict Style Assessment Tested Against Three Disputes
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
MT340: Conflict Management and Team Dynamics
Unit 4 Conflict Style Assessment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The studio, disputes and scores are composite; the instrument, framework and research cited are real.
The Instrument
The assessment I completed is a forced-choice instrument with thirty pairs of statements. For each pair, the respondent chooses the statement that better describes how they usually respond to conflict. Kilmann and Thomas (1977) designed the forced-choice format to reduce the tendency of respondents to pick the most socially desirable answers. Answers land on two axes, one for pressing my own side of a dispute and one for serving the other person's side. Where I sit on each axis decides which of five modes my answers point to: competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding or accommodating. Scores are reported as percentiles against a norm group of working adults, so a high score means I chose that mode more often than most people in the norm group, not that I use it well.
My Results
Accommodating, 86th percentile. Avoiding, 79th. Compromising, 52nd. Collaborating, 21st. Competing, 14th.
Read alone, the profile describes someone agreeable and easy to work with. Thomas (1992) cautioned that no mode is good or bad in itself and that each fits some situations better than others. The question is whether my habitual modes fit the situations I meet.
Episode One: Upward
After content lock on our last project, the creative director asked me to add a boss encounter to chapter three. I agreed within minutes, in the same meeting. The encounter needed new animations, a new arena and new audio, and the rework cost nine days of the team's time, pushing two other tasks past the milestone. Afterward, the lead engineer asked why I had not at least asked what the encounter would replace.
This was accommodating: I put the creative director's concern ahead of the team's schedule without stating the cost. It matched my profile. It was also the wrong mode. Content lock exists so that late additions are weighed against what they displace, and my role as producer is to make that trade visible. A collaborating response would have asked what the encounter was meant to achieve and offered a cheaper way to achieve it; a compromising response would have traded the encounter for something else.
Episode Two: Sideways
The QA lead and the lead engineer disagreed about who decides whether a bug is blocking, which stops a build from going to the publisher. Both asked me to settle it. I said we would discuss it after the next build, then after the one after that. Two builds went out with the question open, and the argument continued in every severity triage.
This was avoiding. It matched my profile. It may have looked like patience, but it left a process conflict unresolved, and the Unit 2 exercise showed that unresolved process conflict is where drift into personal friction begins. De Dreu et al. (2001), developing a measure of conflict management strategies, found avoiding associated with poorer outcomes for both parties in many settings. A collaborating response would have brought both leads together to define blocking.
Episode Three: Downward
A junior tester missed a scheduled regression pass because she had misread the test plan. I set a new schedule for her that afternoon and told her what it was. I did not ask why she had misread the plan or whether the plan itself was unclear.
This was competing, the mode my profile says I use least. It was not wrong as such; the schedule needed fixing quickly. But I competed with the person who had the least power to push back, while accommodating the person with the most. Two other testers later said the plan had confused them too.
My profile was accurate about how often I give way, but it did not show that I give way upward and hold firm downward.
Why the Pattern Matters for a Producer
A producer's job is mostly brokering trade-offs between people who outrank, equal or report to them. If I accommodate upward, the team absorbs every late request. If I avoid sideways, process disputes stay open and drift, as the Unit 2 exercise showed. If I compete downward, junior staff learn not to bring problems to me. Each habit makes sense in the moment, which is why the profile felt accurate, but taken together across a whole milestone they produce exactly the late-stage disputes the studio complains about.
What the Profile Missed
The instrument asks how I usually respond, but my responses depend heavily on who the other person is. With the creative director, I accommodate. With peers in dispute, I avoid. With a junior colleague, I compete. The percentiles average across all three and hide the pattern. A self-report also reflects how I see myself; the lead engineer, the QA lead and the junior tester might each describe me differently.
Matching Modes to Situations
Recurring situations at the studio, and the mode each warrants:
When a senior person asks for a change after content lock, the warranted mode is collaborating, or compromising if time is short: state the cost and ask what the change is meant to achieve.
When two leads dispute a process question, the warranted mode is collaborating: bring them together and agree a rule, rather than deciding case by case or delaying.
When a junior colleague makes an error, the warranted mode is collaborating first, to find the cause, and then competing on the fix if time requires it.
When an issue is trivial and time is short, such as a naming convention, avoiding or accommodating is fine.
When safety or a contractual commitment is at stake, such as a save-file bug before certification, competing is warranted, even upward.
What I Will Change
I will state the cost of any late request in the meeting where it is made, before agreeing. I will set a deadline for every process dispute brought to me and keep it. And when a junior colleague makes a mistake, I will ask one question about the cause before giving any instruction.
Limits
One instrument, completed once, describes my self-perception at one moment. Three episodes are a small sample. The percentiles depend on the norm group, which may not resemble game studio staff. Asking three colleagues to describe how I handled the same three episodes would show whether they see the pattern I now see.
References
De Dreu, C. K. W., Evers, A., Beersma, B., Kluwer, E. S., & Nauta, A. (2001). A theory-based measure of conflict management strategies in the workplace. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 22(6), 645-668. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.107
Kilmann, R. H., & Thomas, K. W. (1977). Developing a forced-choice measure of conflict-handling behavior: The "MODE" instrument. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 37(2), 309-325. https://doi.org/10.1177/001316447703700204
Thomas, K. W. (1992). Conflict and conflict management: Reflections and update. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13(3), 265-274. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.4030130307
What the MT340 Unit 4 assignment asks for
Unit 4 asks students to complete a conflict style instrument and interpret the results. The instrument should be described accurately, its dimensions and modes named and its scoring explained, without reproducing its items. Results should be reported briefly. Most of the paper should test the results against real episodes, ideally ones involving people above, beside and below the student. Instructors look for interpretation that goes beyond the scores, such as patterns the profile averages away. A section matching recurring situations to the most suitable mode turns the analysis into guidance. Specific changes the student will make, and limits of a single self-report, should close the paper. Episodes should be described factually, including what each choice cost.
How the MT 340 Unit 4 example is put together
The sample describes the forced-choice format, the two scoring axes and percentiles against a norm group, citing Kilmann and Thomas. Results are given in one line. Thomas's view that each mode fits some situations frames the test. Three episodes follow, each identified as a mode and judged against what the situation needed, with De Dreu and colleagues on avoiding. The highlighted line notes the writer gives way upward and holds firm downward. A section explains why the pattern matters for a producer. Another shows what the profile missed by averaging across relationships. Situations are matched to modes in prose, three changes are named and limits close the assessment.
MT340 Unit 4 rubric: what earns full points
Conflict style assessments are mostly judged on accurate description of the instrument, the quality of the test against real episodes and the insight drawn from mismatches. A paper that treats high scores as strengths and low scores as weaknesses has misread the framework. Episodes should be described with their costs and evaluated against what the situation required. Finding a pattern the scores hide, such as variation by the other person's position, shows real interpretation. The situation-to-mode guidance should be specific to the student's workplace. Changes should be concrete. Limits of self-report should be stated. Instrument and research sources belong in APA 7, and the instrument's items should never be reproduced.
Common MT340 Unit 4 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Style assessments often restate the instrument's own descriptions of each mode and stop. Another common slip is choosing episodes that confirm the profile and skipping ones that contradict it. Some students reproduce instrument items, which most instruments prohibit. The link between style and role is often missing. Before drafting, list three recent disagreements, one with someone senior, one with a peer and one with someone junior, and note what you actually did and what it cost. Compare each with your highest-scoring mode. The places where they differ, or where your usual mode did harm, give the paper its substance. Asking a colleague how they saw one of the episodes adds a second view.
Get an MT340 Unit 4 example written to your instructions
Share your instrument results, whichever assessment your section assigned, along with two or three disputes you handled at work. Add the Unit 4 prompt and rubric. The custom assessment tests the scores against those episodes without quoting any proprietary items. It comes back inside 24-48h, and a first sample is not billed. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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MT340 Unit 4 questions, answered
Which instrument does the Unit 4 assessment use?
Sections differ. The Thomas-Kilmann instrument is common, and some courses use the Rahim inventory or a free textbook questionnaire instead. The analysis works the same way with any of them: describe what the instrument measures, report the result, then test it against real episodes. Items from copyrighted instruments stay out of the paper whichever one is assigned.
What if the scores seem wrong?
That is often the most useful finding. Self-report instruments describe how people see their own tendencies, and behavior under pressure can differ. A paper that documents the gap with a specific episode and offers an explanation, such as rank, stakes or time pressure, shows more understanding than one that simply accepts or rejects the result.
Should every mode appear in the paper?
All five should be described, but the episodes need only cover the modes the writer actually used. Three well-analyzed situations usually outperform five thin ones. The closing map is where the unused modes return, matched to situations where they would have served better than the mode the writer reached for first.
Where can I find a free MT340 Unit 4 sample paper?
This page carries the full MT340 Unit 4 assessment, testing a producer's conflict style profile against three studio disputes.
What pattern does the MT340 Unit 4 sample find?
The writer accommodates people with more power, avoids disputes between peers and competes with junior colleagues, which the averaged percentiles hide.