Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory

The Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory (KCSI) is a conflict style inventory developed by Dr. Ronald S. Kraybill in the 1980s. Like the widely-used Thomas Kilmann Inventory (TKI), it is built around the Mouton-Blake grid and identifies five styles of responding to conflict, calling them Directing, Harmonizing, Avoiding, Cooperating, and Compromising.

Features differentiating this inventory from predecessors in the Mouton-Black tradition are an option for cultural adaptability (via special instructions for users from individualistic and collectivistic cultures), and its organizing of scores in categories of Calm and Storm.

Questions are in Likert Scale format, with users choosing a response on a scale of 1-7. Interpretation pages give principles for interpretation and tips for maximizing effectiveness of each style.

According to the publisher's website, a PhD study in 2004 found it valid and reliable, however the research sample was small, less than a dozen subjects. In a second larger study, researchers at West Chester University of Pennsylvania administered Style Matters to more than 300 subjects and rated the inventory well on validity and reliability, standard benchmarks of consistency and accuracy of measurement in testing. They presented their findings at the 96th Annual Convention of the National Communication Association in San Francisco in October, 2010 in a paper titled "Validation of the Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory", by M.E. Braz, B.Lawton, R.S. Kraybill, and K. Daly.