Pathfinder nets (PFNETs) were used to represent the structural relationships among six conflict incidents during meetings obtained from six hospital management teams. The transcripts of these incidents were coded to provide two sets of criteria measuring types of interruption and phases of decision making during conflict. Based on the measurements, two criterion PFNETs were constructed. The conflict incidents were then rated independently by five participants following the elicitation procedure of repertory grid techniques. The ratings produced five participant PFNETs which were then compared to the two criterion PFNETs. The comparison took the form of a coefficient C which was a measurement of the network similarity. The comparison resulted in two sets of five Cs. Each set of Cs represented the closeness of five participants' PFNETs to the criterion PFNET. The closeness was found to correlate with the proportion of participants' elicited constructs characterised with more task or person attributes. Implications for PFNET, especially in research of small sample sizes were discussed.
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