ABSTRACT
The
study investigated conflict management strategies by university administrators
in the South West Geopolitical zone of Nigeria. The specific objectives of the
study were to find out the areas of conflict in the universities; the frequency
of occurrence; the sources of the conflict; the conflict management strategies
adopted by the university administrators and the strategy that is most
effectively used in managing conflict in the universities in the South West,
Nigeria. The study investigated differences among school ownership on areas of
conflict and conflict management strategies adopted by the universities
administrators of the universities in the South West Geopolitical zone of
Nigeria. Eleven research questions were stated while six hypotheses were
formulated and tested at0.05 level of significance. The study was hinged on the
Creative-Contingency Model of conflict management propounded by Johnson and
Johnson in 1994.
Descriptive
study based on survey research design was employed. The population for this
study consisted of 3,211 university administrators of the universities in the South
West Geopolitical Zone of Nigeria. The sample comprised900 university
administrators representing 28% from the universities (federal, state and private)
in the six (6) states (Lagos, Oyo, Osun, Ogun, Ekiti and Ondo) in the South
West Geopolitical Zone of Nigeria. The researcher developed an instrument
titled: Conflict Management Strategies
Questionnaire (COMSTAQ) which was used to collect the data on personal
qualities and effectiveness of the universities administrators. The Split-Half
reliability analysis was performed using the Statistical Package for Social
Science (SPSS version 21). The overall Split-Half alpha (α) for the scales are:
0.78 for areas of conflict, 0.82 for frequency of occurrence, 0.77 for sources
of conflict, 0.86 for conflict management strategies and 0.74 for effective
conflict management strategies.
The
data collected after administration were analysed using frequency count,
percentages (%), Means (
), Standard Deviation (S.D) and rank-ordering
while the hypotheses were tested using the Univariate Analysis of Variance
(ANOVA) statistic and Sidak Multiple Comparison Post-Hoc test for the three
independent sample means was done. The results showed that inter-personal
conflicts were the major areas of conflict while conflicts among the students were
the most frequent. Accommodating and avoiding were the
most prominent and most effective strategies adopted by university administrators
of the universities in the management of conflict in the South West
Geopolitical zone of Nigeria. It was recommended that effective interpersonal
relationships between student and students, lecturers and lecturers,
non-academic and non-academic staff, student and lecturer and students’ and
non-academic staff should be encouraged through the use of the democratic
management style and participative decision making among the aforementioned
groups by the university management.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTIONBackground to the Study
Conflict
is an attendant feature of human interaction that cannot be eliminated, but
managed. However, its proper management and transformation are essential for
peace and progress in human society. In organizations,
conflict is regarded as the presence of discord that occurs when the goals,
interests or values of different individuals or groups are incompatible or
there is an attempt to frustrate individuals’ efforts to achieve their goals.
Conflict is an inevitable part of organizational life since the goals of
different stakeholders such as managers and staff are often incompatible
(Paluku, 2013). Conflicts have both negative and positive outcomes to the
individual employees and the organization at large. In social life, conflicts
occur but family members, friends and relatives manage them. The same case
applies to organizations, when conflicts arise; it needs to be resolved by
management for the sake of the organizational growth, survival and to enhance
performance (Paluku, 2013).
Akorede
(2005) described conflict as a form of socialization. He stressed that people
in organizations have both personal and role preferences about the organization’s
actions and policies. However, conflict exists whenever it is impossible for
parties involved to carry out their desired action. Hence, he is of the view
that conflict is the tension that is experienced when a group of people feels
that their needs or desires are likely to be denied. It is argued that it could
mean strife, controversy, discord of action and antagonism. Thus, Adeyemi
(2010) found out that in the Nigerian school system, conflict occurs from time
to time. He then submitted that conflict is the art of coming into collision,
clash or be in opposition with one another. He argued that conflict situation
is one in which the parties involved are unable to iron out their differences
in the early stages of the collision or clash.
There
are five stages of conflict namely: latent stage, perceived stage, felt stage,
manifest stage and conflict aftermath. The latent stage is the beginning stage
of every conflict in which the factor that could become a cause of potential
conflict exist.This exists in autonomy divergence of goals, roles, role
conflict and the competition for scares resources. The perceived stage is a
stage of conflict in which one party perceives the others to be likely to
thwart or frustrate his or her goals. The felt stage is when the conflict is
not only perceived but actually felt or recognized. For example, ‘A’ may be
aware that he is in a serious argument with ‘B’ over some policy. But this may
not make ‘A’ tense or anxious and it may not have no effect whatsoever on ‘As’
affection towards ‘B’. The manifest stage is when the two parties engage in
behaviour which evokes response from each other. The most obvious of these
responses are open aggression, apathy, sabotage, withdrawal and perfect
disobedience to rules. The last stage is the conflict aftermath. The aftermath
of a conflict may have positive or negative repercussion for the organization
depending on how conflict is resolved. If the conflict is genuinely resolved,
to the satisfaction of all participants, the basis for more cooperative
relationship may be laid. On the other hand, if the conflict is merely
suppressed but not resolved, the latent conditions of conflict may be aggravated
and explode into a more serious conflict until they are rectified. This
conflict episode is called conflict aftermath.
The
nature and character of the university as an academic organization entails the
achievement and maintenance of a harmonious environment conducive for the
working together of various groups of staff and the management team as well as
students for the attainment of pre-selected missions and objectives. However,
in recent years, the industrial relations terrain in the Nigerian University
system has been saturated with series of industrial conflicts with consequent
adversities on the advancement of knowledge (Ndum & Okey, 2013). In the
same vein, students’ crises seem to become more rampant in our tertiary
institutions requiring the best techniques to manage them, hence, achieving the
goals of the university education becomes gloomy.
Conflicts
in the modern day organizations and universities in particular, are inevitable.
The university as an organization has a structure that allows two or more units
or groups to share functional boundaries in achieving its set objectives. In
universities, peoplewith different background and orientation: students,
lecturers and administrative staff - have to work harmoniously together. Hence,
the organizational structure of the university system is such that staff and
staff, students and students, and staff and students share functional
boundaries of exchange of knowledge. The exchange of knowledge sometimes
results in various areas of conflict. These areas of conflict as observed over
the years, range from one or more conflicts between: academic staff and the
government; students and students; non-teaching staff and the government;
academic staff and university authority; non-teaching staff and university
authority; school authority and host communities; students and the government;
teaching staff and students on academic issues.
As
noted by Amadi (2002) the areas of conflict come in three forms namely:
intrapersonal, interpersonal and inter-group. Intrapersonal conflicts manifest
in individuals such as students, administrators, academic staff, and
non-administrators. It is a situation in which the individual concerned will be
battling with self on issues concerning health, academics, feeding, making a
decision, and financial problems. The second is interpersonal conflict which,
in the context of the university, can occur between student and student,
lecturer and lecturer, a lecturer and a non-academic staff, the vice chancellor
and deputy vice chancellor. The last (inter-group conflict) refers to separate
conflict between two or more groups in an organization. In a university for
instance, the non-academic staff members may disagree with the academic staff,
over disparity in salaries. This can engender non-academic staff versus
academic staff conflict.
These
areas of conflicts in universities can be measured in terms of their rate of
occurrence. Discussing the rate of occurrence of various conflicts in
universities, Fatile and Adejuwon (2011) indicated that while some conflicts
occur always, some occur, sometimes, seldomly and rarely. For instance,
interaction between students and students in hostels, lecture rooms,
departmental halls, faculties, cafeteria and so on, may lead to the emergence
of “daily-life conflict” in various locations on campus while on the other
hand, students’ uprising or revolt against the university management over
increase in feesmay be said to occur rarely since universities do not increase
their tuition fees daily. Fatile and Adejuwon (2011) noted that areas of
conflict can be traced to various sources and depend on the level of
interaction and integration between the concerned parties.
The
sources of conflict in universities are numerous and cover a range of factors.
These factors as grouped by Fatile and Adejuwon (2011) include:environmental
factors; sociological factors, cultural factors and communication factors.Gray
and Stark (1984) identified six sources of
conflict within the environmental context namely: limited resources,
interdependent work activities, and differentiation of activities,
communication problem, differences in perception, and the environment of the organization.
Other environmental factors are individual differences, unclear authority
structures, differences in attitudes, task symmetries and differences in time
horizon. Sociological factors are those factors that are inherent in the social
system that result in conflict, for instance the struggle for power even among
students, the academic and non-academic staff in agitation for individual or
group right often leads to this kind of struggle.
Cultural
factors resulting to conflict often arise from differences in cultural
perception, ethnicity, language, religion, and belief system of people. For
instance, a lecturer from the Eastern part of Nigeria could feel marginalized
in an institution that is predominantly dominated by Northerners. This may give
rise to the impression that his language or ethnic group is just a minority and
may not be represented in the institution. Communication gap is the last source
of conflict that arises when there is no free flow of information between
institutional leaders and the led. This will affect individuals’ or group’s
involvement in social organization. For example: sudden increment in school fee
without prior notice to students by the university management is apt to result
in a protest.
Conflicts
from the aforementioned sources cannot be completely eradicated but can be
well-managed to avoid degeneration into violence. Since violence will not erupt
without conflict as antecedents, one can assume that many of the conflicts in
tertiary institutions and insecurity degenerated because their antecedents
(causes) were not properly managed or that the conflicting parties did not
explore the power of communication and conflict manager's personality in
resolving the crises (Agbonna, Yusuf & Onifade, 2009). Hence, this shows
that every dispute, strife disagreement, crisis and argument requires proper
handling through management or conflict management.
Management
and conflict management are two terms that go hand in hand. The former
(management) is the coordination of all the resources of an organization(material,
finance, time and human) through the process of planning, organizing, directing
and controlling in order to attain organizational objectives. It is the
guidance or direction of people towards organizational goals or objectives. It
can also be seen as supervising, controlling and coordinating of activities to
attain optimum results within the limits of organizational resources. From the
foregoing, it is clear that conflict management simply refers to the
coordination of all resources through the process of planning, organizing,
directing and controlling in order to prevent, avoid or resolve conflict.
Conflict
management has been identified as a critical technique for university
leadership style. In the university system, the conflict management strategies
adopted by universities administrators may be defined, in part as the extent to
which academic units are successful in efforts to respond to organizational and
environmental change, to resolve operational problems, to acquire needed
resources, and to develop and implement strategies in competitive manner.
Vice-Chancellors are expected to provide curricular leadership, support
scholarship and services, hire and mentor new faculties, and assess students’
outcomes, faculty performance, and also avoid or reduce the occurrence of
conflict.
In
order to reduce the occurrence of conflict,universities administrators
(Administration and Academic), often have to manage the day-to-day activities
of all units in the university environment that are increasingly turbulent,
uncertain and competitive.This is expected because the university management
team is expected to respond to environmental pressures, align unit goal with
the mission of the institutions, and co-ordinate interdependent activities
related to the end purpose of the university, its members, and the organization
increasingly under conditions of financial exigency.
Responsibilities
for effective conflict management in the context of turbulent organization and
external environment may be redefining the role of Vice-Chancellors’ leadership
in ways that make the position increasingly unattractive. Vice-Chancellors are
called upon to address a range of non-routine, poorly defined problems and may
be expected to encounter some problems in discharge of their duties in
relationships that may become more pronounced under conditions of task
interdependence and asymmetric power distribution. Conflict management among
other roles of Vice-Chancellors may produce the highest level of stress as they
express high levels of role-related dissatisfaction, when questioned about
responsibilities for dealing with problems of inter-faculty conflict and
student management.
Vice-Chancellor
and his management team depend on a spectrum of conflict management techniques
and managerial alternatives as they respond to the demands of conflict-laden
work environment. There is no shortage of proposed approaches for managing
conflict in an organizational setting. The approaches employed are often
portrayed on a continuum with flight (“I’m catching the first bus out of
town!”) and fight (“Fire the trouble maker!”) at the extremes. Obviously
neither extreme is satisfactory since a win-lose orientation to conflict is
present, characterized by the fact that contesting parties view their interests
to be mutually exclusive. Hence, parties to the conflict come to believe that
the issue can be settled in only one of three ways: (1) a power struggle, (2) intervention
by a third party who possesses some sort of power greater than either of them,
or (3) fate (Kolawole, 2015). Clearly, an effective approach to conflict
management commonly referred to as the contingency approach lies somewhere
between these extremes.
This
approach to conflict management is predicated upon the idea that diagnosis of
the situation is necessary as basis of action. The contingency view is that
there is no one best way of managing conflict under all conditions, but that
there are optimal ways of managing it under certain conditions. An important
aspect of conflict management, then, is to consider (a) alternative ways of
managing conflict and (b) the kinds of situations in which each of these
various alternatives might be expected to be the most effective. According to
Nakatsugawa and Takai (2013), studies in
the conflict management arena have generally proclaimed that the most effective
strategy is a collaborative win-win strategy in which both parties in a
conflict seek a constructive and mutually satisfying resolution. At the
opposite end of the spectrum, however, is the avoidance strategy, in which
individuals are passive, or reluctant about resolving the problem. Avoidance is
considered to be a thought lose strategy, and has been regarded as the most
ineffective way to deal with a conflict. From a Western individualistic
perspective, avoidance is particularly considered detrimental because problems
are put up on a shelf to be resolved later over time. However, from a
collectivistic viewpoint, avoidance may serve to maintain a harmonious
relationship, especially when the relationship is deemed important enough to
justify making self-sacrifices.
Conflict
management strategies refer to the internal mechanisms used by the various
authorities in resolving conflict. Many scholars have identified different
conflict management strategies being used in organizations. Adeyemi and
Ademilua (2012) identified conflict management strategies to include forming
structural changes, avoidance, compromise and smoothing. Conflict management
strategies could also include suppression, smoothing, avoiding, compromise,
third-party intervention, cooperation, democratic process, job rotation as well
as confrontation. Other strategies identified were effective communication
which they described as the best because it would make the group aware of the
kind of communication which can lead to problem solving. Most effective
management strategies of resolving conflict between professional administrators
and academic in Nigerian universities are dialogue strategy, prevention
strategy, mediation strategy, avoidance strategy, participatory decision making
strategy, emergency strategy, use of ad-hoc committee and persuasion strategy.
Thomas
and Kilmann (1976) noted that there are five (5) major conflict management
strategies or effective conflict management strategies which any manager may
resort to use in any given conflict situation. These strategies are:
accommodating, avoiding, collaborating, competing and compromising. The first (accommodating) refers to
conflict management style whereby a conflict manager choses to cooperate to a
high degree with the warring parties in other to resolve a conflict. Using this
conflict strategy of accommodating, usually requires the manager to do the
bidding of the warring parties even when it is against his wish, objectives,
and desired outcomes. The second (avoiding)
requires that the manager resolves conflict by ignoring the request of the one
or more warring parties involved in the conflict. The third strategy identified
by Thomas and Kilmann (1976) is collaborating
which is a conflict management style that requires the conflict manager to pair
up with significant others that can assist to achieve both of their goals and
the bidding of others without making either parties involved in the conflict
“better off” or worse off”. The fourth and fifth strategies are competing and compromising. Competing
is the 'win-lose' approach whereby a manager acts in a very assertive way to
achieve his or her goals, without seeking to cooperate with others while compromising is the 'lose-lose'
scenario whereby none of the parties involved in the conflict are really
allowed to achieve what they want. According to Adeyemi and Ademilua (2012), the application of the five conflict
management strategies depends on the areas and sources of conflict. They added that the areas of conflict and use of
the five conflict management strategies in universitiesin Nigeria differ by
school ownership
Basically, universities in Nigeria can be
distinguished with respect to their ownership status. This is in recognition of
Private-Public Partnership (PPP) at all levels of education by the federal
government which therebyallows individuals, private organisations, ministries,
among significant others, the right to establish, manage and fund universities;
having met with the stipulated requirements by the National Universities
Commission (NUC). Consequently, universities in Nigeria can be described along
the pedestal of: federal, state and
private universities. Public universities are universities, established, funded
and managed by the federal or State government while private universities are
those established and managed by an individual, or a group of institutions
coming under one management, organisation or ministry. For instance; Obafemi
Awolowo University Ile-Ife is a Federal University, Olabisi Onabanjo University
Ago-Iwoye is a State University while Bowen University, Iwo (Missionary), Lead
City University, Ibadan (Individual) are private universities.
One unique
feature that distinguishes private universities from federal and state
universities is the vision that births their establishment by their owners. For
instance, the motto of one Samuel Adegboyega University, Ogwa of Edo State is
“Knowledge, Service and Discipline” while that of Covenant University Ogun
State and Bowen University, Osun State are “Raising New generation of Leaders”
and “Excellence and Godliness”respectively. These mottosdo not only reflect
knowledgeand discipline founded on godly doctrines but also explains the deep
crave of the management team of the aforementioned private institutions towards
raising disciplined and God-fearing leaders for the future. Adeyemi and Ademilua (2012) argued that their crave
for raising disciplined leaders using godly doctrines does not only distinguish
most private universities from public universities; but also often informs the
decision of their management team on control and management of strife and
hostility among staff and students, students and lecturers, teaching staff and
non-teaching staff among significant other groups.
An
important point must be borne in mind when attempting to deal effectively with organizational
conflict, namely, that any one method will not apply to all situations or all
personalities. Given the various approaches to conflict management
currently in existence, a major question becomes 'Which approach is best?"
While it appears that the integrated (collaborative) procedure has the most to
offer, each of the other approaches can also be effective in selected
circumstances.
In
general, it can be concluded that conflict has been effectively managed when it
no longer interferes with the ongoing activities of those involved.
Conflict management is therefore the process of removing cognitive barriers to
agreement. Depending on the situation, conflict management techniques
often focus on changing structure, changing process or both. Sometimes
structural modifications are not very creative, and the response to conflict is
simply more rules and hardening of the role structure. Such efforts can
improve the situation outwardly but not without consequences, the hardening of
the role structure which is an organization’s best defence against the inroads
of individual irrationality gives equal protection against failing and against
success.
However,
the foregoing situations implied that conflict has become part and parcel of organizations
including universities and all other levels of educational institutions. It
also implies that in as much as these conflicts continue to manifest,
researchers have continued to carry out survey and researches in multifarious
dimensions with a view to exploring the best strategies for managing conflicts
effectively in universities. It is, therefore, important to find out how best
conflicts are managedby the university management team of federal, state,
privateuniversities.A closer examination of public and private universities
would reveal that both are ridden with crises, but how the university
management is able to handle the situation would determine the resultant effect
whether a full blown crises is imminent or not.
It has been observed that Nigeria universities have for
decades been faced with so many crises ranging from conflict between academic
staff and university administrators, students versus academic staff, students
versus university administrators, and non-academic staff versus university
management. Most of these crises had led to closure of universities for months
at different times with academic activities put on hold. However, there are allegations that some
major consequences include the nearly perpetual disruption of academic calendar
of universities, destruction of university, public and even private properties,
loss of studentship, termination of the jobs of both academic and non-academic
staff as fall outs of conflict, among others and destruction of properties by
students and most often upsurge of violence resulting in injuries of various
degrees and loss of lives (Ada & Akinde , 2015; Olaleye & Arogundade,
2013; Ajibade, 2006). It seems therefore that the strategies adopted by
university Vice-Chancellor and his management teammay not have been effective.
Conflicts in universities have given rise to distrust and hostility among
professionals and academics thus contributing to hampering smooth, effective
and efficient administration in the universities.
Researchers on conflicts have been
placed with much attention on causes and effects of conflicts in organizations
(Oyebade, 2000; Awosusi,2005; Amuseghan, 2007). These researches show that
various forms of conflict also occur at varying degrees and proportions in universities.
Amuseghan (2007) for instance, found that the level of occurrence of
student-authority conflicts in universities was high while Oyebade (2000) and
Awosusi (2005) reported that the level of occurrence of staff-authority
conflicts in Nigerian tertiary institutions was also high.
Analysis of effectiveness of
conflict management strategies adopted by universities in Nigeria has been
largely ignored. In the western part of the country, researches on analysis of
effectiveness of conflict management strategies adopted by universities in
Nigeria seem not to be effective due to observable internal conflict. In cases
like this, the University Management may only resort to finding solutions to
suppressing the conflict from escalating.
It
also appears that despite this situation, the education industry, especially
universities, seem to develop nonchalant attitude towards effective management
of these conflicts. If these conflicts are not checked, they may be destructive
as people involved will often see one another as enemies. This is unwholesome
for the university community and Nigeria educational system as a whole. Common
observation in universities in Nigeria has shown that occurrences of conflicts
seem to be frequent despite the existence and use of various strategies by the
authorities in managing them. Observations also show that the strategies being
used by the authorities in managing or mismanaging these conflicts might have
some relationship with the administrative effectiveness of the institution (Adeyemi
& Ademilua, 2012). How effective are the conflict management strategies
adopted by universities in Nigeria?
From
the foregoing, many of the aforementioned studies covered only public (federal
and state) universities in Nigeria; ignoring private universities. The
seemingly lack of empirical evidence of conflict management strategies on
private universitiesis the knowledge gap that this research sought to fill. It
therefore becomes expedient that effective conflict management strategies among
federal, state, private universitiesin South West Geopolitical zone of Nigeria
be investigated to identify feasible strategies for minimizing, reducing or
avoiding disruptive conflicts in universities.
The
purpose of this study was to carry out an analysis of conflict management
strategies of the universities in the South West Geopolitical zone of Nigeria. Specifically,
the study sought to:
1.
find out the areas of conflict as
identified by university administrators in the South West Geopolitical zone of
Nigeria;
2.
determine the frequency of occurrence of
conflict as identified by university administrators in the universities in the
South West Geopolitical zone of Nigeria;
3.
identify the sources of conflict in the universities
as perceived by university administrators in the South West Geopolitical zone
of Nigeria;
4.
determine the conflict management
strategies adopted by administrators of the universities in the South West
Geopolitical zone of Nigeria;
5.
identify the strategy that is most
effectively used by university administrators in managing conflict in the universities
in the South West, Nigeria;
6.
find out whether the areas of conflict
in the universities in the South West Geopolitical zone of Nigeria differ
according to school ownership; and
7.
determine whether the conflict
management strategies adopted byuniversity administrators in the South West
Geopolitical zone of Nigeria differ according to school ownership
The
following research questions were raised to guide the study:
1.
What are the areas of conflict as
identified by university administrators in the South West Geopolitical zone of
Nigeria?
2.
What is the level of occurrence of
conflict as identified by university administrators in the universities in the
South West Geopolitical zone of Nigeria?
3.
What arethe sources of conflict in the
universities as perceived by university administrators in the South West Geopolitical
zone of Nigeria?
4.
What arethe conflict management
strategies adopted by administrators of the universities in the South West
Geopolitical zone of Nigeria?
5.
Whatstrategies are most effectively used
by university administrators in managing conflict in the universities in the
South West, Nigeria?
6.
Is there any difference among theadministrators
offederal, state and private universities on the areas of conflict in the South
West Geopolitical zone of Nigeria?
7. Is
there any difference among theadministrators offederal, state andprivate
universities on conflict management strategies adopted by their university
administrators in the South West Geopolitical zone of Nigeria?
The
following hypotheses were tested in the study at 0.05 level of significance.
1.
There is no significant difference among
theadministrators offederal, state, and private universities on the areas of
conflict in universities in the South West Geopolitical zone of Nigeria.
2. There
is no significant difference among theadministrators federal, state, and private
universities on the conflict management strategies adopted by their university
administrators in the South West Geopolitical zone of Nigeria
The
findings of this study would contribute to the body of knowledge and therefore
increase information in the area of the effectiveness of the conflict
management strategies adopted by the universities in the South West
Geopolitical Zone of Nigeria. Therefore, it would be of immense importance to
Vice-Chancellors, lecturers, students, other staff, policy makers and other
educators.
The
study would highlight the causes, consequences and effectiveness of conflict
management strategies adopted by the universities in Nigeria. Therefore, it would
be of importance to decision makers like Vice-Chancellors, Deans, Heads of
Departments, and Heads of institutes, Directors of units and students union
executives as it would help them to understand the conflict management
strategies that can best be used at event of any given conflict in their
institution.
Educators,
policy makers, administrators and others in the business of education would be
provoked by the findings of this study to engage in more research work on conflict
management in the universities in Nigeria.
This
study analyzed the conflict management strategies of the universities in the
South West Geopolitical zone of Nigeria. The study covered all the 41
accredited universities in the Geopolitical Zone that have been accredited by
the National Universities Commission (NUC) as at (2016) comprising six
statesnamely: Osun, Ondo, Ogun, Lagos, Oyo and Ekiti States. It examined the
areas of conflict, frequency of occurrence of conflicts, sources of conflict,
conflict management strategiesfor resolving conflicts and how effective the
strategies could be. It also looked at school ownership differences on area of
conflict and conflict management strategies adopted by the management
team/staff.The conflict management strategies were restricted to only five
approaches in the Creative-Contingency Model propounded by Johnson and Johnson
of 1994 namely: accommodating, avoiding, collaborating (integrating),
competiting (dominating) and compromising.
The
university administrators were restricted to: all Vice Chancellors, Deputy Vice
Chancellors (Administration and Academic), Registrars, Bursars, University
Librarians, Deans of Student Affairs, Provosts of Colleges, the Chief Security
Officer, Deputy Registrar (Information and Public Relations Officer), Deans of
Faculties, Heads of Departments and Directors of both academic and
non-academics in all the accredited universities in the Geopolitical Zone.
The
following terms are defined operationally as used in this study.
Conflict: This refers to any form of interpersonal and
inter-group hostility or aggression between or among: student and student;
lecturer and lecturer; non-academic and academic staff; student and lecturers;
student and non-academic staff while inter-group conflict covers academic staff
and the government; non-teaching staff and the government; academic staff and
university authority; non-teaching staff and university authority; school
authority and host communities; students and the government; teaching staff and
students in the geopolitical zone.
Conflict occurrence: This refers to
the frequency of occurrence on the areas of conflict in the universities as
rated on a four point responses of: always, sometimes, seldom and rarely.
Areas of conflict: This
refers to interpersonal and inter-group conflict in the universities.
Inter-personal conflict include: student and student; lecturer and lecturer;
non-academic and non-academic staff; student and lecturers; student and
non-academic staff while inter-group conflict covers academic staff and the
government;non-teaching staff and the government; academic staff and university
authority; non-teaching staff and university authority; school authority and
host communities; students and the government; teaching staff and students.
Sources
of conflict: This
refers to conflict emanating from environmental, sociological, cultural factors
and communication gap among members of the university community
Conflict management: This refers to the five (5)
approaches or techniques utilized by the administrators of universities in
managing conflicts in universities in South West Geopolitical zones of Nigeria.
These five approaches or techniques are: accommodating, avoiding, collaborating,
competing and compromising.
Effectiveness of conflict management
strategies: This
refers to how best the conflicts management strategies (accommodating, avoiding, collaborating, competing
and compromising) are used by university administrators to
resolveconflict issues. In this study, effectiveness of conflict management strategies will be measured on a four point
scale as follows:
Highly effective –any
score of 4 points implies a strategy that is highly effective.
Effective -
any score of 3 points implies a strategy that is effective.
Mildly effective
– any score of 2 points implies a strategy that is not working too well.
Not effective
– any score of 1 implies a strategy not working at all.
University administrators: Thisrefers to all Vice Chancellors, Deputy Vice
Chancellors (Administration and Academic), Registrars, Bursars, University
Librarians, Deans of Student Affairs, Provosts of Colleges, the Chief Security
Officer, Deputy Registrar (Information and Public Relations Officer), Deans of
Faculties, Heads of Departments and Directors of both academic and non-academics
in all the accredited universities federal, stateand private) in the
Geo-Political Zone.
School
ownership: This
refers to three categories of universities namely: federal, state,
privateuniversities in the South West Geopolitical Zone of Nigeria.
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Item Type: Ph.D Material | Attribute: 161 pages | Chapters: 1-5
Format: MS Word | Price: N3,000 | Delivery: Within 30Mins.
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