Project Material on; The influence of conflict management effectiveness on administrative staff productivity in tertiary institution in Gusau, Zamfara State

Project Material on; The influence of conflict management effectiveness on administrative staff productivity in tertiary institution in Gusau, Zamfara State

1.1    Introduction                                             

Conflicts are common occurrences in human societies which may be due to competition between people, groups or organizations striving to succeed, in most cases at the expense of the others, by eliminating the various obstacles that hold them back. Conflict as an obstacle, is an inescapable component of social life which pervades various organizational process (Agwu, 2013). Scholars and researchers have attempted to analyse how conflict management works in organizations since different organizations face different conflicts. Conflicts have different sources and can lead to positive or negative effects (Tetteh & Obuobisa-darko, 2016) and it has been mainly emphasized that the type of conflicts faced by the organization can determine failure or success and conflict should be avoided at most (Tjosvold & Sun, 2013). In this sense, conflict may be seen as a way of settling problem originating from the opposing interest and also attributable to an enduring power struggle between workers and their employers.    Contrary to the prevailing perception, conflict indeed had played quite a positive role in several respect for progressive and good governance of the universities. After reconciliation from the conflicting parties better ideas are produced, clarification of individual views, people willingly search for new approaches, and long standing problems brought to the surface and resolved.

Conflict management depends on the kind of styles that suit the organization and have an added advantage to the organization in the long run. Conflict management is also seen as a wider concept which involves conflict management styles, process and skills to mitigating conflicts in a workplace (Mukhtar, 2013). Therefore, in order to know which style suits the conflict best, management should be able to have the right kind of skills to manage the conflicts which come about in the organization. The conflict management styles include dominating, compromising, integrating, avoidance and accommodation (Rahim, 2012) who studied the five different styles of conflict management. In preference for one or another conflict management style, all depends on certain factors which include the kind of conflict, position of the parties and the kind of the relationship (Montes, Rodriguez, & Serrano, 2012). However, individuals may use a particular style for conflict management which suits them best.

i)  They see things differently because of differences in understanding and view point.

ii)  People have different styles, principles, values, beliefs and aspiration which determine their choices and objectives.

iii)  People have different ideological and philosophical outlooks, as in the case of different political parties.

iv) People of different social status think differently and these develop in them the sensitivity to disagree which may result in conflicts of views or opinions. Contrary to the prevailing perception, conflict indeed had played quite a positive role in several respect for progressive and good governance of the universities. After reconciliation from the conflicting parties better ideas are produced, clarification of individual views, people willingly search for new approaches, and long standing problems brought to the surface and resolved.

The general view of managing conflict in an institution such as Federal College of Agriculture, Ishiagu, the principles and sub-structures of the tertiary institution are designed to provide the necessary vertical and horizontal links and inter-relationship that ensure the maximum potential for communication and understanding. Therefore, two parties must be involved in every existing tertiary institution and for the survival and effectiveness of the institution. The employer and the employee must cooperate to work together for the attainment of that organizational goal. Though in spite of the strong desire that exist among the parties, there are some problems that may arise and these can result to conflict among them. The employer may be having interest detrimental to the employee or/and the desire of the employer and his employee are more or less unlimited.

1.1  Background to the Study

The nature and character of the tertiary institution as an academic organization entail the achievement and maintenance of a harmonious environment conducive for the working together of various groups of staff and the management team for the attainment of preselected missions and objectives. Historically, Tertiary system has been saturated with series of conflicts, especially, student-related conflict, with consequent adversities on the advancement of knowledge. However, conflict today has become a part of organizations. This is more so in an organization as a tertiary with a structure that allows two or more units or groups to share functional boundaries in achieving its set objectives goals. In universities, people with differing natures-students, lecturers and administrative staff - have to work harmoniously. Hence, the organizational structure is such that staff and staff, students and students, staff and students share functional boundaries of exchange of knowledge.

 

Conflicts will always occur but a well-managed conflict will not degenerate to violence. Since violence will not erupt without conflict as antecedents, one can assume that many of the conflicts and insecurity in tertiary institutions 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, 2009).

 

The importance of tertiary education to national development cannot be overemphasized. Fatile & Adejuwon (2011) indicated that no meaningful development can take place in a crisis-ridden system, as witnessed in educational institutions in the country today. It has been observed that Nigeria universities have for decades been faced with so many crises, like conflict between academic staff and tertiary administrators, students versus academic staff, students versus tertiary authorities and non-academic staff versus tertiary administrators. The conflicts have given rise to distrust and hostility among professionals and academics, thus contributing in hampering smooth, effective and efficient administration in the universities. It also appeared that despite this situation, stakeholders in education seemed to develop nonchalant attitude towards these conflicts.

 

Usually, conflicts result into activities such as disruption of tertiary programmes, boycott of lectures, loss of lives and properties and closing down of institutions. These activities have culminated into the truncated academic programmes leading to elongated tertiary calendars. Much has been written about the management of conflict.Conflict management is frequently also broken into categories such as conflict management styles and into categories such as conflict management strategies.

 

Administrative effectiveness on the other hand in the Tertiary institutions can be viewed in two ways- first, in terms of the relationship between the tertiary community and the external environment and secondly, from the point of view of the internal functioning of all the organs of the tertiary. Firstly, universities can be said to be administratively effective when corporate goals and objectives are achieved in line with the extant laws and statutes. Universities are established purposely for teaching, learning research and community service. Secondly, the administrative effectiveness in the Tertiary institutions is determined where all the internal organs are functioning as stipulated. 

 

The area where conflict may occur in the Tertiary institutions and strategies to be used by the administrator is the centre-point of this study. Against this background, this study is investigating the influence of conflict management strategies and administrative effectiveness in areas such as academic programmes and calendars; grading and release of examination results, staff, property, management and discipline; conduct of semester examinations, staff training and development, job performance, supervision, effective maintenance of tertiary records as well as financial management on the part of the authorities.

 

1.3 Statement of the problem

The researcher was prompted by the incessant occurrences of conflict observed at the tertiary institution in Chikun, Local Government Area in Kaduna State due to change and the relative impact of such changes both on the administrators and the entire institution. Conflict has been seen as a function in any effective organization. It functions where there are two or more persons in a group (student-student, student-authority, staff-authority), and where the managers have to deal with people’s lives, self-concept and ego sense of mission or purpose.

It was observed that there was growing awareness among students and administrative staff productivity that they have a measure of power and that they can wield some influence in social and political matters in general and in school matters in particular. The discovery of this latent power finds expression in various ways that could be constructive or destructive. Even through, students and staffs have attempted to and succeeded in correcting some social and political ills, there is still an apparent rise in students-authority conflict, staff authority conflict and intra-group conflict in Kaduna State

Several research studies have been carried out on conflict management styles and determining their relationship with different dependent variables such as employee performance, job satisfaction, motivation and others. Conflict management styles are seen to have various ways on how to suppress conflicts either permanently or temporarily. According to George, Omweri and Miroga (2013), they found out that integrating and accommodating styles increases performance of the employees because of their advantages. In some hospitals, managers or leaders with visions use compromising style to manage their conflicts (Cınar & Kaban, 2012). Such managers try as much as possible to eradicate the effects of conflicts that may be a problem in achieving the organizational goals and objectives in the long run.

1.4       Objectives of the Study

The general purpose of the study is to examine the extent to which conflict management effectiveness may influence administrative staff productivity in tertiary institutions. Specifically, the study seeks to:

1)      Identify the influence of conflict management effectiveness on administrative staff productivity in tertiary institution in Chikun LGA, in Kaduna State

2)      Determine the effectiveness on administrative staff productivity in tertiary institution in Chikun LGA.