An investigation of conflict management in public and private sector universities
Siraj ud Din1 *, Bakhtiar Khan1 , Rashid Rehman1 and Zainab Bibi2
1
Department of Business Administration, Gomal University, D.I.Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
2
Institute of Management Sciences, University of Baluchistan, Quetta, Pakistan.
Accepted 27 May, 2011
The purpose of this paper is to gain an insight into the conflict management in public and private sector universities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. To achieve the earlier mentioned purpose, survey method was used with the help of questionnaire. In this research, impact of university type (public and private sector) was examined on the conflict management strategies of the teachers in higher education. Moreover, a systematic approach was adopted to discover existence of conflict, its intensity, types and sources in these two types of universities. Results indicate that conflict was intense in the public sector universities; interpersonal conflict was more prevalent in public sector while task conflict was high in the private sector universities. Findings indicated that faculty in both types of universities used integrating, compromising and avoiding styles simultaneously in case of conflict. There was no significant difference in the conflict management strategies of both types of universities. Finally, it was revealed that there was no formal system in both types of universities to manage conflict.
Key words: Conflict, conflict management, conflict management strategies, public and private sector universities. INTRODUCTION
Most of the research on conflict has been conducted in traditional organizations but it does not mean that educational institutions are free from it (Hearn and Anderson,
2002). Holton (1995) says that conflict is a part of academic life since time immemorial. In the view of Gmelch and Carrol (1991), conflict is “sewn into the fabric” of educational institutions due to functional, structural and relational characteristics of academic departments.
Miklas and Kleiner (2003) termed the educational institutions “a perfect breeding ground for conflict”.
Conflict is unavoidable in the institutions of higher education due to encouragement of academic freedom and unbridled thinking. Conflict can occur between students versus faculty, faculty versus faculty, faculty versus administrators and students versus students
(Holton, 1995).
*Corresponding author. E-mail: sirajdean@yahoo.com, siraj@gu.edu.pk. Tel: +92-321-9170255, Fax: +92-966-750255.
Folger and Shubert (1995) states that:
“Colleges and universities are no longer seen as quiet enclaves free from the conflicts that arise in all hierarchical organizations. . . . differences in goals or plans for the allocation of resources, misinterpretation or inconsistent application of institutional regulations, breaches of formal or informal contracts, power struggles and personal antagonisms are all possible sources of conflict”. The academic environment is different from other organizations.
The teaching faculty is more independent and in direct control of their environment. Besides this independence there is a team-based approach to setting policies and executing program changes. It becomes difficult to force teaching faculty, with strong personalities and different philosophies, into accepting changes and the potential for conflict increases (Berryman-Fink, 1998).
There are different client groups in the universities that is, students, teachers and administrators (Warters, 2000)
6982 Afr. J. Bus. Manage. and the potential for conflict increases among these three groups having claims on the ownership of the universities
(Oster, 1995).
Browman (2002) states that conflict is a negative force and has no place in the academic environment. It is inseparable component of academic life and administrators spend more than 40% of their time on the management of conflicts in the universities (Stanley and Algert, 2007).
Conflict has been regarded as one of the key problem in the educational institutions. It can become an important tool in the development of the organization if it is managed well (Cetin and Hacifazlioglu, 2004) and despite the different image of conflict in different minds, the management of conflict is difficult (Algert and Watson,
2002).
According to Volpe and Chandler (1999), “conflicts on campus are growing in number, kind, and complexity.
The current university context is clearly more challenging than in the past. The range of conflicts and the forums available for their management are much more farreaching than ever before. In short, society has changed... and so has the university”.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Public and private distinction in higher education
There are differences between public and private sector organizations and at the same time between employees’ behavior of these organization. Public sector is typically service oriented and they are not competing with any other institution for profit but the goal of private sector especially business organization is to compete with other organizations and get maximum profit. Private sector managers’ performance is also judged on the basis of profit maximization but public managers do not expect any material benefits for their performance (Halvorsen et al., 2005) which hamper their eagerness to take initiative or risks. Managers in the public sector do not perceive any rewards for their performance, so they are unwilling to exert their utmost efforts in order to achieve objectives.
Moreover, public sector employees have secured jobs so they try to avoid their work (Baldwin, 1991; Bellante and
Link, 1981; Brewer and Lam, 2009; Lewis and Frank,
2002).
Public sector organizations are characterized by many hierarchical layers, high degree of formalization and red tapism which are major sources of corruption and work delays in these organizations as people want to get expedite their work by using different illegal ways (Brewer and Lam, 2009; Buchanan, 1975; Frank and Lewis,
2004).
Public sector employees are highly unionized and these strong unions only care for labors interests even at the cost of organizational interests. All the earlier mentioned factors have brought public sector organizations to the level that their survival has become a question mark.
Heffron (1989) has also distinguished between public and private organizations. He stated that public organizations are less inclined towards efficiency because they are dependent on the revenues from government. They need not worried about clients. Employees have to work under strict formal setting hence fewer chances for innovation and improvement. Public organizations have conflicting goals and objectives due to which a decision making becomes a difficult task. Moreover the performance measurement of public sector employees is also difficult due to the conflicting objectives.
As for as higher educational institutions in public and private sectors of Pakistan are concerned the picture is not different. As Munaf and Seema report from Hamid
(2005):
“Private sector in Pakistan is more suitable regarding organization of tasks in the university. It is more efficient regarding the provision of directions to the staff and students, coordination, collection of reports for every activity of the organization and revision of curricula according to emerging global needs. It is also more favorable regarding the availability of quality assurance system”. Conflict perception
Hocker and Wilmot (1985) defined conflict as "an expressed struggle between at least two interdependent parties who perceive incompatible goals, scarce rewards, and interference from the other party in achieving their goals." Some other definitions of conflict also suggest that perception play a vital role in the emergence and intensity of conflicts even in the absence of real differences.
(Thomas, 1992; Kolb and Putnam, 1992). In the event of struggle between two interdependent parties, the perception of getting interference from one another is likely to invite conflict.
It is apparent from all these definitions that perception plays an important role in the conflict. Perception of conflict creates an atmosphere of animosity and hatred which leads to blockage of goal or interest of another.
According to Marsh (1982), conflict is at maximum at public universities and in those universities where there is a high structural differentiation, more crowded campus and less innovation. Here in Pakistan, public universities are more crowded and there is a high structural differentiation in comparison to private sector universities, so faculty will perceive more conflict in public sector universities. H1: Faculty in public sector universities perceives more conflict than their counterparts in private sector universities. Conflict intensity
According to Jehn (1995), conflict intensity is the amount of difference in the perspectives, thoughts and views about the tasks being performed among the workers.
Intensity means the amount of costs and participation.
Conflict intensity will be low if groups are better organized and structured (Dahrendorf, 2006). But according to
Powell (1988), public organizations “located in environments in which conflicting demands are made upon them will be especially likely to generate complex organizational structures with disproportionately large administrative components and boundary spanning units”. It shows that public organizations are more complex and disorganized as compared to private organizations. Hence we can hypothesize that
H2: Conflict is more intense in the public sector universities than private sector universities.
Types of conflict
Organizational conflict analysts have identified three different domains of conflict depending on the interpersonal relationship within group and that based around tasks developed by groups that is, relationship conflict, task conflict and process conflict (Amason and
Schweiger, 1997; Cosier and Rose, 1977; Guetzkow and
Gyr, 1954; Kabanoff, 1991; Jehn, 1995; Jehn, 1997;
Rahim, 2000).
In a research study conducted by Guerra et al. (2005), it has been proved that public sector workers face higher level of task and relationship conflict than workers serving in private sector organizations. Keeping in view the research of Guerra et al. (2005), the study hypothesizes that: H3: Interpersonal and task conflict will be higher in public sector universities while process conflict will be higher in the private sector universities.
Sources of conflict
There are many sources of conflicts but the main sources are communicational factors, structural factors, personal factors and limited resources (Achoka, 1990; Holton,
1998; Van der Merwe, 1991). Keeping in view the difference in public and private sector universities, we hypothesize that:
H4: Both kinds of universities have different sources of conflict. Conflict management strategies
Conflict management style is someone’s behavioral
Din et al. 6983 pattern, which he tends to exhibit while facing a conflict
(Moberg, 2001). Rahim and Bonoma (1979) have classified the conflict management on five styles based on two basic dimensions: concern for self and concern for others. These five different styles of managing conflict are “competing, integrating, avoiding, obliging and compromising”. Competing style represents high concern for self and low concern for others and identified with a win-lose orientation. Integrating style represents high concern for self and others and identified with a win-win orientation.
Avoiding style represents low concern for self and low concern for others and identified with lose-lose orientation.
Obliging style represents low concern for self and high concern for others and identified with a lose-win orientation. Compromising style represents intermediate concern for self and others (Rahim, 2000; Robbins,
2001).
According to Cetin and Hacifazlioglu (2004), private universities faculty use competitive style more than the faculty in public universities. While another study confirms that the public and private sector employees have the same approach regarding conflict resolution but employees in public sector are more inclined to adopt
“integrating” strategy than their counterparts in the private sector (Brewer and Lam, 2009). Some other studies have proved that employees in both public and private sector uses “integrating” strategy to manage conflict with their subordinates, peers and supervisors (Rose et al., 2007).
Keeping in view the research of Brewer and Lam
(2009), we hypothesize that:
H5: There is a no difference in conflict management strategies used by faculty in both kinds of universities.
METHODOLOGY
The population of the project includes all universities of Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa whether working in public or private sector excluding the engineering, medical, agriculture universities and Pakistan
Military Academy. According to the Higher Education Commission
(HEC, 2010) there are twenty four (24) universities in the Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa province. The target population was 19 universities with eleven (11) universities working in the public sector and eight
(8) working in the private sector in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
Simple random sampling was done to select four universities. Two public sector universities were Peshawar University and Gomal
University and two private sector universities were Qurtuba
University and Sarhad University. After collection of data, the researcher coded it to facilitate quantitative analysis. All the analysis was done by using the SPSS 15 (Statistical Package for
Social Sciences)
There are about 2025 teachers (male teachers = 1642, female teachers = 383) and 350 administrators in the higher education of
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (HEC, 2004, 2005). A pilot study was undertaken for developing the research project. The study included
25 teachers and 15 administrators. The statistics from the study were then used for determining the sample sizes for teachers and administrators with the help of formula given at the bottom of Table
1.
In this study, the researcher used a self-designed, fixed-choice
6984 Afr. J. Bus. Manage.
Table 1: Determination of Sample Size
Pilot study (n) N SD .
2
SE(E) =
./√n E2 Z@5% Computed Sample Sizes
Teachers = 25 2025 0.73 0.5329 0.146 0.021316 1.96 92
Administrators= 15 350 0.69 0.4761 0.178157 0.03174 1.96 50
Formula used
.
[.
2
/((E2 /Z2 )+(.
2
/N))]
Table 2. Demographic characteristics of respondents.
Demographic characteristic
Frequency
Total Percentage
Public Private
Gender
Male 81 38 119 83.8
Female 19 4 23 16.2
Designation
Professor 20 7 27 19
Associate Professor 8 2 10 7
Assistant Professor 31 3 34 24
Lecturer 41 30 71 50
Experience
0-10 years 41 31 72 50.7
10-20 years 19 3 22 15.5
20-30 years 37 6 43 30.3
30-40 years 3 2 5 3.5
Position
Administrator 35 15 50 35.2
Teacher 65 27 92 64.8
Qualification
PhD 36 10 46 32.4
MPhil 20 8 28 19.7
Master 44 24 68 47.9
Age
20-35 years 38 29 67 47.2
35-50 years 32 5 37 26.0
50-65 years 30 8 38 26.8 questionnaire. A new questionnaire was developed with the help of conflict literature and questionnaires developed by various scholars
(Rahim, 1983; Jehn, 1995; Balay, 2006). Three questions have been asked relating to each conflict management style, which are enough to measure reliability and enough to keep the attention of respondents. A five point Likert scale have been used. Questions have been asked about the perception, intensity, types, sources, styles of conflict and conflict management mechanism. The instrument was successfully used in the pilot study. Demographic characteristics of respondents are given in Table 2
ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
H1: Faculty in public sector universities perceives more conflict than their counterparts in private sector universities. Table 3 shows that conflict existed in both types of universities. But the faculty in public sector universities admitted the existence of conflict more unreservedly in their institutions than the private sector universities. Its t-value is 3.389 and the p-value is 0.001, on the basis of these values we accepted our hypothesis and concluded that there was significant difference in both types of universities in terms of conflict. Faculty in public sector universities perceived more conflict than private sector universities. Hence the hypothesis is accepted.