Behind The Conflict Management Strategies In H.E. Is Of KPK, Pakistan:Self Construal,Nature Of Conflict And Type Of Universities

The thesis aimed to highlight a critical role of self-construal and conflict issue between faculty and administration staff in higher education institutions(HEIs)of Pakistan.Keeping in view the development of education sector and maintaining conducive environment in universities,the study was rightly undertaken to first discover and then present some viable solution for it.The research used the universities of public and private sector of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa(KPK)province of Pakistan for its analysis.For collecting the relevant data,the study used questionnaire,which was distributed in twelve universities of KPK comprising of six public and six private universities.The thesis is composed of various chapters;the first chapter introduces the topic of the thesis and explains the objectives of the thesis.Universities have a very complex structure and the role of conflict is very important in it.In universities conflicts mainly occur within the faculty,within the administration or between these two.The main theme of this thesis is the role of self-construal which causes the conflict between the faculty and administration and nature of conflict plays a mediating role in it.Every society has different norms and values.Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province is different from all other provinces of Pakistan and it is socially different as compare to other provinces.The main reason to conduct research in this province is because of its nature from other provinces in Pakistan.Many scholars believe that keeping in mind the complex nature of the universities if conflict is not control it can produce many complexities within the institutions.For this we have to plan the strategies in order to control it.Many individuals use different type of strategies while facing conflict and universities of public and private sector have different type of environment.Therefore,this research is how the faculty and administration of these universities respond to conflict.The specific objective of the study is to explore the role of self-construal,nature of conflicts and conflict management strategies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's universities of public and private.The second chapter is about literature review.There are many research works on self-construal and conflict management styles in cross-cultural but there is very limited literature within the same culture.The educational institutions are also not free from conflict and to study the role of self-construal we can propose a best solution for the educational authorities to control conflict.On the overall environment of the organization conflict has a very negative effect.Personal behavior,structural and communication factors are the three main categories of conflict but there are also some other common sources as hierarchy,competition stressful work environment and the structure changes of the university or units within it.The third chapter is about the hypothesis development.A lot of research has been done on self construal and conflict management strategies.According to literature the relation has been discussed and the novelty of the research with hypothesis is also given in this chapter.Different types of conflicts are there in which Interpersonal Conflict,Intra personal conflict,Inter group Conflict,Intra group conflict,Individual versus group Conflict,Individual versus organization conflict,Inter-organizational conflict,strategic Conflict,Structural Conflict etc.conflict may constructive or destructive.Constructive conflict is useful but destructive conflict is harmful for the organizations.Conflict has five style or strategies according to the literature i.e.compromising,integrating,avoiding,obliging and competing.Every individual respond to conflict among these five styles.Demographics also play a very important role regarding conflict management styles.The fourth chapter is about the methodology.This chapter has discussed the methodology used during the research.Survey approach is the most frequently used mode of observation and it can be done with the help of questionnaire.Due to questionnaire researcher is able to collect correct data of his research topic.The population sample taken in this research is faculty and administration of the public and private sector universities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.The primary data of this research is collected by the self-administrated questionnaire and questions have been asked of the research topic selected.The inferential tools used here is the descriptive analysis and regression analysis.The fifth chapter is analysis and interpretations of the different variables and different statistical tools used.This chapter provides the readers an overview of the whole research thesis.The statistical tools used here are descriptive statistics,regression analysis.The descriptive statistics shows the mean and standard deviation of the variables used here in this research.Correlation clearly describes the relation among the variables.The regression analysis shows that our data is significant and it supports our hypothesis.If the there is any type of change in any variable the in it will bring change in the other variables.That self-construal plays main role to control or to produce conflict and in defining the relation of self-construal and conflict management strategies,nature of conflict plays important role.Chapter six is about discussion and conclusion.Self-construal and Conflict plays a vital role in every organization and almost every organization is facing it.Institutions of higher education are also facing conflicts.Every individual uses different conflict management strategies/styles while dealing with conflict,which is a fact.Demographics are considered as important factors which influence the conflict management styles.The faculty and administration uses different type of styles according to their demographics.Demographics like gender,age and qualification plays as a control variable on the conflict management strategies.The type of universities plays a moderating role in conflict and management strategies.In discussion,it is obvious from the findings that conflict is present also in the higher education institutions.It is recommended that every individual working for the university should know about the conflict management.The universities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are full of conflicts but the individuals do not know how to deal with it,this is because there is no proper training in their universities.The public as well as private universities are deprived of conflict management.The last chapter is about conclusion.The purpose of this research is to understand what conflict management is and to know how the demographics affect the conflict management styles.The overall conclusion of the dissertation is presented.At first the main idea of my research,the problem statement,purpose and objective of the research is presented.Second was the literature review which shows that what is conflict management and what are the styles of conflict management which individuals adopt on facing the conflict.The third was the hypothesis development.Fourth is about the methodology and statistical method used which are descriptive statistics,regression and correlation in order to check that the data is significant or not.Fifth chapter give readers the detail overview of the data which is analyzed by running the statistical tools which shows that the data is significant.At last sixth chapter the dissertation shows the findings,recommendation and conclusion of the research.From all the research,it is concluded that self-construal affect the conflict management strategies and nature of conflict plays a mediating role between self-construal and conflict management styles.It is also proved that type of universities plays a moderating role in conflict management strategies.The faculty and administration of public universities adopt different type of conflict management styles than the faculty and administration of the private universities.The universities are full of conflict but there is no proper treatment of the conflict.So the universities should take interest in order to get rid of this because if it is not treated from the beginning it can harm the reputation of the universities.