إدارة الصراع التنظيمى والأنماط المتبعة لدى الإداريين في الجامعات الفلسطينية

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this study was to identify the administrators‘ organizational conflict management styles at the Palestinian universities, and to investigate the effects of several variables: university, sex, age, marital status, qualifications, job, job title, and years of experience on conflict management styles at Palestinian universities. The population comprised 1284 administrators (faculty and staff) in the Palestinian universities; the research sample was comprised of 400 which represent six universities in the West Bank of Palestine. To answer the research questions, the researcher used the Thomas — Kilmann mode instrument. This instrument, designed to determine an individual‘s behavior when dealing with conflict situations, identifies five conflict- handling modes, which are competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding, and accommodating, which are spread across two dimensions: Cooperativeness and Assertiveness. After proving the reliability and the stability of the questioner, it was distributed among the study sample. After collecting the data, means were counted and the T-test, the One Way ANOVA, and the chi-square test were utilized to analyses the data. The results of the study were as follows: I The administrators were found to avoid and collaborate more, and to compete and accommodate less. 0 The frequencies of use of the five styles varied from medium to low. 9 There were significant differences in the organizational conflict management styles, which are applied by the Palestinian universities administrators: Firstly, in the competing style, related to the sex variable. Secondly, in the collaborating and accommodating styles related to the rmiversity variable. Thirdly, in the collaborating, and the competing styles relating to the age variable. Fourth, in the competing, and the accommodating styles related to the experience variables. Fifth, in the compromising style related to the qualifications variable. Sixth, in the competing style related to the marital status variable. Seventh, in the accommodating style related to the job title variable.

9 There were no significant differences in the organizational conflict management styles, which are applied by the Palestinian universities administrators: Firstly, in the collaborating, compromising, avoiding and accommodating styles relating to the sex variable. Secondly, In the avoiding, collaborating, compromising, accommodating, and competing styles relating to the job variable. Thirdly, in the competing, compromising, and avoiding styles, relating to the university variable. Fourth, in the collaborating, compromising, and avoiding styles, related to the age variable. Fiflh, in the avoiding style relating to the experience variable. Sixth, in the collaborating, compromising, acconnnodating, and competing styles, related to the qualifications variable. Seventh, in the collaborating, compromising, and avoiding styles, related to the job title variable. Eighth, in the collaborating, compromising, avoiding, and accommodating styles, relating to the marital status variable. In light of the results, the study recommends that stakeholders take an interest in training and rehabilitation programs in concepts and styles of conflict management, encouraging administrators to use a variety of the conflict management styles as appropriate, and to favor using the collaboration style over the avoiding style. They should consider using conflict management as a method of evaluating the administrators, and publish and distribute pamphlets/handbooks describing the concept, styles, benefits and the importance of conflict management to maximize the awareness of the administrators in the field. Finally, stakeholders should encourage and support additional and comparative studies in the field.