Conflict Management’s University Administrators in “Roi Khaen Sarn Sin”

Abstract

This research aims at studying the conflict management of the governmental organization by conducting a case study on conflict management in public organizations : case studies of conflict management’s university administrators in “Roi Khaen Sarn Sin”. The sample group consisted of 135 university executives of primary, middle, and higher levels. The research tools for data collection were the questionnaire adapted from the notion of Pneuman and Bruehl, and the behavioral assessment form on the conflict management of the university executives adapted from the Thomas – Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument. The collected data was analyzed by the software for quantitative data assessment and the statistical techniques applied in this research included percentage, means, and standard deviation. The research findings indicated that the majority of the university executives in “Roi Kaen San Sin” group were the males holding a doctoral degree and had more than 20 years of work experience. These males worked as the directors of different divisions, centers, institutes, and offices and had been working in their current positions for less than 5 years. These executives revealed that the prior factor that caused the conflict in the organization was the personnel with various emotional conditions and different attitudes, the second factor was the interpersonal relation amongst the personnel in an organization, in which most of them were not open to comments or feedbacks from the colleagues; and the last one was the organizational structure, in which the roles or duties of personnel were not clearly determined. In this regard, the very first choice that the executives chose for terminating the conflict within their organization was compromising; on the contrary, to terminate the conflict by competition would be their last option. In sum, the conflict within an organization is very sensitive so that the executives should be smart and capable in managing those conflicts as well as understand the personal differences in their personnel. Also, good executives should be open to different opinions from the personnel and have creative mind in assigning the personnel with clearly determined roles. Moreover, the executives should be well-prepared to handle every kind of conflicts in different situations so that they would be able to solve them with success.