ASSESSMENT OF CONFLICT MANAGMENT PRACTICE: THE CASE OF ARBA MINCH  UNIVERSITY
Creators: name: YARED TOLERA TASISA
Publisher: name: National Academic Digital Repository of Ethiopia
Year: 2016

description: Conflict  is  the  situation  in  which  one  party  perceives  that  its  interests  are  being  opposed  or 
negatively affected by another party which is in the same group, in another group, in the same 
organization  or  in  another organization.  Accordingly,  we  can  classify  those  conflicts  in  to: 
intragroup  conflict,  intergroup  conflict,  intraorganizational  conflict  and  interorganizational 
conflict. There is also other type of conflict which happens within one self and between peoples 
who  came  from  different  cultures,  which  are  called  intrapersonal  conflict  and  cross  cultural 
conflict respectively.
The fact that individuals have different backgrounds, point of views, values, needs, personalities 
and other additional realities prevailing in an organizational environment will make organization 
a place where conflict is common. Regardless of the quality of a manger’s leadership or his or 
her  style  of  management  and  regardless  of  how  well  planned  the  organizational  structure  is, 
conflicts  will  occasionally  arise  within  an  organization.  These  conflicts  can  be  functional  or 
dysfunctional  in  nature.  This  study  is  conducted  on  Arba  Minch  University  under  a  title  of 
“Assessment of Conflict Management Practice”. The major problems which initiate this research 
are: the prevalence of conflict between several parties in the institution, problem on perception of 
conflict  and  the  unsatisfactoriness of  the  conflict  management  system  of  the  institution.  The 
outcomes of all these problems made conflict an issue at Arba Minch University. 
The  major  and  specific  objectives  of  the  research  are: Assessing  the  conflict  management 
practice  of  Arba  Minch  University, Assessing the  major  sources  of  conflict,  Finding  out   the 
conflict resolution mechanisms of the university, Assessing the attitudes that an employees of the 
organization have towards conflict, Identifying the types of conflict which are commonly existed, 
Measuring the success of the conflict resolution techniques in resolving the conflicts encountered 
by the organization, Identifying the parties who are frequently involved in conflicting situation 
and in conflict resolution.
The major limitations faced in conducting this research are: Some completely denied taking part 
in this research and few others also did not give complete information because of the fear that 
they have on this area and insufficiency of time that is provided to conduct this research.
Both  primary  and  secondary  sources  of  information  are  used  in  collecting  the  data. 
Questionnaires are distributed to the institution’s academic, non academic staff members and the 
information gathered is analyzed accordingly. 
According to the analysis made, there is a wide range of conflict in the organization, a problem 
of  conflict  perception  is  also  observed,  there  is  no  enough  special  training  and  orientation 
prepared to change this perception, interpersonal conflict is mainly arises in the institution. The 
conflict  management  practice  of  the  organization  is  found  to  be  poor.   To  avoid  the  above 
problems; the organization should prepare several occasions in which the employees can develop 
the relationship between them, a special training and orientation program should be prepared in 
order  to  create  better  grasping  on  conflict  related  issues.  Additionally,  several  points  are 
forwarded as a recommendation to solve the problems observed.