Gender Dimension of Conflict among Non-Academic Staff of Selected Public Tertiary Institutions in Southeast Nigeria

Abstract

Conflict is a necessary and inevitable phenomenon in every social group. However, conflicts when ill-managed can generate unwanted atmosphere that could constrain organisational cooperation and the realisation of the ultimate goals of an organisation. Despite the fact that work-related conflicts constitute a recurring theme within organisational literature, empirical researches in relation to the gender-dimensions to work-related conflicts are scare, particularly within the context of non-academic employees in the Nigerian public tertiary institutions. This study therefore investigated gender dimension of conflict among non-academic staff in selected public tertiary institutions within the South-East zone of Nigeria. The study adopted the descriptive cross-sectional survey research design. The sample size for the study was 374 employees comprising of 143 males and 231 females, who were selected for the study through the proportionate stratified random sampling technique. Data for the study were collected through questionnaire administration and data collected were processed using the SPSS software package version 26. Data analysis was performed using descriptive statistics and the chi-square test was conducted to examine the relationship between gender and forms of conflicts among the employees. Findings of the study showed that there was actually a variation in the gender-dimensions of work-related conflicts, where the male employees were most inclined to ‘process conflicts’, while the female employees were most inclined to ‘relationship conflicts’. Result of the chi-square test suggested that there was a statistically significant relationship between gender and forms of conflict among the non-academic employees in public tertiary institutions (p = .000). Further results showed that the major effects of work-related conflicts equally varied significantly between the genders, where the major effects for the males included lack of trust, lack of cooperation with co-workers, antagonism and job discontentment, while the effect for the females included lack of cooperation with co-workers, hostility, antagonism, mutual suspicion, and low commitment. The study concluded that understanding gender-dimensions to work-related conflicts among the non-academic employees was a panacea to addressing issues affecting employees’ workability and organisational productivity. The study therefore recommended the need for conflict management committees in public tertiary institutions to consider designing programmes targeted at addressing the gender-specific conflicts among employees.