Conflict Management Styles of Middle-level Academic Administrators: Input to Conflict Development Plan

Conflict is endemic to all human and organizational life. It is an inevitable part on organization due to its related situations of division of functions, role disparity, power assertions and limited resources. Conflict arises when two individual or factions are disputing or opposing deliberately or unintentionally. Similar to other organizations, educational institutions are prone to relational conflict over several differences.Thomas-Kilman Conflict Mode Instrument guided this research study (Thomas and Kilman, 1974). The five styles of conflict management devised by Thomas and Kilman are indispensable in the realization of this study. To assess the preference of the middle-level administrators of the Bulacan State University on how to deal with conflicts, assertiveness and cooperation are two key parameters were used resulting to five diverse styles: avoiding, compromising, accommodating, competing and collaborating (optional must be supported by the survey result).


INTRODUCTION
Academic institution nowadays has been busy spending more time improving of school facilities and infrastructure projects, modernization of the teaching instructions using information technology, curriculum revision, program accreditation, ISO certification, and other thrusts and advocacies for institutional development but less time in improving school personnel's ability to deal effectively with disparities and in building mutually educational rapport.
Educational institutions are facing the increasing difficulty and uncertainty arising from competition, globalization of education, change of school climate and culture, and the growing consideration for the natural environment. These increasing difficulty and uncertainty are cause by practical and academic problems in all domains of educational management.
Conflict is endemic to all human organization. It is an inevitable part on organization due to its related situations of division of functions, role disparity, power assertions and limited resources. It is a phenomenon in which constructive and dysfunctional effects on the performance of an individual and the organization are affected. Proper management of conflict is a critical factor in improving organization performance of an academic institution. On the other hand, inefficient management of conflict impedes the institution's performance and might lead to conflicts and tensions. Any incongruity of desires, values or goals between groups or individuals can be define as conflict, that is also includes the efforts of proving one's own disposition  Figure 1 shows the relationship among the Input-Process-Output System of the research study. The INPUT consists of the extent of utilization of academic administrators in using the following conflict strategies: collaborating; competing; avoiding; accommodating; and compromising. The THROUGHPUT consists of elements by which the input was treated and evaluated. Through survey questionnaires, the gathered data was dealt and treated using statistics (frequency distribution, weighted mean, composite mean, mean rank, percentage, and correlation ratio) for presentation, interpretation and analysis of the data. Lastly, the OUTPUT was the proposed conflict management plan.

Significance of the Study
This study is deemed significant to the following stakeholders: This study will provide current and future administrators with relevant information needed in their conflict style management. This research will have significant impact to the school administrators. They will find the research helpful in refining faculty morale and bringing about job satisfaction of their employees or subordinates. The results of this study seem to suggest that the middle level educational managers conflict management styles will be used for the five-year development plan and will served as a guide in problem-solving and an aid in the organizational decision-making. This study will serve as a way of information for the faculty, for them to make an employer-employee relationship, and satisfied in the educational systems they have. The students will be benefited by this study since they are the direct beneficiaries of the good performance of academic administrators and faculty who work in strength of unity resulting from common goals and beliefs. Their parents will be confident that their children's school is a healthy school. They will feel that it is truly their children's second home. The findings of this study are expected to serve as useful benchmark information for setting other related studies and investigation on other factors related to conflict management and other related areas.

Statement of the Problem
The study aimed to evaluate the conflict management styles of the middle-level school administrators of a typical state university in Bulacan that will serve as basis for the development of a conflict management plan. Specifically, this study sought to answer the following questions: 1. What is the profile of the middle-level school administrators in terms of age, sex, years of administrative experience, academic rank, and educational attainment? 2. What is the extent of utilization of the middle-level school administrators in using the following conflict management styles in terms of competing; collaborating, compromising, avoiding and accommodating?
3. Is there a significant relationship between the conflict management styles of the middle-level school administrators and the following: age, years of administrative experience? 4. Is there a significant difference on conflict management styles of the middle-level school administrators when they are group according to sex, and educational attainment? 5. Based on the findings what conflict management plan can be developed?

Hypotheses
Based on the problems of the study, the following hypotheses were tested: 1. There is no significant relationship between the conflict management styles and the age of the middle-level school administrators of a typical university?
2. There is no significant relationship between the conflict management styles and the years of administrative experience of the middle-level school administrators of a typical university?
3. There is no significant difference on the conflict management styles of the middle-level school administrators of a typical university when they are group according to sex?
4. There is no significant difference on the conflict management styles of the middle-level school administrators of a typical university when they are group according to educational attainment?

Definition of Terms
The following terms/variables are defined conceptually and operationally. Accommodating style -this style is also termed as smoothing or obliging. According to Yuan (2007) accommodating style is associated with high concern for the satisfaction of others and neglecting and sacrificing personal or concerns (Thomas and Kilmann, 1974) yielding to another's point of view. This brand of style is the opposite of competing. Accommodating is style is cooperative and unassertive. Avoiding style - Lussier (2010) state that avoidance is being neither assertive nor cooperative and is commonly used by individuals who are emotionally dismayed by the pressures and frustrations of conflict. This style is unassertive and non-cooperative. It comprises low concern for self and for others and does not immediately pursue personal concerns and of those other individual or group (Thomas and Kilmann, 1974). Avoiding style is frequently castoff when impending consequences of provoking the other party seem to overshadow the benefit of resolving the conflict.
Collaborating style -this style is also termed as integrating style. To grasp an effective solution that is acceptable to both conflicting parties, Copley (2008) suggested that the conflict management should be accompanied with problem solving and comprises candidness, information sharing, working toward an alternative and examination of differences. However, Maier (2010) noted that problem solving is the lone method that is directed towards attitudinal, situational and behavioral components of conflict. Collaborating is equally assertive and cooperative and contradictory to avoiding. Collaborating comprises an effort to work with the conflicting party to resolve the issue and fully gratifies the concerns of the conflicting parties. Collaborating between two persons might yield to exploring a disagreement to mug up from each other's insights, concluding to resolve some settings which would then have them conflicting for resources, or antagonizing and trying to find a creative solution to an interpersonal problem. (Thomas & Kilmann, 1974) Compromising style -this style implicates bargaining "give and take" where both parties concerned renounce some aspect in order to attain a piece of mutually acceptable solution (Thomas and Kilmann, 1974). Compromising style intermediates amongst assertiveness and cooperativeness. It tackles an issue more directly than avoiding, but does not delve into it as much depth as collaborating. Compromising style might signify splitting the difference, exchanging compromises. (Thomas & Kilmann, 1974) Competing style -this style is also labelled as dominating style. It conveys high concern for self and low concern for others, implying a stressing issue for admitting one condition without any reason or dialogue (SchermerhoRn, 2000). Dominating or competing style portrays power-oriented approach, which one employs whatever authority seems applicable to win his or her own stance (Thomas & Kilmann, 1972).

Scope and Limitation of the Study
The respondents involved in the utilization of the conflict management style questionnaire are the middle-level managers such as the college deans, assistant deans, program chairs, department heads, and faculty of the different colleges of the said typical university for the academic year 2015 -2017. They must at least have served the university for the last three years in the university and at least one semester in their current designation prior to the research administration. This study was limited to the members of the faculty and middle-level school administrators of a typical university. Therefore, it was limited to the present management team and each of their management styles.

METHODOLOGY
This study employed the descriptive method of research to determine the conflict management styles of middlelevel administrators. Descriptive research according to Best (1970), describes and interprets what it is and it is concerned with the point of view or attitudes that are held processes that are going on. Best(1970) added that descriptive studies are of large value in providing facts on which scientific judgment is based. They play a great role in the development of instruments for measurements of many things, instruments that are employed in all types of quantitative research. To gather the needed information, survey method was used. Social research reveals that survey approach to data collection is the "most frequently used mode of observation in the social sciences" (Hamayun, 2014). The most potent tool of survey research is the questionnaire, which empowers the researcher to collect every kind of data to answer every question about the topic (Yin, 1994)

Respondents of the Study
There were a total of one-hundred sixteen (116) faculty respondents included in the study. The respondents were composed of the following: Permanent or full-time faculty members and they must have served the university for at least 2 years, and at least six (6) units of teaching load with designation as dean, college secretary, department head, and program chair of the colleges, including the high school principal and senior high school coordinator.

Research Instrument
The instrument that employed by the researchers in this study was consisted of standardized instrument in the form of survey questionnaire that was adopted from Thomas and Kilman (1974) and modified to come up with a more comprehensive questionnaire that fitted for the current situation and location of the study. The questionnaire comprises of the following parts: Part I consisting of the personal profile of the respondents. This section contains pertinent information about the respondents such as age, sex, civil status, educational attainment, academic rank, and years of administrative experience at Bulacan State University. Part II consists of a survey questionnaire for identifying their conflict management styles adapted from Thomas & Kilman. The questionnaire which was originally a six-point likert item scale questionnaire was modified by the researchers to a four-point likert item scale for the purpose of this study.In order to address the conflict management strategies of the middle-level school administrators, conflict management styles questionnaire devised by Thomas and Kilman were utilized. The respondents were asked to describe the degree of their agreement or disagreement from "Strongly Agree (4) to Strongly disagree (1)" with statements pertaining to the five competencies of Public Policy and Administration Research www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-5731(Paper) ISSN 2225-0972(Online) Vol.11, No.10, 2021 conflict management styles. It is composed of 25 randomly arranged statements, five items for each five major styles of conflict management namely: Competing strategy (items 1, 6, 11, 16, and 21); Collaborating strategy (items 2, 7, 12, 17, and 22); Compromising strategy (items 3, 8, 13, 18, and 23); Avoiding strategy (items 4, 9, 14, 19, and 24); and Accommodating strategy (items 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25). The questionnaire measures the level of agreement or the rank ordering of respondents' predisposition for the five conflict management strategies based on the scores for their responses in a 4-point Likert items.

Data Gathering Procedures
The researcher conducted the study with the following steps: (1) Secures permission from the University President to undertake the study; (2) Check and modified the instrument used in the study; (3) Finalized the research instruments for reproduction and distribution; (4) Distributed the instruments to the middle-level administrator respondents. (5) Administered the questionnaire to the respondents; (6) Sorted the collected data; and (7) Requested the assistance of the statistician for the computation and textual presentation of the data based on to the sub-problems of the study.

Statistical Treatment of Data
The data gathered were compiled, collated and summarized separately per group. The responses for each item were categorized based on the specific problems raised. The following were utilized in the treatment of the data: Frequency and Percentage were used by the researchers in finding the number of responses and its corresponding percent in the presentation of the profile of the respondents. To identify the conflict management styles of a certain individual or group, mean/composite mean/average was used. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software was used by the researcher for finding the significant relationship between conflict management styles, and the age, and the years of administrative experience we use the Spearman's Rho Correlation. While the t-test for independent samples was used to determine the significant difference between the conflict management styles and the sex of the respondents. To determine the significant difference between the conflict management styles and the educational attainment of the respondents, Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was utilized. To determine the level of conflict management styles of the respondents, the following likert scale was utilized: 1.0 -1.46 -strongly disagree (SD); 1.5 -2.49 -disagree (D); 2.5 -3.49 Agree (A); and 3.5 -4.0strongly agree (SA).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Subproblem No. 1. What is the profile of the middle-level school administrators in terms of: age, sex, years of administrative experience, academic rank, and educational attainment?  Table 1 represents the number of respondents according to age. As gleaned from the table most of the respondents are between 41 to 50 years old, table 1 revealed that 13 or 25 percent are of the age ranging from 41 -45 and 46 -50 respectively. Also, 7 or 13.5 percent of the respondents are in the age range of 30 -35, 51 -55, and 56 -60. There are only 5 or 9.6 percent were at the age range of 36 -40.  Table 2 presents the number of respondents according to sex. It revealed that there are equal number of male and female respondents. As can be seen, both male and female has 26 or 50 as frequency and percentage respectively.  Table 3 shows the number of respondents according to civil status. As revealed in the table, most of the respondents 39 or 75 percent are married; 12 or 23.1 percent are single; and 1 or 1.9 percent is widow; and there was no tick for separated status.  Table 5 shows the present academic rank of the respondents. As depicted in the table, most of the respondents are associate and assistant professors whose frequency and percentages were 16 and 17, and 30.8 and 32.7 respectively. There are also 12 or 23.1 percent are professors; and 7 or 13.5 percent who are instructors.  Table 6 depicts the distribution of respondents as to number of administrative experience. As depicted in the table, most of the respondents are rendering their services as administrators for at least 1 -5 years with a frequency of 29 or 55.8 percent; followed by 16 years and above with 11 or 21.2 percent; next is between 6 -10 years with 7 or 13.5 percent; and there 5 or 9.6 percent of the respondents whose administrative experience is between 11 -15.

Subproblem 2: What is the extent of utilization of middle-level school administrators in using the following conflict management styles:
Public Policy and Administration Research www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-5731(Paper) ISSN 2225-0972(Online) Vol.11, No.10, 2021 table 7 is the extent of utilization using conflict management styles in terms of competing. It can be noted that all the items were rated by the respondents as "Agree", they differ only in their mean value. "I need to attain excellent results and cannot be limited by others" with a (WM=3.46, rank 1); The items "When conflict arise, I usually stand on my principles" and "when pursuing my priorities, I am usually firm and not swayed by others" both got a (WM=3.35, and ranked as 2.5). While the items "After I have made a decision, I defend it strongly" and "Once I have taken a position, I don't like to have others try to talk me out of it" got the weighted mean WM=3.31 and 2.5, and the rank 4 and 5 respectively. Generally, the computed mean value of 3.19 was assessed by the respondents as "agree" as to competing. • When there is a conflict, I make a point of presenting my view, and I invite others to do the same.
3.17 Agree 5 • I am a decision maker, but I make a point of listening to others to find the best solution possible.

Strongly Agree 2
Composite Mean 3.47 Agree Table 8 reflects the extent of utilization using conflict management styles in terms of collaborating. It can be viewed from the table that of the five items, two items were interpreted as "Strongly Agree" while the three items are "Agree". These are the items: "I am always willing to listen to others opinions, but I also want to give them mine" (WM=3.79, rank 1) and "I am a decision maker, but I make a point of listening to others to find the best solution possible" (WM=3.69, rank 2). Items "I am always willing to consider other peoples' opinions, but I make my own decisions" has (WM=3.38, rank 3), "during conflict, I immediately work to get everyone's concerns out in the open" got (WM=3.31, rank 4) and "when there is conflict, I make a point of presenting my view, and I invite others to do the same" with (WM=3.17, rank 5). The school administrators assessed the computed composite means of 3.47 as agree when it comes to collaborating. Since people who are engaged in collaboration may be characterized as both cooperative and assertive (Helms, 2006), the data imply that the academic school administrators are both cooperative and assertive in dealing with conflict situations.
Public Policy and Administration Research www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-5731(Paper) ISSN 2225-0972(Online) Vol.11, No.10, 2021  Agree The extent of utilization using conflict management styles in terms of compromising is reflected in Table 9. It can be noted that all the items were all interpreted as "Agree" from 3.06 to 3.44 as their weighted mean. These are: Items "I often make slight modifications in my goals to meet other people's needs" and "When a conflict arises, I am usually willing to adjust my priorities to reach a resolution" both got a (WM=3.44, and rank 1.5). The items "I like to meet other people halfway" (WM=3.31, rank 3), "when viewpoints are opposed, I generally propose a middle ground" (WM=3.15, rank 4) and "during a conflict, I try to find some compromise" with (WM=3.06) got a rank of 5. Generally, the composite mean the respondents rated values of 3.28 is "Agree" as to compromising. This means that the academic administrators have an orientation of being moderately supportive and firm. They tend to be on middle ground position with no strong position in either dimension, yet they are willing to see conflict resolved to the mutual benefit. Composite Mean 2.60 Agree Table 10 reflects the extent of utilization using conflict management styles in terms of avoiding. As seen in the table, the respondents assessed three (3) items as "Agree", these are: "If people don't respect my opinion, I keep it to myself" with (WM=2.98, rank 1), "I often keep to myself, because most things are not worth arguing about" (WM=2.73, rank 2), and "differences of opinion are not always worth worrying about, so I usually avoid them" (WM=2.63, rank 3). And "Disagree with the items: "when conflict occurs, I tend to back out of the situation and do something else" with a (WM=2.38, rank 4) and "I try to avoid people who have strong opinions" with the (WM=2.73, rank 5). The composite mean value of 2.60 was rated by the respondents as "Agree" in terms of avoiding.  Table 11 is the extent of utilization using conflict management styles in terms of accommodating. It can be seen in the table that one out of five items were assessed as "Strongly Agree" by the respondents, the item "when someone else thinks they have a good idea I cooperate and help them" (WM=3.96, rank 1). The rest of the four items was interpreted as "Agree" and these are the following: "I like to ask others for their opinions and try to find ways to cooperate"(WM=3.44, rank 2), "I try to adjust my priorities to accommodate other people's needs" (WM=3.33, rank 3); "I don't like to rock the boat, so I cooperate with others and accept instructions easily"(WM=3.02, rank 4) and "I think it is more important to get along than to win an argument"(WM=2.83, rank 5). Generally, the composite mean the respondents rated values of 3.26 "Agree" as to accommodating.  Table 12 shows the summary and ranking of the five academic administrators' extent of utilization using conflict management styles. As seen in the table, "collaborating" got (rank 1); it is followed by "compromising" (rank 2) next is "accommodating" (rank 3); "competing" (rank 4); and avoiding (rank 5). It is supported with the computed overall mean value of 3.16, rated as "Agree" on the extent of utilization using conflict management styles.
The aforementioned implies that the academic administrators have higher preference for win-win resolution as compared to other styles. This finding tends to agree with the findings of Cabansag (2006) that collaborating is rank first styles in middle-level managers of state colleges and universities in Cagayan Valley, while the least is the avoiding styles.
It also shows that their cooperative and assertive features as described by collaborative styles. The mean scores also revealed that the academic administrators are more collaborative than compromising. It means that they prefer to be at the middle ground approach rather than to solve problems in ways by which an optimum result is provided for all involved. The last two styles, competing and avoiding both manifest uncooperativeness. Competing styles use the authoritarian approach of conflict management while avoiding is the nonconfrontational approach of conflict management styles. Table 13. correlation between the conflict management styles and the age of middle-level school administrators of a typical state university.

Subproblem No. 3. Is there a significant relationship between the conflict management styles of the middlelevel school administrators and the following: age; and years of administrative experience?
It can be noted that age is significantly correlated with accommodating style of management, with rs = -.417 Public Policy and Administration Research www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-5731(Paper) ISSN 2225-0972(Online) Vol.11, No.10, 2021 at 0.05 level of significance. This means the null hypothesis will be rejected. This implies that the younger the age of the respondents tend to be accommodating in the styles of conflict management. .044 .758 Note: ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed) * Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed) Table 14 also displays the correlation between the conflict management styles and the years of administrative experience of middle-level school administrators of the state university. Notice that the compromising style of conflict management is significantly correlated to the number of years of administrative experience with rs = 0.302 at .05 level of significance. This means the null hypothesis will be rejected. This implies that the longer the years of experience as being the academic administrators tend to be compromising in style of conflict management, rather than their younger counterpart. Table 15 depicted the analysis of variance to test if there is no significant difference between the educational attainment and conflict management styles of the respondents.  Table 15 displays the t-test results of the significant differences on conflict management styles of the middle-level school administrators when they are group according to sex. As can be seen from the table, the Levene's test for equality of variances assumed are all greater than 0.05 level of significance these are: competing (p-value =.845); collaborating (p-value = .712); compromising (p-value = .434); avoiding (p-value = .114); and accommodating (p-value = .054). This means that we have to accept the null hypothesis that there is no significant difference on the conflict management styles of the middle-level school administrators when they are group according to sex. This implies that regardless of sex, male or female, have the same styles of conflict management.

Subproblem No. 4. Is there a significant difference on the conflict management styles of the middle-level school administrators when they are group according to: sex; and educational attainment?
As can be viewed from the table, all the p-value is greater than 0.05 level of significance. Competing (pvalue = .605); collaborating (p-value = .633); compromising (p-value = .509); avoiding (p-value = .297); and accommodating (p-value = .747). This means the null hypothesis that there is no significant difference on the