The aim of this study is to classify teachers' conflict management styles, grasp tendencies of use of conflict management styles in accordance with background variables of teachers, and analyze relations between teachers' conflict management styles an...
The aim of this study is to classify teachers' conflict management styles, grasp tendencies of use of conflict management styles in accordance with background variables of teachers, and analyze relations between teachers' conflict management styles and job satisfaction or organizational commitment. The research questions established to attain such aims are as follows. First, how are teachers' conflict management styles classified? Second, what differences are there in tendencies of use of conflict management styles according to background variables of teachers? Third, what relations are there between teachers' conflict management styles and job satisfaction or organizational commitment?
The subjects for this study were high school teachers in Busan City. As for sampling of teachers, I first selected 30 high schools in the way of stratified sampling, and then chose 35 teachers from each school. Totally 1,050 copies of the questionnaire were distributed, 35 copies for each school, and 990 copies were returned from them (return rate=94.3%). Excluding 83 copies, which contained insincere answers, I used 903 copies for the analysis(effective response rate=91.2%). The research tool was consisted of the questionnaire about teachers' conflict management styles and that about teachers' job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and made by researcher based on previous studies about conflict management styles and teacher conflicts. As for data processing, factor analysis and Cronbach's α reliability test were carried out for the classification of teachers' conflict management styles, t-test and F-test for tendencies of use of conflict management styles in accordance with background variables of teachers, one-way ANOVA and ScheffIJ test for post-test for relations between teachers' conflict management styles and job satisfaction or organizational commitment. The results of this study are as follows.
First, the teachers' conflict management styles about school administrators are classified into four styles like accommodating style, integrating style, compromising style, and dominating style, and the teachers' conflict management styles about fellows teachers are classified into five styles like integrating style, dominating style, conceding style, compromising style, and avoiding style. Given this result, of the conflict management styles for school administrators, the integrating style, dominating style, and compromising style exist without any changes in each style's characteristics, but on the other hand, accommodating style newly appears in places of the conceding style and avoiding style, which means that it contains the properties of conceding style, and some partial properties of avoiding style that include self-oppression and patience. All of the five styles of conflict management for fellow teachers have their own characteristics without any changes.
Second, as for whole tendencies of use of teachers' conflict management styles, integrating style, compromising style, accommodating style, and dominating style appeared in that order for school administrators, and integrating style, compromising style, avoiding style, conceding style, and dominating style in that order for fellow teachers. Thus, considering that accommodating style among other conflict management styles for school administrators included conceding style and part of avoiding style, the conflict management styles for school administrators and for fellow teachers appeared to match in the order of integrating, compromising, accommodating(avoiding, conceding), and dominating styles.
As for main results from tendencies of use of conflict management styles for school administrators in accordance with background variables, (1) male teachers, teachers older than 40 years, head teachers, teachers belonged to The Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations, teachers in specialties, and teachers from public schools appeared to frequently use them in the case of integrating style; (2) head teachers, teachers belonged to The Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations and no union, and teachers from public school in the case of compromising style; (3) female teachers, teachers younger than 30 years, and teachers belonged to The Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations and no union in the case of accommodating style; and (4) teachers at their 30s and 40s, teachers belonged to The Korean Teachers and Education Workers' Union, and teachers from public schools in the case of dominating style. As for main results from tendencies of use of conflict management styles for fellow teachers in accordance with background variables, (1) head teachers, teachers in specialties, and teachers from public schools appeared to frequently use them in the case of integrating style; (2) teachers older than 30 years, teachers belonged to The Korean Teachers and Education Workers' Union, and teachers from public school in the case of dominating style; (3) male teachers, teachers in their 20s, head teachers, and teachers belonged to The Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations and no union in the case of conceding style; (4) teachers belonged to The Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations and no union, and teachers in specialties in the case of compromising style; (5) and teachers belonged to The Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations and no union in the case of avoiding style. Generally considering the tendencies of use of conflict management styles for school administrators and fellow teachers in accordance with teachers' background variables, the most prominent differences appeared in tendencies of use of conflict management styles according to their belonged to teacher unions among other teacher background variables whether or not the object included school administrators or fellow teachers. Especially, The Korean Teachers and Education Workers' Union showed greatly different tendencies compared to those who belonged to The Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations and no union.
Third, as for the degree of job satisfaction and organizational commitment with respect to conflict management styles for school administrators, integrating style, compromising style, accommodating style, and dominating style appeared in that order on the side of job satisfaction, and integrating style, accommodating style, compromising style, and dominating style in that order on the side of organizational commitment. On the other hand, as for the degree of job satisfaction and organizational commitment with respect to conflict management styles for fellow teachers, integrating style, dominating style, compromising style, conceding style, and avoiding style appeared in that order on the side of job satisfaction, and integrating style, compromising style, conceding style, avoiding style, and dominating style in that order on the side of organizational commitment. Thus, it proved that of the conflict management styles, integrating style was the most effective, compromising and conceding styles had half way effects, and dominating and avoiding styles had relatively low effective.