This study investigated management strategies of conflict between academic and non-academic staff of federal universities in South East, Nigeria. The study was guided by nine research questions and nine null hypotheses. The design of the study was descriptive survey. The population of the study was 16,387 respondents. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select a sample of 1,025 subjects, comprising 527academic and 488 non-academic staff from the universities.
Purposive sampling technique was also used to select another 10 academic and non-academic staff for the focus group discussion (FGD). The instrument for data collection was a questionnaire titled: Management Strategies of Conflict Questionnaire (MSCQ) and focus group discussion guide which was put in prose form. The research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation while t-test was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance.
Findings of the study were that interpersonal and intrapersonal conflicts, interdependence conflicts, breakdown in communication, subordinate conflicts and breakdown of collective bargaining, among others are the nature of conflicts experienced in the federal universities. It was also found that breach of communication, poor human relationship, unequal attention to staff welfare, differences in staff perception, inadequate representation of staff in decision making, competition for scarce resources and their allocations, were among the sources of conflicts. The study revealed that conflict increases disunity, communication gap, bitterness, helps staff to voice out their dissatisfactions, reduces motivation, decreases productivity. The responses of academic and non-academic staff did not differ significantly.
