158 JPAIR Multidisciplinary Research Conflict Management Styles of Educational Managers in Selected Higher Educational Institution in Sulu: Vis-à-vis Teaching Performance AURIZIA D. SIRAJI https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9200-6631 sirajiaurizia@gmail.com Sulu State College Capitol Site Patikul, Sulu, Philippines Originality: 100% • Grammar Check: 100% • Plagiarism: 0%0 ABSTRACT Conflict is inevitable in life and the challenge is how leaders can precisely manage it. In this respect, for pragmatic and academic purposes and to provide useful information on conflict management styles for the harmonious and globalized working environment this study determined the appropriate conflict management styles to address specific organizational related conflicts in HEIs of Sulu. To obtain the needed data, the researcher employed the purposive random sampling method, using twenty-five (25) educational managers in Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) of Sulu includes 230 faculty members to determine the most common organizational-related conflict and the most effective management styles. Employed descriptive- survey method 0.192 is greater than 0.05 confidence levels that provide evidence to say conflict management styles of educational managers are not significant predictor to the teaching performance of the faculty in HEIs. Educational managers in HEIs should initiate an action plan to improve the programs of managing conflict to approximately make these Vol. 35 · January 2019 DOI: https://doi.org/10.7719/jpair.v35i1.656 Print ISSN 2012-3981 Online ISSN 2244-0445 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9200-6631 mailto:sirajiaurizia@gmail.com 159 International Peer Reviewed Journal styles uniform in HEIs being the people belong to common tribe and lifestyles. Moreover, mentoring the workers through the experience managers should be encouraged at the workplace. Finally, the study on conflict is highly recommended to scrutinize the effect on the faculty. Keywords — Conflict management styles, educational managers, teaching performance INTRODUCTION This chapter explains the rationale behind this research, describes the objectives and the contributions of the present study to the academic world specifically to the Higher Educational Institutions in Sulu. In today’s environment, conflicts arises in an Institution when employees asserts their demands for an increased share in organizational rewards, such as position, acknowledgment, appreciation, monetary benefits as well as when vacant items that should be given to the contractual Instructor of the Institution were given to the outsider applicants because of political intervention that may lead to controversy and demoralization of the qualified insider applicants. Karip (2003) viewed that conflict will continue as long as there are differences in references, demands, values, beliefs, and interests of the parties involved in communication and interaction. In other words, the question then is not the unavoidability of conflict in the workplace but how people will cope with it. In the Higher Education for example, the Educational managers who are the heads of the departments, colleges, or schools of a University need to manage conflicts using management styles that yield functional synergies and create a constructive school culture that leads to teachers’ high morale and satisfaction and may perhaps result to excellent teaching performance of the faculty. The Chancellors and Presidents, in turn, being the chief executive in the Higher Educational Institutions must always support and encourage the Directors and Deans assigned in all departments to observe and evaluate the faculty. These individuals act as triggers in the conversion process of conflicting demands, values and goals into significant behaviors. Therefore, conflict management styles are important skills that Leaders should possess. In this respect, for pragmatic and academic purposes and to provide more useful information on how conflict can be managed effectively for the globalized working environment this study explicitly investigated the prevalent “Conflict 160 JPAIR Multidisciplinary Research Management Styles of Educational Managers in Selected Higher Educational Institutions in Sulu: vis-à-vis Teaching Performance.” Data were generated using the Likert type questionnaire checklist which is originated from the work of Blake and Mouton (1964), a popular format of conflict management styles, to explore the general conflict management styles across situations and to answer the question what is the prevailing conflicts in Selected Higher Educational Institutions in Sulu. FRAMEWORK As educational theories have universal acceptance, the researcher adopted five theories of conflict management styles such as:(1) Traditional theory; (2) Modern schools management theory (3) Contemporary theory; (4) dual-concern model by Thomas (2008) (1) Traditional theory based on the assumption that conflicts are bad caused by troublemakers, and should be subdued; (2)Modern school’s management theory that conflict as an inevitable aspect of organisational life, which can be used to foster healthy organisational development The pluralist view of conflict criticizes the classical tendency to over-emphasize the negative aspects of conflict because it distracts attention from conflicts’ potential benefits. Moreover, The dominant conflict management model in this study is (4) dual-concern model by Thomas (2008), Originated from the work of Blake and Mouton (1964), the dual-concern model has several variations, all of which assume that individuals choose different modes, strategies, or styles for handling conflict based on some variations of two primary concerns/interests— “concern for self ” and “concern for other”. The styles in resolving conflict in the present study such as avoiding, compromising, competing, accommodating and collaborating confronting are helpful in facing related organizational conflicts such as communication misunderstandings; personality differences and clashes; differences in goals and objectives; substandard job performance of the employees, lack of employee cooperation; problems related to areas of authority; frustration with people and or resources; and non-compliance with rules and policies which resulted to a well-managed conflicts in the selected Higher Educational Institutions in Sulu. However, the personal profile of Educational manager influenced in a certain degree to the conflict management styles of the individual managers. 161 International Peer Reviewed Journal OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY This study was mainly concern with the common organizational related conflicts in Selected Higher Educational Institutions in Sulu and the appropriate management styles of educational managers to address specific conflict vis-à-vis teaching performance. At any rate, this aim is divided further into the following specific objectives: (1) to determine the demographic profile of the educational managers and faculty members of the HEIs in Sulu as to age, gender, educational attainment and length of service. (2) To rank the identified common organization- related conflicts in HEIs in Sulu as perceived by the educational managers and the faculty based on the following identified conflicts such as Communication misunderstandings, Personality differences and clashes, Differences in goals and objectives Substandard job performance, Differences over procedures to be used, Lack of clearly defined areas of responsibility, Lack of employee cooperation, Problems related to areas of authority, Frustration with people and or resource, and Non- compliance with rules and policies, (3) to determine the level of effectiveness of educational managers in managing organization-related conflicts of HIEs in Sulu as perceived by the educational managers themselves and by the faculty in terms of the following: Accommodating, Compromising ,Confronting, Collaborating, Avoiding, (4)To determine the significant difference in the conflict managing styles of the educational Managers in the HEIs in Sulu when the data are categorized according to Public and Private. (5) To determine the significant effect of conflict management styles of educational managers’ vis-à-vis teaching performance of the faculty. (6) To determine the significant difference in the conflict managing styles of the educational Managers when the data are categorized according to age, gender, educational attainment and length of service. (7) To determine the significant difference in the common organization-related conflicts as perceived by educational managers and by the faculty, and (8) to determine the significant difference in the level of effectiveness of educational managers in managing organization-related conflicts of HIEs in Sulu as perceived by the educational managers themselves and the faculty in terms of Accommodating, Compromising, Confronting, Collaborating and Avoiding. METHODOLOGY Research Design To achieve the fundamental thrust of the study, descriptive research design supported with documentary analysis was employed. To obtain the needed data, 162 JPAIR Multidisciplinary Research the researcher employed the survey- questionnaire as the main Instrument for the research and personally distributed the checklist questionnaire to the educational managers and faculty members of the different HEIs in Sulu such as MSU-Sulu, SSC, NDJC, and SMII. The researcher, however, is aware that the questionnaire tool of the investigation had inherent limitations. The value of this type of investigation largely depends on the sincerity, truthfulness, and objectivity of the respondents. Data were generated using the Likert type questionnaire checklist which is originated from the work of Blake and Mouton (1964), a popular format of conflict management styles, to explore the general conflict styles across situations and to answer the question what is the prevailing Conflict management Styles of Educational Managers in Selected Higher Educational Institutions in Sulu. Research Site The present study was conducted in Sulu involved the higher institutions namely Mindanao State University-Sulu (MSU-Sulu), Sulu State College (SSC), Notre Dame of Jolo College (NDJC) and Southwestern Mindanao Islamic Institute (SMII). The map of Jolo showing the exact location of the four Higher educational Institutions in Sulu is shown in figure (2) while the map of Sulu Showing the different municipalities is shown in the table (3). MSU-Sulu is located at Capitol Site Patikul, Sulu while SSC is divided into three campuses located in different areas of Jolo. The SSC main campus is located in the capitol road, Barangay Capitol, Patikul, Sulu. The High School Department and the Graduate School campus is located at Serantes, Barangay Walled City, Jolo, Sulu, and the Agriculture campus is located at Gandasuli Road, Patikul, Sulu. NDJC campus is located at Gandasuli Road, Barangay Bus-Bus, Jolo, Sulu. The SMII campus is located at Serantes Street, Barangay Serantes, Jolo, Sulu. Participants The population for this study consisted of twenty-five (25) deans and directors in Selected Higher Educational Institutions of Sulu includes two hundred thirty (230) faculty members to determine the most common organizational-related conflict and the most effective management styles of the educational managers in Higher Educational Institutions in Sulu vis-à-vis Teaching Performance. Instrumentation The questionnaire consisted of four parts. Part 1 of the questionnaire provides information on the Educational manager’s profile in terms of age, gender, 163 International Peer Reviewed Journal educational attainment, and length of service; Part II was Gathered information on common organization related conflicts in HEI’s in Sulu answered by the Educational managers, part III, was Questionnaire checklist that revealed on the effectiveness of conflict management styles by the Educational managers and part IV is the QCE of the NBC no. 461 instruments for Instruction /effectiveness to measures the teaching performance of the faculty. Reliability and Validity The questionnaire was adopted from the study of Ma (2007), originated from the work of Thomas (2002) with the slight modification being made by the researcher and was validated by three authorities/experts to assure that instrument is reliable. Data Analysis The statistical tools used in analyzing the data were encoding the frequencies in the computer through the statistical package for social science or (SPSS). Statistical Technique The statistical tools used in analyzing the data were encoding the frequencies in the computer through the statistical package for social science (SPSS). RESULTS AND DISCUSSION This chapter dealt with the results of the statistical computations and the discussion of the results justified by the related literature and studies which are collaborative or opposite findings. The sequence of the presentation of data followed the sequence of the problem as stated in chapter 1. The analysis of data is in tabular form and the interpretation of data was based on the defined problems and null hypotheses. Moreover, based on these data, it can be assured that the school managers respondents in this study are matured enough, educationally equipped and have enough experienced as educational managers to handle conflict in their respective schools. This is evident from their age of 41-65 years old, educational attainment, finished the master’s degree to the extent of earned units in Doctoral degree, and served the school 21 to 30 years and also male which is encouraged by Islam to lead in the society. To be able to address a conflict it is important to identify the underlying causes to address specific conflict management styles before it becomes. 164 JPAIR Multidisciplinary Research The next table shows the common organizational related conflicts in the higher educational institutions in Sulu. They were arranged from the most common down to the least common through ranking as identified by the respondents. Table 1. Common Organizational Related Conflicts As Perceived By Educational Managers and Teachers Organizational Related Conflicts Mean Rank Lack of employee cooperation 4.6 1st Communication misunderstandings 4.3 2nd Substandard job performance 4.0 3rd Frustration with people and or resources 3.8 4th Non-compliance with rules and policies 3.7 5th Differences in goals and objectives 3.5 6th Lack of clearly defined areas of responsibility 3.4 7th Problems related to areas of authority 3.2 8th Differences over procedures or methods to be used 3.0 9th Personality differences and clashes 2.9 10th The most common organizational related conflicts ranked first with a mean of 4.6 is lack of employee cooperation. In most cases in an institution, there are employees’ wants to be recognized and honored by doing extra effort to show his best contribution to the concerned leaders. The attractive efforts of this employee will gain the attention and support of the institution’s head while other employees are reluctantly opposing the honor. When cooperation breakdown, the results will be a dissatisfied staff and reduced productivity. Manzoor, Ullah, Hussain, and Ahmad (2011), concluded that teamwork has a significant positive effect on employee performance. The second in rank organizational related conflicts is communication misunderstanding. Communication misunderstanding may be developed when there exist two or more groups of factions, in which the group finds the ways to oppose the communication of the other group just because the members of the group do not agree with the issues expressed by the other group. They tend to disagree with the issues and pretend to have communication misunderstanding. The third in rank organizational conflicts is the substandard job performance. Substandard job performance may result from criticism of one employee against 165 International Peer Reviewed Journal other employees while watching every move in his daily activities following the job description as oriented at the beginning of his job appointment. The spreading of gossip about the unfulfilled work according to the identified standardized job order may result in substandard job performance. The fourth organizational conflict is the frustration with people and resources. The frustration with people and resources may result from head favoritism, appointment because of affinity or relatives, recommended by the honorable, and recruitment of disqualified officials. An employee recruited because he/she is a boss favorite might create a clash of the employee. The appointment, because he/ she is related to the boss might create backbiting among employees. The hiring of employee influence by the recommendation of the honorable might create unsatisfactory job performance. Lastly, the recruitment of the disqualified official might create an unreasonable decision. All of these may result in frustration. These situations will be followed by the frustration of the scarcity of resources. The employee who is behaviorally distant to the boss will be deprived of the chances to enjoy the resources of the institution, because of his belief that we do not belong to their group. The fifth organizational conflict is noncompliance of rules and policies. This may result when the designated head is not within the consent of the employees during his appointment to the position. The board of appointment should consider in the recruitment period the acceptance of the employees before deciding to designate the office head. The board of appointment should seriously consider this matter so that everybody will comply with the rules and policies ordained by the new head of the office. The sixth organizational conflict is the difference in objectives and goals. The difference in objectives and goals may happen when the head of the office may forget to conduct an orientation seminar on the goals and objectives of the organization. One of the basic approaches to inform the employees about the goals and objectives of the organization and to foster unity to attain the goals and objectives is trough seminar and workshop. The seventh ranked organizational conflict is the Lack of clearly defined areas of responsibility. The office manager should clearly emphasize the areas of responsibility of the people given the designation. Overlapping of authority may result in conflict on the lack of clearly defined areas of responsibility. The eight ranked organizational conflict is the problems related to areas of authority. The issuance of appointment or designation of the official should carry the brief description of the authority vested to the individual official that holds the managerial responsibility. 166 JPAIR Multidisciplinary Research The ninth organizational conflict is the Differences over procedures or methods to be used. Specific procedures to be implemented to carry out job satisfaction should be initiated according to the required task to fulfill its satisfactory result. The manager should practically give a chance an employee to develop his/her way of doing things to arrive at a particular satisfactory product. After all the procedures or methods should provide basic steps, an employee initiates to arrive at his defined goals and objectives. However, the employees in the same department should consult one another to arrive at the common procedures and methods to do similar things. The tenth organizational conflict is Personality differences and clashes. The employees should be given full orientation to develop love and understanding. The absence of love, understanding of one’s personality and moral responsibility will surely arrive at the conflict of personality differences and clashes. However, the movements to ensure love among employee, understanding of personality differences and strong determination of improving one’s faith in God may resolve the conflict in personality differences and clashes. Table 2 on the next page shows ten (10) related organizational conflicts as dependent variables and five conflict management styles such as Avoiding, Accommodating, Competing, Compromising, and Collaborating as independent variables to measures its effectiveness as viewed by the educational managers and teachers. The results further improved the study of Fleetwood (2000) on conflict management styles and strategies which have found that avoiding styles were seldom used by the educational managers in the view of both the volunteers and researchers. Sirivun (2002) found that integrating is the most common used conflict management style: Compromising is the second- most commonly used conflict management styles. Dominating is the least common style. He confirms this order of preferred style across managers and students. 167 International Peer Reviewed Journal Table 2. Conflict Management Styles and Its Effectiveness No. Conflicts Handling Styles Mean Description 1 Communication misunderstandings Accommodating 4.6 Most effective 2 Personality differences and clashes Collaborating 3.8 More effective 3 Differences in goals and objectives Compromising 3.7 More effective 4 Substandard job performance Accommodating 3.8 More effective 5 Differences over procedures or methods to be used Collaborating 4.5 Most effective 6 Lack of clearly defined areas of responsibility Confronting 3.6 More effective 7 Lack of employee cooperation Confronting 3.5 More effective 8 Problems related to areas of authority Accommodating 3.8 More effective 9 Frustration with people and or resources Compromising 4.2 More effective 10 Non-compliance with rules and policies Confronting 4.4 More effective As shown in table 2, the misuderstanding in communication can be most effectively (4.6) managed by accommodating handling styles. The higher institution employees with conflict on personality differences and clashes can be more effectively (3.8) managed through collaborating. The conflict of differences in goals and objectives can be more effectively (3.7) managed by compromising. The substandard conflict performance can be managed more effectively (3.8) through accommodating. The conflict differences over procedures or methods to be used can be most effectively (4.5) through collaborating. The conflict lack of employee cooperation can be more effectively (3.5) managed through confronting. The conflict in the areas of authority can be more effectively handled (3.8) through accommodating. The conflict on frustration with people and or resources can be managed more effectively (4.2) through compromising. The conflict on non-compliance with rules and policies can be managed more effectively (4.4) through confronting. 168 JPAIR Multidisciplinary Research The values of t-test and f-test of the conflict management styles of educational managers. The significant levels of confident values 0.692, 0.524, 0.430, 0.437 and 0.171 are greater than 0.05 confidence level. These indicate that the null hypothesis which states that there is no significant difference in the conflict management styles of education managers when the data are classified according to age, gender, educational attainment and length of service is accepted. The result of this study provides evidence to say that there is no significant difference of the conflict management styles of education managers when the data are classified according to age, gender, educational attainment and length of service. In addition, Tseveendorj (2003) in his study on Conflict Resolution: A Basis for effective conflict management of banks in Baguio City found that the bank employees with longer years in the bank differed from those with shorter years in their perception of the seriousness of the Perception, Values and Culture problems although both groups similarly perceived the seriousness of the Communication problems. It was also noted that the master’s degree holders implemented more the Dominating and Avoiding approaches; the offices with more subordinates implemented more the Dominating, Avoiding, and Avoiding approaches. Likewise, the banks with a greater number of employees implemented more dominating and accommodating approaches. The computed regression value is 0.220, the coefficient of determination (R2) is 0.048, the F-test value is 1.171, and the t-test value is 1.082. The data indicate that the F-test value is not significant, the significant confidence value 0.290 is greater than 0.05 level of confidence. This suggests that the null hypothesis is accepted. The coefficient of determination suggests that 4.8 percent of the teaching performance of the faculty can be accounted to the conflict management styles. The 95.2 percent can be accounted to other variables which are not included in the study. The value of the t-test indicates that conflict management styles are not a significant predictor of the teaching performance. The result of this study provides evidence to say that there is no significant effect of the conflict management styles of the educational managers in higher education institutions of Sulu on the teaching performance of the faculty. Moreover, only 4.8 percent of the managing conflict styles of the educational managers can be accounted to the teaching performance of the faculty 95.2 percent could be accounted to other variables which are not included in the study. The managing conflict styles of the educational managers are not a significant predictor of the teaching performance of the faculty. 169 International Peer Reviewed Journal The research found that educational managers and their faculty do not differ significantly in their perception of the common organization-related conflict. They perceived that the most common organization-related conflict is the lack of cooperation of employees and the least is non-compliance of the rules and policies. Managing conflict is an urgent responsibility of everyone regardless of his status in work. The administrators are liable to maintain the peace and order condition of the employees under his command of responsibility; conflict may contribute to the failure of attaining the mission and goals of the organization. The existence of a conflict should immediately be resolved and given the due process that would account to a smooth and peaceful operation of the job done to achieve the target objectives of the organization. The high official of the higher education institutions should from time to time adapt effective motivation to influence the employees did his responsibility cooperatively and improved the behavior toward the cooperative atmosphere of the school system. Likewise, the teachers are also responsible for resolving conflict in their power and capacity. If there is existing conflict among faculty members, the faculty members should at once create an alternative solution to the conflict to enable everyone to concentrate on the underlying success there is existing conflict among students to create a harmonious relationship between the students, teachers and other school personnel. The cooperation of teachers, students and school personnel towards the common goals, mission and vision of the school system with the leadership of the school administrators would contribute greatly to the quality of education which was viewed in the past years as inefficient. The processes involved in resolving conflicts carried out by the administrators and faculty members indicate no significant difference as perceived by the administrators and teachers based on the data collected in this study. Hence, the administrators, teachers, students, and other school personnel are the immediate concern of the conflict, unless these people cooperatively make efforts for the job well done, the quality of education is beyond the reach. 170 JPAIR Multidisciplinary Research Table 3. Managing Organizational Related Conflicts Categorized According To Public and Private Higher Education Institution (HEIS) Organizational Related Conflicts Sig.(2-tailed) 1 Communication misunderstandings .953 .349 2 Personality differences and clashes .527 .602 3 Differences in goals and objectives .213 .833 4 Substandard job performance .1865 .073 5 Differences over procedures or methods to be used 1.279 .212 6 Lack of clearly defined areas of responsibility 1.261 .218 7 Lack of employee cooperation -.633 .532 8 Problems related to areas of authority .467 .644 9 Frustration with people and or resources 1.297 .205 10 Non-compliance with rules and policies -1.642 .112 Generally, the ten identified organizational conflicts above when grouped according to the responses of the teachers and administrators of public and private Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) based on the analysis of the value of t-test at .05 which implies that the hypothesis is accepted. Thus, there is enough evidence to conclude that there is no significant difference between the perceptions of the teachers on conflict management styles in public and private HEIs in Sulu. Conversely, Abdul (2013), as cited by Namwila (2016), found that different secondary schools in Pakistan use accommodation, avoidance, compromise, and collaboration as styles to manage conflict and however, the choice of which style to use depends on the situation. The avoiding strategy refers to low assertiveness and low cooperation. Many times teachers and head teachers avoid conflicts out of fear of engaging in a conflict or because they do not have confidence in their management conflict skills. There are times when the avoiding mode is appropriate is when you have an issue of low importance, to reduce tensions, to buy some time or when one is in a position of lower power (Abdul, 2013). 171 International Peer Reviewed Journal Table 4. The Effect of Conflict Management Styles on the Teaching Performance of the Faculty Variables Coefficient B Std. Error T Sig. (Constant) .719 .966 .744 .465 Conflict management styles .273 .253 1.082 .290 R=0.220 R2 =0.048 F=1.171 .290 Teachers are very important actors and actresses in institutions. Leu (2005) stated that teachers are considered a major figure in the education system, a whole system revolves around teachers. Table 3 shows that the computed regression value is 0.220, the coefficient of determination (R2) is 0.048, the F-test value is 1.171 and the t-test value is 1.082. The data indicate that F-test value is not significant confidence; this suggests that the null hypothesis is accepted. The coefficient of determination suggests that 4.8 percent of the teaching performance of the faculty can be accounted to the conflict management styles. The 95.2 percent can be accounted to other variables which are not included in the study. The value of the t-test indicates that the conflict management styles are not significant predictor to the teaching performance. The result of this study provides evidence to say that there is no significant effect of the conflict management styles of the educational managers in higher education institutions of Sulu on the teaching performance of the faculty. Moreover, only 4.8 percent of the managing conflict styles of the educational managers can be accounted to the teaching performance of the faculty 95.2 percent could be accounted to other variables which are not included in the study. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The following were the major findings drawn from the study: 1. On the demographic profile of the respondents, as to age, 38.4 percent (98) belongs to age category 21-40 years old, and 61.6 percent (157) belongs to 41-65 years old. As to gender 44.7 percent (114) male respondents and 30 percent (9) are female respondents. The respondents of this study are mostly teachers 88.3 percent (225), 7.8 percent (20) are deans, 3.9 percent (10) are directors of the schools in the different higher institutions. 2. As to the educational attainment of the respondents 53.7 percent (137) obtained the mastered degree with doctoral units, 9.1 percent (23) finished the doctoral degree, 34.1 percent (87) finished the mastered degree, and 3.1 percent 172 JPAIR Multidisciplinary Research (8) finished only the Bachelor degree with mastered units. As to the length of service 37.2 percent (95) respondents with experience 11-20 years, 62.8 percent with service experience of 21-30 years. 3. the most common organizational related conflicts ranked first with a mean of 4.6 is lack of employee cooperation followed by Communication misunderstandings, Substandard job performance, Frustration with people and or resources, Non-compliance with rules and policies, Differences in goals and objectives, Lack of clearly defined areas of responsibility, Problems related to areas of authority, Differences over procedures or methods to be used, and personality differences and clashes. 4.The weighted means of the management conflict styles such as avoiding (3.30), accommodating (3.86), competing (3.90), compromising (3.99), and collaborating (3.79) all of these means were given the verbal description often observed except the mean of avoiding given the verbal description sometimes observed. At any rate, the data indicates that the educational managers of the higher institutions of Sulu often observed and practiced the management conflict styles except the management conflict style avoiding. 5. The educational managers do not differ significantly in their conflict management styles regardless of their age, gender, educational attainment and length of service. They often observed and practiced the management conflict styles such as avoiding, accommodating, competing, comprising and collaborating regardless of their profile. 6. The educational managers and teachers managed organization-related conflict using the strategies collaborating and avoiding, which was perceived significantly different. The educational managers perceived that collaborating is more effective while the faculty members are in favor of the strategy avoiding. The formulated hypothesis which states that there is no significant difference in handling organization-related conflict as perceived by the school managers and faculty members in terms of collaborating and avoiding is rejected. 7. Moreover, only 4.8 percent of the managing conflict styles of the educational managers can be accounted to the teaching performance of the faculty 95.2 percent could be accounted to other variables which are not included in the study. The managing conflict styles of the school managers are not a significant predictor of the teaching performance of the faculty. 173 International Peer Reviewed Journal CONCLUSIONS In conclusion, the “appropriate” management styles in a given situation are essential for Educational managers to utilize them for managing conflicts in their respective school. Through careful computation, thorough analysis, and keen interpretation of the gathered data, the researcher arrived at the following conclusion: (1) the Educational managers selected as respondents in this study are matured enough, educationally equipped and have enough experienced as manager to handle conflict in their respective schools. Lack of employee cooperation is the most common organization-related conflict in the HEIs in Sulu. This result further provides evidence to say that the Educational managers of MSU-Sulu, SSC, NDJC, and SMII does not differ significantly when they practiced the management conflict styles such as Avoiding, Accommodating, Competing, Compromising and Collaborating. The mean of the responses of the school managers indicates often observed among the four schools. The educational managers do not differ significantly in their conflict management styles when the data are categorized according to their age, gender, educational attainment and length of service. They often observed and practiced the management conflict styles such as avoiding, accommodating, competing, compromising and collaborating regardless of their profile. The conflict management styles of the educational managers are not a significant predictor of the teaching performance of the faculty. TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH The findings of this study provided information on handling conflict for the chief executive officers and presidents of the higher educational Institutions in Sulu and how they influence effectiveness in such Institutions. As a whole, this study provided the necessary feedback for institutional managers on various practices on conflict resolutions and how they are managed effectively to minimize or to alleviate conflicts to create a healthy workplace. RECOMMENDATIONS The light of the findings and conclusions of the study derived the following recommendations. (1) The educational managers should continue to improve their educational attainment until such a time they claimed the doctoral 174 JPAIR Multidisciplinary Research degree. (2) As a result of the improvement of the educational attainment of the educational managers of Sulu in addition to some other characteristics like length of service they would be able to improve their styles of managing conflict in their respective schools from merely often observed to always observed and practiced the management conflict styles such as Avoiding, Accommodating, Competing, Compromising and Collaborating. (3) The educational managers in the higher institutions of Sulu should initiate an action plan to improve the programs of the management conflict management to approximately make these styles uniform in the higher institutions of Sulu being their people are belonging to common tribe and lifestyles. (4) The educational managers should improve the conflict management styles in their respective schools to the extent of producing an apparent effect on the teaching performance of their faculty members to improve quality of education in the higher institutions of Sulu. (5) Also, mentoring of the workers through the experienced managers should be encouraged at the workplace to foster their effective learning of strategies for managing work- induced stress, burnout, and conflict that can affect organizational productivity. LITERATURE CITED Abdul, G. (2013). Interpersonal Conflict Management Strategies in Secondary Schools of Kpk, Pakistan. Pakistan: Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan. 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