Abstract:
The work was designed to examine workplace conflicts at Asokwa Municipal
Assembly. The objectives were to analyse the forms of workplace conflict in the
Asokwa Municipal Assembly, examine the sources of workplace conflict on the
employees in Asokwa Municipal Assembly, explore the consequences of workplace
conflict in the Asokwa Municipal Assembly and analyse the preferred workplace
conflict management strategies among the staff of the Asokwa Municipal Assembly.
The research was mainly designed as a qualitative case study that employed multiple
methods of data collection. Data was collected using questionnaire and interviews. A
total of 60 participants were involved in the study. They were selected using
convenience, multi-stage and purposive sampling techniques. The analysis highlights
that there are different kinds of workplace conflicts at the Asokwa Municipal
Assembly all of which are counter-productive. The conflicts are caused by human
factors such as discrimination or preferential treatment in promotion processes and
unfair workloads and disparity over work hours. Politicisation of the management of
the Asokwa Municipal Assembly also emerged strongly as one of the major causes of
staff-management conflict. The effects of conflict on the Asokwa Municipal
Assembly are low morale and loss of quality personnel leading to low productivity
and efficiency. The conflicts have created divisions, groups and cliques within the
Asokwa Municipal Assembly. Base on the outcome of the study, it is recommended
that the Asokwa Municipal Assembly should develop clear, concise and publicly
available policy on conflict management. Also, the Assembly should develop
workplace conflict resolution protocols to provide guidelines on how grievances
should be addressed.
Description:
A thesis in the Department of Social Studies Education,
Faculty of Social Sciences, Submitted to the School of
Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the award of the degree of
Master of Philosophy
(Social Studies)
in the University of Education, Winneba
DECEMBER 2020