Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

Autistic conflict in higher education

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  • This study documents three cases of protracted conflict in an institution of higher education. Work groups in conflict were studied for one year in order to create cases and to describe factors influencing conflict escalation. From these cases, autistic conflict as a descriptive construct was developed to illustrate one phase of protracted conflict escalation. The following research questions guided this study. 1. How and why does protracted conflict develop and escalate in higher education work groups? 2. What is the nature of chronic autistic conflict? 3. How do higher education cultures and system affect the development of protracted autistic conflict? The population studied included the administration and three distinct work groups from one university where conflicts had continued for an extended period of time. The stories of group conflict are fully reported in this study, and process maps illustrate incidents and influences related to conflict escalation. To study conflict and human behavior in this context and to describe the effect of the institutional culture on conflict escalation, ethnographic methodology was used. Cases were developed from interviews, participant observation, and document review. The researcher worked with the university in a number of settings for over a year, which provided opportunities to observe daily life in these disputant groups and to develop a broader understanding of the organizational culture. From findings in this study, it was possible to form a number of hypotheses regarding protracted conflict escalation. These hypotheses include the following: 1. Protracted conflict in institutions of higher education develops in five phases. 2. When conflicts escalate among groups in higher education without successful resolution, disputants develop dysfunctional behaviors which contribute to conflict escalation. 3. A number of contextual factors evident within institutions of higher education contribute to autistic conflict development. Additional research questions with broader implications for conflict in organizations and recommendations regarding the improvement of practice regarding conflict within institutions of higher education were also generated by this study.
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