Should Smoking Be Banned in Hong Kong?

Aims

We aimed to investigate how teachers solve conflicts in real life based on Mary Parker Follett's conflict management theory.

Research question

The research question is "How do teachers solve their conflicts with their colleagues?"

Literature Review

According to Follett's conflict management theory; three conflict management styles are mentioned, which are 'domination', 'compromise' and 'integration'.

First of all, the definition of domination means 'victory of one side over the other'. One party will dominate all the decision-making rights and power in a situation while another party has no right to decide and suffer.

Secondly, Compromise means that 'each side gives up a little bit in order to bring peace'. According to Follett's theory, it aims at bringing peace and harmony to a group. All the members in a group are willing to sacrifice a little bit in order to solve the conflicts.

Lastly, Integration is considered as an ideal style. Each party is able to uncover their thoughts and discuss the matter freely. However, this style is very difficult to achieve.

Methods and Design

Participants

For the study, five teachers from five different secondary schools were chosen due to feasibility and limitation of time. The teachers teaching year range was pre-decided to be two to twelve years so as to avoid a case where teachers' teaching experience has large difference.

Procedure of implementing the study

Step 1: Gather information

To have a standardized base for the study, background information in form of literature review was collected from the Mary Parker Follett's theory. Definition of the three management styles was looked upon closely to have a deeper understanding and a clear direction of the study.

Step 2: Decide on the data collecting method

Qualitative data collecting method was selected for the study. Firstly, this method would give the participants the flexibility to ask questions if they did not understand our research questions.

Moreover, as mentioned by Hagen (2011) in her book on body language, a person's movements may contradict their words, therefore, interviewing face-to-face could allow us to observe their body language. Finally, since the interviewees are quite spontaneous, the answers from the participants are more likely to be their genuine thought and speaking is more effortless than writing.

Step 3: Conduct interviews

Interviews were conducted at the secondary schools where one person interviewed, and the other jotted down notes. The interview started with warm up questions following the scenario question on which the main findings are based on.

Step 4: Analyse data

The information collected was formed into tables for analysing. Each teacher's response according to the situational questions was noted on the tables for clear processing. Some interesting findings came out from the follow up questions,.

Findings

The findings were basically analysed from the speech act from the three scenario questions. The findings based on the 3 scenarios from the interviews are as follow.

For scenario 1, 4 teachers and 1 teacher are attempting to apply 'domination' and 'integration' style respectively. For example, interviewees respond by "I will persuade or force my colleagues to accept my ideas and suggestions" and "I will make my own decision by myself'. Forceful actions and making own decision

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