Interpersonal conflict and its management among KVK scientists

Abstract

Conflict is a natural, everyday phenomenon in all private and working spheres. It is an interactive process manifested through incompatibility, disagreement or dissonance within or between social entities i.e. individual, group, organization etc. Like any other organization, Krishi Vigyan Kendra also can be no exception to the fact of existence of conflicts among their scientists. For effective functioning of the KVK, there is a need to know the interpersonal conflict existing among its scientists and its management styles adopted by them. For this investigation, all the 30 KVKs of Gujarat were purposively selected and 3 to 5 scientists from each KVK were selected randomly making total sample of 120 scientists for the study. Majority of them had medium to low level of interpersonal conflict with their superiors and colleagues; while with their subordinates they had medium to high level of interpersonal conflict. Overall extent of interpersonal conflict was medium to low. Collaboration and accommodation were found to be the dominant conflict management approaches among the KVK scientists. Gender, working zeal, attitude towards working in rural area, achievement motivation, self-esteem and interpersonal communication had negatively significant and perception of workload had positively significant correlation with the extent of interpersonal conflict.