Role Conflicts and Adaptation of Faculty Members Who Serve as University Administrators: A Case Study of National Chengchi University
Shi-Chiung Yang, Zong-Xian Huang, Tong-Yi Huang
Abstract
As a university’s educational functions have expanded, most faculty members have to play multiple roles in their institution. Under this circumstance, the faculty members who serve as university administrators have to deal with complex tasks and play multiple roles, probably finding themselves in a situation of role conflicts. As an exploratory attempt, this article conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with faculty members who have administrative experiences at National Chengchi University to analyze the role conflicts and their adaptation strategies. By adopting grounded theory for data analysis, we not only constructed faculty members’ modalities of role conflicts when they serve as university administrators, but also discussed the adaptation strategies which they applied in response to the role conflicts.
We divided the role conflicts of faculty members into inter-role conflicts and intra-role conflicts. Regarding inter-role conflicts, we found that faculty members’ administrative role would contradict with other roles, such as teaching role, research role, family role and professional role. In regard to intra-role conflicts, we found that faculty members might be constrained by administrative regulations, communication cost, limited resources and emergency events. To respond to their role conflicts, faculty members who serve as administrators will develop some tactical adaptation strategies. This study sheds some light on institutional research by applying the perspectives of role conflicts, and offers some reform advices for faculty members who serve as administrators in universities.
Keywords: higher education, school administration, university administrators, role conflicts, adaptation strategy