Organizational Conflict in Colleges and Universities

The relationship between degree of institutional differentiation and conflict between departmental and administrative subsystems in colleges and universities was investigated. Two hundred and eighty-three department chairmen at 54 high-, medium-, and low-differentiated institutions completed a Likert-type scale designed to measure conflict in decision making between the department and the central administration. As hypothesized, chairmen at medium differentiated colleges and universities reported more conflict than did chairmen at other institutions marked by a higher or lesser degree of differentiation. It was observed that functional differentiation appears to be closely related to institutional professionalization. It was suggested that the curvilinear relationship between institutional professionalization and conflict in colleges and universities may obtain in other professional organizations, such as hospitals.