Author(s): Hagar Bampoh-Addo

The study examined how promotion-related conflicts in HEIs are being resolved.

• The data was drawn from questionnaires administered to 240 randomly sampled. Faculty members, while 18 senior administrators were also purposively sampled for semi-structured interviews.
• Promotion policy documents were also analyzed.
• The data reported in this paper highlights that Ghanaian Universities have processes and procedures for conflict resolution, although the quality of the procedures may be debated.
• It further suggests that ‘process’ is a critical factor in resolving promotion-related conflicts in HEIs

Background to the Study

• This research takes off from the premise that universities play pivotal roles in national capacity building. As such the manner issues that border on faculty progression are handled need to be properly investigated.
• Despite the assumption that not all conflicts are necessarily bad (Pierre and Pepper, 1976; Shani and Lau, 2000); think that conflicts can be incredibly destructive to collaborative work within institutions
• The assumption underlying this research is that promotion is an emotional process, both for successful applicants and for those who are negatively impacted.
• If an employee is upset or demoralised because of an unpleasant promotion experience and as such is not co-operative at the workplace, the perceived conflict must be resolved early enough to avoid its protraction (Billson, 2000).