A Case Study of Conflict in an Educational Workplace: Managing Personal and Cultural Differences

This article is about conflict in an educational workplace setting. It reports on a case study investigating the emergence, development, and management of conflict among diverse native English speakers working as language instructors within a Japanese university. The example of conflict presented, which deals with divergent assumptions about the nature and management of collaborative research projects, illustrates how communication is inextricably tied to culture, out of whose interplay conflict may arise. This example also highlights one of the most important challenges facing educators the world over: how to encourage people to cooperatively address and manage conflicts. This challenge requires us as educators, in both our individual and institutional capacities, to become more conversant with practices in the field of conflict resolution and management. Such familiarity is a prerequisite to us becoming exemplary models of its practices for our students, our colleagues, our organizations, and our society.