REBRANDING BUSINESS EDUCATION PROGRAMME FOR CONFLICT MANAGEMENT

Abstract

The study investigated rebranding business education programme for conflict management in public universities in south-east, states of Nigeria. Two research questions and two null hypotheses guided the study at p≤ 0.05 level of significance. The population for the study was 90 Business educators drawn from public universities that offers business education programme in south-east states of Nigeria. Due to the manageable size of the population no sampling technique was adopted. The instrument for data collection was a structured 28-item statement questionnaire titled” Rebranding Business Education Programme for Conflict Management Questionnaire (RBPCMQ) which was validated by three experts from business education department, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu state. The instrument was trial tested on 20 respondents and this yielded an overall reliability coefficient of 0.84. The researchers were assisted by four research assistants in collecting data for the study. The collected data were analyzed using mean and standard deviation for the research questions and hypotheses was tested at 0.05 level of significance. The finding of the study indicate that business education programme when rebranded for conflict management will help in securing, retaining and progressing conflict management techniques in the society and the nation at large. Based on the findings, the study recommended among others, that there should be conflict management training course at all levels of business education programmes which involves professional therapists and educational stakeholders to improve business education lecturers and students’ conflict management proficiency within the university educational system, Conflict management intervention programmes should be integrated in business education programme and other vocationally based programmes by curriculum planners to foster effective conflict management practices among students and lecturers.