Impact of Conflict Management on Employee Performance in Nigerian Revenue Service (Published)
Conflict is an inevitable feature of large-scale, rule-intensive administrative environments such as tax authorities, where multiple organizational units must navigate complex regulatory frameworks under stringent accountability and sanctioning regimes. Within the Nigerian Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), ineffective management of intra-organizational disagreements has been shown to prolong case processing cycles, escalate operational rework, and diminish overall system throughput. This study investigates the relationship between three distinct conflict management strategies—negotiation, collaboration—and employee efficiency, conceptualized through metrics including turnaround time, rework frequency, throughput volume, and adherence to statutory deadlines. Grounded in contingency theory and organizational information-processing perspectives, and enriched by constructs such as psychological safety, team learning, hierarchical dynamics, and cultural tightness–looseness, the research employs a cross-sectional survey of 371 FIRS personnel. Data were collected using five-point Likert scales and analyzed via multiple regression, with efficiency as the dependent variable. Findings indicate that all three strategies significantly predict efficiency, with collaboration demonstrating the strongest positive association (β = .41, p < .001), followed by negotiation (β = .28, p < .001. The model accounted for approximately 42% of the variance in efficiency and satisfied standard diagnostic criteria. The study delineates the contextual conditions under which each strategy is most effective within the tightly coupled, high-ambiguity, and time-pressured environment of tax administration. Furthermore, it translates regression coefficients into practical implications for operational indicators such as case cycle time and rework rates. It is recommended that FIRS prioritize collaborative problem-solving and integrative negotiation in leadership development programs and implement systematic monitoring of efficiency metrics alongside observed conflict-handling behaviors to inform training, process redesign, and performance management systems.
Keywords: Collaboration, Negotiation., Nigerian public sector, conflict management strategies, employee efficiency, federal inland revenue service, tax administration