Case Study Organization Conflict

This case study will analyze the conflict that occurred between an administrative worker in my school, named Ms. Lee, and myself. Ms. Lee was the person who recruited me to teach classes for the English training department, for a prominent foreign language school in Beijing, China. This conflict occurred during the last year that I worked for this school. While this school does many things well, it is my personal opinion is that in recent years they haven't done enough to improve and adapt to changing times and have, to some degree, been coasting on their reputation. I taught classes there for a period of six years starting in the fall of 2005 and ending this past May. While at the school I mostly taught spoken English classes on evenings and weekends. The university is one of the top-tier schools in Beijing and is among one of the best schools in China. The English department offers a wide range of classes to students from different backgrounds. During my time there I taught a variety of different classes to a diverse group of students of differing backgrounds and ages, ranging from full-time students to working professionals, and from grade-school children to retired adults. While several other administrative employees have come and gone in my time teaching there, Ms. Lee has been there since I started. Our relationship has always been cordial and respectful and we have had many opportunities to help each other out and have both benefited from the relationship.

As a part-time teacher working without a yearly contract, I had the freedom to choose only those jobs that I wanted to take based on my schedule and personal preference. This gave me great flexibility in creating my work schedule, but also made me dependent on Ms. Lee and the other administrators who made the decisions about who to give jobs to. At times I was offered more classes than I could take, and other times I was left wanting more classes. Usually when there were new jobs available, Ms. Lee or...