A Cross-cultural Research On Conflict Management Of Chinese And Americans In The Workplace

Conflict is inevitable in our daily life. It is through communication that conflict occurs and gets solved. With the ever-growing globalization, intercultural communication has become unprecedentedly important and frequent. Because of the different cultural backgrounds, misunderstandings and conflicts are likely to take place during communication process. What's more, lack of understanding toward the different cultural heritages would accelerate the conflict. Since conflicts are inevitable, how to manage them in a constructive way has become a growing concern in international companies. It is necessary to understand how members from different cultures behave during conflict interaction process and why they behave in such a manner. Within this context, the research on conflict becomes more and more practical and critical.In response to this trend, the author approach studied this phenomenon from the perspective of attitude toward the conflict and conflict management styles by the Chinese and Americans. The author approaches the topic from the angle of different work relationships: subordinate-to-superior, superior-to-subordinate and colleague-to-colleague. Chinese in state-owned enterprise (SOE Chinese), American employees in companies and Chinese in American-invested multinational company (MNC Chinese) are selected as three groups of respondents to complete the questionnaires. Case studies are also used afterwards to describe the findings from the analysis of different attitudes toward conflict and types of managing conflict with relative culture variables.The results of the research show three major findings. Firstly, SOE Chinese tend to regard conflict as deconstructive. They show a more negative perception toward the conflict itself and put emphasis on the maintenance of interpersonal harmony in the conflict process. While Americans view conflict as constructive. They have a more positive perception toward conflict itself and put focus on the substantive solution to the task issues in the conflict process. Secondly, SOE Chinese mostly adopt indirect ways in managing conflicts, and are more likely to be subject to the influences of work status, while Americans mostly adopt direct styles, and are less likely to be subject to this influence. Work status as a mediator has influence on the choice of conflict management styles. Thirdly, there appears acculturation phenomenon in MNC Chinese, who show a converging trend toward American way in both attitudes toward conflict and conflict management styles.The findings of the research are applicable for the multicultural team members and multinational organizations in understanding the cultural differences in conflict management, effectively handling the conflict, enhancing working efficiency, maintaining good interpersonal relationships in working environment and hence achieving effective intercultural communication. Meanwhile, the study on conflict management styles based on different work relationships by introduction of different work status enriches the theories of conflict and intercultural communication and has implications for further researches.