Cultural Influences On Chinese Conflict And Conflict Management In Cooperative Researches In The Innovation Process

As prolific studies have been conducted on conflict management in Western contexts,this study contributes to a holistic understanding of conflict management in theinnovation process in Chinese context. Behavioral phenomena are much morecomplex than the instruments or measures used to capture them, so a qualitativemethod was adopted and30in-depth interviews were conducted among researchers ina variety of key labs in universities and research and development companies.The qualitative content analysis derived six major sources of conflicts in theinnovation process in Chinese cultural context, namely, competition over resources;conflicts about the fulfillment of tasks; conflicts about benefits; ownership of ideasand credits; divergence in ideas; different expectations. Eight conflict managementstyles have been identified, i.e. cooperation/problem-solving, accommodating,compromising, going under cover, third-party mediating, avoiding, dominating andsevering. Five strategies can yield positive outcomes and are thus conducive to theinnovation process, namely, cooperation/problem-solving, accommodating,compromising, going under cover and third-party mediating. The descriptions andepisodes of conflict management also reveal that three strategies, i.e. avoiding,dominating, and severing, can be a hindrance for the innovation process.Based on existing conflict management studies in the Chinese cultural context, thecurrent study delves into cultural factors underlying a repertoire of conflictmanagement styles identified from the data analysis and presents a thoroughdiscussion on changes in cultural values that may influence such conflict managementbehaviors.