Managing Marketing Channel Conflict: The Case Of TCL International Electrical Company In China

In the discussion of 4Ps, the issue of conflict management in the marketing channel is important for distribution management. Perception of differences in the goal, role and share of loading among channel members can lead to channel conflict in a visible or invisible way. The channel conflict, in turn, can impact on the performance of channel members. Many scholars have studied the issue regarding reasons, phenomena, management methods and the power exertion of the channel conflict. A recent work by Bradford, Stringfellow and Weitz (2004) provided three types of management methods for resolving the problem of channel conflict, namely accommodation, confrontation and collaboration ones. They also pointed to the influences of interpersonal conflict and task conflict to the channel performance. Their work provided new approach to manage channel conflict.Based on existing studies of conflict management, the current study is aimed at providing an insight into, and solution of, conflict management especially in the developing country of China. Bradford, Stringfellow and Weitz (2004)'s research framework was adopted. A Chinese electrical company was selected as a research object in the fieldwork.This study contributes to existing studies of channel conflict by examining Bradford, Stringfellow, Weitz (2004) 's conceptual model in an actual environment in China and providing Chinese managers with practical solutions to deal with...