Conflict Resolution Style Differences Between Shanghai And Hong Kong Staffs In The Foreign Banking Industry

Conflict management has been a heatedly discussed topic in both the academic arena andbusiness arena. In order to pursue business efficiency, conflict needs to be eliminated forthe consideration of business goals. In the academic arena, a lot of Sino-US comparison hasbeen done in the IC field, however, little attention has been paid to intergroup culturaldifferences. As the creative point of the thesis, the author chooses Shanghai and HK as thetarget cultures, and chooses the foreign banking industry as the focus of the study. Theauthor chooses the specific arena out of her internship experience in this arena. From herobservation, she has noticed subtle differences and finds this research worth doing bothacademically and practically.The author uses Geert Hofstede’s classic values model together with Edward T. Hall’shigh-context and low-context communication and Stella Ting-Toomey’s face-related theory,to build her theoretical foundation. The review of relevant concepts like culture and conflictare also covered in the study in the hope of deepening the understanding of this area.Conflict measurement theory such as conflict management instruments is covered in theliterature review. Oriental perspective is specially mentioned to make the literature reviewmore comprehensive.In the conducting of the research, the author distributed about120questionnaires toShanghai and HK employees in the foreign banking industry. She collected107responsesthanks to the help of her friends in HSBC. After the questionnaire, an interview was alsoconducted as a follow up and proves round in order to strengthen the reliability of theresearch. Eight people participated in the interview, five from Shanghai and three from HK.The questionnaire results show that collaborating is the most widely adopted strategy byboth Shanghai and HK employees in the foreign bank. The reason for differences betweenShanghai and HK employees in the foreign bank can be ascribed to the Power Distanceaspect; Directness vs. Indirectness in their ways of expression and face-concern. Communication efficiency can only be reached through mutual understanding and behavioradjustment.However, there are some limitations. From the practical aspect, the limitation lays in thesmall number of participants especially HK participants in both questionnaire round andinterview round. The incomparably of Shanghai and HK participants in terms of their statusarises due to the lack of connection from the HK side. What’s more, the instrumentmeasures their behavior intent rather than actual behavior, therefore idealistic rather thanrealistic responses may have been tapped. Although there exist limitations, future researchcan build up the study and make up the unsatisfied point. The major contribution of thisthesis lays in its creative point on doing an intergroup cultural comparative study. Veryrarely has study been done between Shanghai and HK. This study chooses a specificindustry, the foreign banking industry as the research objective. The findings of the thesishelp academically and practically in Shanghai-HK conflict resolution study. In the end,three suggestions or communication principles were raised in order to facility theShanghai-HK intercultural communication.