A Cross-cultural Study On The Conflict Management Of Chinese And Japanese At Workplaces

Conflicts are inevitable in organizations. Employees from different culturalbackground may adopt varied conflict management strategies, which influences thecorporate culture and business efficiency. With the development of economicglobalization, Sino-Japan business cooperation is increasingly frequent. China and Japanhave many similarities in cultures, but their differences cannot be ignored. Most of theprevious studies on organizational conflict management focused on the comparisonbetween western cultures and eastern cultures, however, the differences among easterncultures are also worth studying. This study compares the conflict management strategiesof Chinese and Japanese at workplaces, investigates the differences between the twopeoples and explores the possible influential factors to their strategies at both cultural andindividual levels.The author combined quantitative approach and qualitative approach in this study,which included a qualitative pre-study (Observations), a quantitative major study(Questionnaires) and a qualitative follow-up study (Interviews). One innovative point ofthis study is that it investigates the conflict management strategies with supervisors andwith co-workers separately. The online survey got a total of177answers from Japan andChina, out of which124were valid, including57from Shanghai and67from Tokyo.Based on the findings of the online survey, the author conducted7in-depth interviews asthe confirmatory follow-up study to get more evidence to support the findings of themajor study.The main findings of the study include:1) Chinese are even more likely to adoptnon-confrontation strategies and there are no significant differences showed in terms ofother conflict management strategies.2）Chinese people are more likely to adopt conflictmanagement strategies differently when with superiors and with co-workers.3) Power-distance and goal emphasis have strong positive effects on Chinese and Japanesepeople’s choice on non-confrontation strategies when people are confronted withconflicts at workplaces.4) Independent self-construal is positively correlated with controlstrategies when people are confronted with peer conflicts at workplaces and it is alsopositively correlated with solution-oriented strategies when people are confronted withinterpersonal conflicts with their supervisors.5) Interdependent self-construal haspositive correlation with non-confrontation strategies and solution-oriented strategieswhen people had conflicts with both supervisors and co-workers at workplaces.