Jr sthesispresentation

Nicholas NavarroHarvard College

Psychology ThesisAdvisor: Richard Hackman

Individualistic Culture Directly Confronts Conflict

Collectivist Culture Avoids Addressing Conflict

Kirkbride et al., 1991; Weldon et al., 1998

1. Do virtual team members from Eastern and Western cultures deal with conflict differently?

1. How do Eastern and Western members of virtual teams differ in their perceptions of their teammates’ approach to conflict?

1. Are virtual team members’ perceptions of their teammates’ approach to conflict associated with their own conflict management strategy?

1. All participants received instructions explaining their participation on a global marketing team and a balance sheet, which outlines revenue, cost and profit numbers..

1. Participants received an email that invites either cooperative or competitive conflict management from a foreign teammate (either from China or the United States).

3. All emails had conflicting profit and revenue numbers that did not align with the numbers on the balance sheet.

3. All participants wrote a response email, and clarified the incorrect numbers.

5. All participants completed a questionnaire.

Do virtual team members from Eastern and Western cultures deal with conflict

differently?

How do Eastern and Western members of virtual teams differ in their perceptions of their teammates’ approach to conflict?

Are virtual team members’ perceptions of their teammates’ approach to conflict associated

with their own conflict management strategy?

• Culture influenced how teammates perceive each other in competitive situations, with Chinese participants perceiving the teammate as significantly more cooperative than did United States participants.

• All participants in this study maintained a reciprocal approach to conflict management regardless of cultural background.

• These results demonstrate that some common cultural tendencies, such as avoiding conflict, do not always uphold in virtual communication, such as email.

• There may be some benefit in virtual collaboration, as communicating via email can reduce cultural differences in approaches to conflict.

• Virtual teammates can inspire cooperative conflict management by first initiating cooperative interaction via email with statements such as

• “Your ideas and perspectives are very valuable to me, and I always appreciate hearing your feedback and criticism.”

• “We can only succeed or fail together”

• “I want to let you know that I am always willing to work in order for both of us to be successful”

• “Whenever there is a problem, we will work through it together as Fly High Chocolate can only be successful or fail together.”

•Cooperative conflict management has been associated with higher team performance and an enhanced sense of team competence (Alper, Tjosvold, & Law, 2000)

Alper, S., Tjosvold, D., & Law, K. (2000). Conflict management, efficacy, and performance in organizational teams. Personnel Psychology, 53, 625-642.

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Doucet, L., Jehn, K., Weldon, E., Chen, X., & Wang, Z. (2009). Cross-cultural differences in conflict management: An inductive study of Chinese and American managers.

International Journal of Conflict Management, 20, 355-376.

Jehn, K., & Mannix, E. (2001, April). The Dynamic Nature of Conflict: A Longitudinal Study of Intragroup Conflict and Group Performance. Academy of Management

Journal, 44, 238-251.

Westwood, R., Tang, S., & Kirkbride, P. (1992). Chinese conflict behavior: Cultural antecedents and behavioral consequences…. Organization Development Journal, 10, 13-19.