Meurs, Nathalie van and Spencer-Oatey, Helen, 1952- (2009) Multidisciplinary perspectives on intercultural conflict: the "Bermuda Triangle" of conflict, culture and communication. In: Handbook of Intercultural Communication. Handbooks of Applied Linguistics [HAL] (Vol.7). Berlin, Germany / New York, NY, U.S.A.: De Gruyter Mouton, pp. 99-120. ISBN 9783110214314

	PDF (Publisher's statement) WRAP-Spence_Oatey_publisher_consent.pdf Restricted to Repository staff only - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader Download (165Kb)
	PDF (Chapter text) WRAP_Spencer_Oatey_0673125-cal-060510-m06_vanmeurshso.pdf - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader Download (370Kb)

Abstract

A few decades ago, managers spent more than 20% of their time trying to resolve conflicts (Thomas and Schmidt 1976). Nowadays, conflicts are probably even more complex and time consuming to resolve, because technological advances, the world‟s exponential growth rate, and globalization have led to increased contact between culturally diverse people. Different norms, values, and language can make negotiating more stressful and less satisfactory (Brett and Okumura 1998), and conflict cannot be managed effectively without simultaneously considering both culture and communication. In fact, the three concepts of conflict, culture and communication are like a Bermuda Triangle – hazardous conditions will emerge unless the three are simultaneously handled appropriately. Conflict processes are studied by researchers in a range of disciplines, including organizational behaviour, management studies, (intercultural) communication studies, peace studies, and applied linguistics. Unfortunately, research in these various disciplines tends to exist in parallel fields, with infrequent passages across theoretical and empirical divides. In this chapter we provide an overview of key theoretical frameworks, explore some of the main views as to the impact of culture, and consider the interrelationships between conflict, culture and communication. We call for more interdisciplinary research, so that boundaries can be broken down and illuminating new insights can emerge.

Item Type:	Book Item
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Centre for Applied Linguistics
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Culture conflict -- Research, Culture and globalization, Conflict management -- Research, Intercultural communication -- Research
Series Name:	Handbooks of Applied Linguistics [HAL]
Publisher:	De Gruyter Mouton
Place of Publication:	Berlin, Germany / New York, NY, U.S.A.
ISBN:	9783110214314
Book Title:	Handbook of Intercultural Communication
Date:	2009
Number:	Vol.7
Number of Pages:	18
Page Range:	pp. 99-120
Identification Number:	10.1515/9783110198584.1.99
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
References:	Adair, Wendi L., Tetsushi Okumura and Jeanne M. Brett 2001 Negotiation behaviors when cultures collide: The U.S. and Japan. Journal of Applied Psychology 86: 371–385. Ashkanasy, Neal M., Edwin Trevor-Roberts and Louise Earnshaw 2002 The Anglo cluster: Legacy of the British Empire. Journal of World Business 37: 28–39. Bailey, Benjamin 1997 Communication of respect in interethnic service encounters. Language in Society 26: 327–356. Bailey, Benjamin 2000 Communicative behavior and conflict between African-American customers and Korean immigrant retailers in Los Angeles. Discourse and Society 11: 86–108. Bilsky, Wolfgang and Karen A. Jehn 2002 Organisationskultur und individuelle Werte: Belege für eine gemeinsame Struktur [Organizational culture and individual values: evidence for a common structure]. In: Michael Myrtek (ed.) Die Person im biologischen und sozialen Kontext, 211–228. Göttingen: Hogrefe Blake, Robert R. and Jane S. Mouton 1964 The Managerial Grid. Houston, TX: Gulf Publishing. Bond, Michael H. and Kwang-Kuo Hwang 1986 The social psychology of Chinese people. In: Michael H. Bond (ed.) The Psychology of the Chinese People, 213–266. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. Bond, Michael, Vladimir Zegarac and Helen Spencer-Oatey 2000 Culture as an explanatory variable: problems and possibilities. In: Helen Spencer-Oatey (ed.) Culturally Speaking. Managing Rapport through Talk across Cultures, 47–71. London: Continuum. Brett, Jeanne M. and Tetsushi Okumura 1998 Inter- and intra-cultural negotiation: U.S. and Japanese negotiators. Academy of Management Journal 41: 410–424. Brown, Penelope and Stephen C. Levinson 1987 Politeness. Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: CUP. Originally published as Universals in language usage: politeness phenomenon. In: Esther Goody (ed.) 1978 Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction. New York: CUP. Culpeper, Jonathan 2005 Impoliteness and entertainment in the television quiz show: The Weakest Link. Journal of Politeness Research 1: 35–72. Culpeper, Jonathan, Derek Bousfield and Anne Wichmann 2003 Impoliteness revisited: with special reference to dynamic and prosodic aspects. Journal of Pragmatics 35: 1545–1579. Davidheiser, Mark 2005 Culture and mediation: a contemporary processual analysis from southwestern Gambia. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 29: 713–738. De Dreu, Carsten K.W. 1997 Productive conflict: The importance of conflict management and conflict issue. In: Carston K.W. De Dreu and Evert van de Vliert (eds.) Using Conflict in Organizations, 9–22. London: Sage. Friedman, Ray, Shu-Cheng Chi and Leigh Anne Liu 2006 An expectancy model of Chinese–American differences in conflict-avoiding. Journal of International Business Studies 37: 76–91. Gire, James T. and D. William Carment 1992 Dealing with disputes: The influence of individualism-collectivism. Journal of Social Psychology 133: 81–95. Goffman, Erving 1963 Behavior in Public Places. New York: Free Press. Günthner, Susanne 2000 Argumentation and resulting problems in the negotiation of rapport in a German–Chinese conversation. In: Helen Spencer-Oatey (ed.) Culturally Speaking. Managing Rapport through Talk across Cultures, 217–239. London: Continuum. Hammer, Mitchell R. 2005 The intercultural conflict style inventory: a conceptual framework and measure of intercultural conflict resolution approaches. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 29: 675–695. Hofstede, Geert 1991 Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. London: HarperCollinsBusiness. Hofstede, Geert 2001 Culture's Consequences. Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations across Nations. London: Sage. Holmes, Janet and Meredith Marra 2004 Leadership and managing conflict in meetings. Pragmatics 14(4): 439–462. Honda, Atsuko 2002 Conflict management in Japanese public affairs talk shows. Journal of Pragmatics 34: 573–608. House, Robert, Mansour Javidan, Paul Hanges and Peter Dorfman 2002 Understanding cultures and implicit leadership theories across the globe: an introduction to project GLOBE. Journal of World Business 37: 2-10. Kim, Min-Sun 2005 Culture-based conversational constraints theory. Individual- and culture-level analyses. In: William B. Gudykunst (ed.) Theorizing about Intercultural Communication, 93–117. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Kotthoff, Helga In this volume Ritual and style across cultures, Chapter 9. Leung, Kwok 1987 Some determinants of reactions to procedural models for conflict resolution: a cross-national study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 53(5): 898–908. Leung, Kwok, Michael H. Bond, D. William Carment, Lila Krishnan and Wim B.G. Liebrand 1990 Effects of cultural femininity on preference for methods of conflict processing: A cross-cultural study. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 26: 373–388. Lytle, Anne L. 1999 Chinese conflict management styles: an exploratory study. Paper presented at the Twelfth Conference of the International Association for Conflict Management, San Sebastian, Spain, 20–23 June 1999. Markus, Hazel Rose and Shinobu Kitayama 1991 Culture and the self: implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review 98: 224–53. Marra, Meredith and Janet Holmes In this volume Humour across cultures: joking in the multicultural workplace, Chapter 8. Morris, Michael W., Katherine Y. Williams, Kwok Leung, Richard Larrick, M.Teresa Mendoza, Deepti Bhatnagar, Jianfeng Li, Mari Kondo, Jin-Lian Luo and Jun-Chen Hu 1998 Conflict management style: Accounting for cross-national differences. Journal of International Business Studies 29(4): 729–748. Ohbuchi, Ken-Ichi and Yumi Takahashi 1994 Cultural styles of conflict management in Japanese and Americans: passivity, covertness, and effectiveness of strategies. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 24(15): 1345–1366. Pruitt, Dean G. 1983 Achieving integrative agreement. In: Max H. Bazerman and Roy J. Lewicki (eds.) Negotiating in organizations, 35–50. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Rahim, M. Afzalur 1983 A measure of styles of handling interpersonal conflict. Academy of Management Journal 26: 368–376. Rahim, M. Afzalur 1992 Managing Conflict in Organizations. Westport, CT: Preager Publishers. Saft, Scott 2004 Conflict as interactional accomplishment in Japanese: arguments in university faculty meetings. Language in Society 33: 549–584. Schwartz, Shalom H. 1992 Universals in the content and structure of values: theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. In: Mark P. Zanna (ed.) Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 25), 1–65. San Diego: Academic Press. Schwartz, Shalom H., Gila Melech, Arielle Lehmann, Steven Burgess, Mari Harris and Vicki Owens 2001 Extending the cross-cultural validity of the theory of basic human values with a different method of measurement. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 32(5): 59–542. Sorenson, Ritch L, Eric A. Morse and Grant T. Savage 1999 What motivates choice of conflict strategies? International Journal of Conflict Management 10: 25–44. Spencer-Oatey, Helen 2000 Rapport management: a framework for analysis. In: Helen Spencer-Oatey (ed.) Culturally Speaking. Managing Rapport through Talk across Cultures, 11–46. London: Continuum. Spencer-Oatey, Helen 2005 (Im)Politeness, face and perceptions of rapport: unpackaging their bases and interrelationships. Journal of Politeness Research 1: 95–119. Spencer-Oatey, Helen and Jianyu Xing 2003 Managing rapport in intercultural business interactions: a comparison of two Chinese–British welcome meetings. Journal of Intercultural Studies 24(1): 33–46. Spencer-Oatey, Helen and Jianyu Xing In this volume The impact of culture on interpreter behaviour, Chapter 11. Thomas, KennethW. 1976 Conflict and conflict management. In: Marvin Dunnette (ed.) The Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 889–935. Chicago: Rand McNally. Thomas, KennethW. and Ralph H. Kilmann 1974 The Thomas–Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument. Tuxedo, NY: Xicom. Thomas, Kenneth W. and Warren Schmidt 1976 A survey of managerial interests with respect to conflict. Academy of Management Journal 19: 315–318. Ting-Toomey, Stella 1999 Communicating across Cultures. New York: The Guilford Press. Trubinsky, Paula, Stella Ting-Toomey and Sung Ling Lin 1991 The influence of individualism–collectivism and self-monitoring on conflict styles. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 15(1): 65–84. van Meurs, Nathalie 2003 Negotiations between British and Dutch managers: Cultural values, approaches to conflict management, and perceived negotiation satisfaction. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Sussex, Brighton, East Sussex, UK.
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/3139

Data sourced from Thomson Reuters' Web of Knowledge

Request changes to a record

Actions (login required)

View Item