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The main research purposes of this paper are to: conceptualize Chinese conflict management behaviors as contingent on the hierarchical relations of conflict parties in an organizational context; and investigate individual characteristics as moderators in this contingency framework.

This emic study consisted of two steps: using nine subject matter experts to develop conflict scenarios and conflict management strategies, and using this instrument to collect data from 704 actual employees across China. Multinomial logistic analysis was used to analyze respondents' choice of strategies.

The findings supported the hypotheses. Chinese role‐playing a supervisor in a conflict with their subordinate tended to use direct, assertive strategies to resolve the conflict, but the results depended on age, education, gender, region and work experience. As a subordinate in a conflict with their supervisor, Chinese chose indirect, harmony‐preserving strategies, particularly when they were older and more interaction adept. In a conflict with a peer, respondents used a broader spectrum of conflict management strategies, depending on their individual characteristics. No “best practices” were found or universal strategies adopted.

The limitations include the lack of random sampling and a scenario‐based method. The emic evidence for a contingency perspective of conflict resolution framework was provided. The conflict scenarios may be used in organizational training of conflict management.

Conflict scenarios and management strategies developed by local subject matter experts were used to evaluate Chinese workers' choices of conflict management strategies. The findings call for the re‐conceptualization of conflict management strategies as a contingent and culture‐specific construct.

This paper aims to examine the occurrence and management of conflict in Chinese organizations, from an emic perspective. The authors provide an in-depth understanding of Chinese working adults’ lived experiences regarding workplace conflicts.

The study is a qualitative one, consisting of open-ended questionnaires administered to 55 Chinese nationals who worked in governmental, public or international organizations in China. A thematic analysis of the answers was conducted.

Chinese participants adopted a normative mental model that defined their preferred “way of doing” things. A skillful balance was expected in conflict management that incorporated integrated open communication and strategic silence. Chinese working adults emphasized maturity in the workplace and the recognition of shared goals.

The online questionnaire format may have constrained participants’ responses. Also, the data were collected from various organizational contexts, but there were not enough participants from each type of organization so that comparisons between institutions could be made.

The results could help expatriate populations better prepare their lives abroad in China. Also, the findings could aid organizational or management consultants who work closely with Chinese partners.

The findings enhance our understanding of how Chinese working adults deal with workplace conflicts and the circumstances in which conflicts arise in the workplace, which also reflected the social and cultural contexts of the Chinese workplace experience.

This study provides an alternative interpretation of workplace conflicts and their management in China that is anchored in the unique organizational and national cultural context. They constitute the base for future development of culture-based explanations of Chinese organizational conflict behaviors.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between demographic characteristics, job stress, and cognitive and affective conflict faced by Chinese top managers and how this conflict is resolved over multiple rounds of conflict situations.

A questionnaire was designed and submitted to Chinese top managers of firms located in Sichuan Province, PRC. Besides Likert‐type questions concerning demographic characteristics, job stress, and both types of conflict, contextual anchorage method was used to let top managers rank the conflict resolution styles they would prefer for solving a given situation of conflict.

Data were submitted to hierarchical regression analysis. It was found that age is in negative relation with job stress and that the higher the education level of top managers, the more cognitive conflict they will experience. In turn, the more cognitive conflict, the more affective conflict will be experienced. In addition, it was found that job stress is in positive association with cognitive conflict. Finally and most importantly, the findings indicated that Chinese top managers are inclined to using integrating to handle conflict. This seems to be generally inconsistent with traditional Chinese culture.

The paper accounted for respective calls that proposed to focus on the antecedent conditions of cognitive and affective conflict. Therefore, a framework containing important antecedent factors of conflict was proposed. As a first attempt, it integrated the relationship between job stress and conflict. Most importantly, and also as a first attempt, however, this study sought to identify the conflict resolution styles Chinese top managers applied over multiple rounds of conflict situations, whereas findings additionally differentiate between affective and cognitive types of conflict.

This study aims to examine how American and Chinese employees of multinational organizations deal with conflict between them.

In‐depth interviews were conducted with 42 employees from 28 multinational organizations operating in China. A constant comparative method was used to analyze the data.

The paper finds that both American and Chinese employees used various strategies to deal with conflict, such as integrating, insisting on one's own solution, compromising, yielding to authority, avoiding, passive resistance, dissolving the relationship, and a third‐party approach. In general, American participants were more likely to confront a conflict than Chinese participants. Findings of this study also indicate that differing motivations lead to the utilization of a common conflict management strategy.

The validity of this study might be compromised due to self‐reported responses. Future researchers need to further clarify definitions of conflict management styles and pay more attention to adaptation during the process of intercultural conflict resolution.

The findings of this study will help practitioners become more cognizant of conflict behaviors in multinational organizations, and thus be able to prepare more effective strategies to manage conflict. Originality/value –This is one of few studies that examine conflict in multinational organizations from an intercultural perspective. This study is also one of few that utilize a qualitative approach to examine intercultural conflict management in a workplace.

Ting‐Toomey's (1988) face‐negotiation theory of conflict predicts that choice of conflict style is closely associated with face‐negotiation needs, which vary across cultures. This study investigated this prediction in a workplace setting involving status and face‐concern with a sample of 163 Anglo‐Australian and 133 Chinese university students who were working full or part‐time. The association of type of communication (direct or cautious) according to type of face‐threat (self or other) and work status (subordinate, co‐worker or superior) with preferences for three conflict management styles (control, solution‐oriented, non‐confrontational) was examined for the two cultural groups. The results showed that: (1) as predicted by the individualist‐collectivist dimension, Anglo respondents rated assertive conflict styles higher and the non‐confrontational style lower than their Chinese counterparts; (2) overall, both Anglo and Chinese respondents preferred more direct communication strategies when self‐face was threatened compared with other‐face threat; (3) status moderated responses to self and other‐face threat for both Anglos and Chinese; (4) face‐threat was related to assertive and diplomatic conflict styles for Anglos and passive and solution‐oriented styles for Chinese. Support was shown for Ting‐Toomey's theory; however the results indicated that, in applied settings, simple predictions based on only cultural dichotomies might have reduced power due to workplace role perceptions having some influence. The findings were discussed in relation to areas of convergence and the two cultural groups; widening the definition of “face”; and providing a more flexible model of conflict management incorporating both Eastern and Western perspectives.

Previous research suggests that negotiation style and conflict management strategies are influenced heavily by cultural factors. In the case of the Chinese, findings have largely produced stereotypical views about their behavior, but the authors argue that this position is becoming increasingly blurred in the global economy.

Data were collected using participant observation during negotiations of a free-trade agreement between China and Australia followed by in-depth interviews with Chinese delegates.

Consistent with Confucianism and a Taoism-based value system, there was evidence of strong cultural influence on conflict management approaches. Two a priori Chinese strategies were evident – avoidance and accommodating, with five tactics. However, contrary to previous research, the authors found use of two conflict management strategies normally associated with a western approach – competing and compromising, with five associated tactics.

Chinese negotiators are knowledgeable and capable of adopting western negotiation strategies and tactics. The authors advise managers involved in international negotiations with Chinese managers to be cautious when relying on historical stereotypical assessments and to think differently about the emerging Chinese negotiator.

Few published negotiation studies involve real negotiations based on actual observations, particularly in an international setting. Contrary to many published studies, we demonstrate that conflict management approaches used by Chinese negotiators have evolved into a blend of traditional Chinese and western styles.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of inter-group conflicts on the trust toward the acquirer and then further on cooperation intention after acquisitions in cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As), in the lens of the social classification theory. Two types of conflicts (realistic conflicts and symbolic conflicts) and a mediating mechanism (trust toward the acquirer) exhibit different effects on cooperation intention. The research further examines two moderating coping strategies (localizing management and assigning trustworthy expatriate managers) and tests their effectiveness in promoting trust toward the acquirer and increasing cooperation intention in cross-border M&As.

The research hypotheses were empirically tested in the context of post-acquisition of Chinese companies' cross-border M&As. In total, 600 questionnaires were provided to the research participants of 37 acquired firms/units from advanced economies of 12 Chinese companies, and 209 valid questionnaires were collected (the response rate is 34.83%). Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to verify data validity and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were employed to test relational and moderating effects.

This research demonstrates that both realistic and symbolic conflicts can reduce the intention to cooperate, but the latter does not have a significant influence. The results also uncover that whether employees from acquired firms trust in their acquirers mediates the relationship between realistic conflicts and cooperation intention. Moreover, management localization (a measurement of whether local/original managers are retained with a high degree of freedom and autonomy after M&As) and trustworthiness of expatriate managers (a measurement of whether the assigned expatriate managers is trustworthy) positively moderate the relation between realistic conflicts and trust toward the acquirer. In addition, trust toward the acquirer mediates the interaction of realistic conflicts and management localization on the cooperation intention of the acquirers' employees.

This study examines how inter-organizational conflicts influence trust toward the acquirer and then cooperation intentions in the context of Chinese companies' M&A behavior of targets from developed countries and gain supportive evidence, which enriches the literature on the management of international M&As. By introducing two management localization and trustworthiness of expatriate managers into the model, the research deepens our knowledge of how to build trust toward the acquirer in cross-border M&As.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a research agenda for studying Chinese culture and conflict.

Publications on Chinese culture and conflict are searched and reviewed to identify conceptualizations of Chinese culture and key findings on conflict.

A review of the scholarly literature on Chinese culture and conflict suggests that Chinese culture has been mainly conceptualized as Confucianism and collectivism. Inadequacies of such conceptualizations and their negative effects on empirical research on Chinese culture and management and organization in China have been addressed.

Limitations were not being able to get an exhaustive list of research publications on Chinese culture and conflict.

The paper helps to reduce stereotypes about Chinese conflict management stemmed from previous research

On the basis of recognizing the importance of past research, new directions for researching Chinese culture and conflict that constitute a new research agenda have been proposed.

This paper centers on the exploration of Chinese conflict management styles in the context of international joint ventures in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Based on interviews conducted with directing managers in U.S.‐Chinese joint ventures and seminars held in China on conflict management in such ventures, major characteristics of Chinese conflict management styles are discussed. Influenced by the traditional Chinese values, norms, and philosophies, Chinese managers in joint ventures tend to adopt contingent, long‐term, contextual, and holistic approaches to conflict resolution.

Conflicts among top management team (TMT) members have a significant impact on sustainable development of family enterprises in China. The complex attributes of different kinds of conflicts in a TMT have dual effects on firm performance and its stability. Thus, avoiding conflicts in a TMT through a systematic conflict management strategy is very important. This paper aims to therefore investigate how to maximize the performance and income level of the TMT in family enterprises through managing conflict systematically, while adopting the best conflict coping strategies.

In this study, the authors apply conflict coping strategies as a useful tool of conflict management and propose five kinds of dynamic conflict coping strategies among TMT members. Repeated game and multi-agent simulation by computer experiment are used to dynamically simulate the rules and evolution of individual conflict coping strategy choices.

It is found that with the passage of time, different conflict coping strategies have different effects on earnings of individuals and teams at different conflict levels. It is also revealed that conflict coping strategies affect not only the earnings of individuals and teams but also their distribution; it also reflects the conflict level in TMT of a family enterprise but in reverse.

This study contributes to the existing literature on conflict management in relevance to the choice and revolution of conflict coping strategies in a Chinese business culture context. It focuses on strengthening the unity and cooperation of TMT members. Controlling the conflict level of TMT members at a reasonable level, investigating the primary cause of conflict and identifying its nature lead to better performance of the TMT and the sustainable development of Chinese family enterprises. Based on these outcomes, different conflict coping strategies can be appropriately used to solve TMT conflicts.