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The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview on the state of the field in intercultural dynamics on competition and cooperation at the individual, team, and organizational levels. The authors integrate previous studies from multiple disciplines to articulate the contextual importance of intercultural dynamics. The authors also suggest three overarching themes to expand the field of research on intercultural dynamics.

The authors use an integrative literature review to articulate the importance of intercultural dynamics, provide an introduction to the new contributions in this special issue, and propose new directions for future research.

Intercultural dynamics research has the potential to expand in three overarching areas: constructive controversy, collaborative communication, and global competency and identity at multiple levels.

Intercultural dynamics is still a nascent field emerging from cross-cultural and strategic management. The authors hope the review lays the groundwork for more studies on intercultural dynamics at the interpersonal, team, organizational, and mixed levels of analysis in both theory building and empirical works.

Understanding intercultural dynamics in competition and cooperation can help individuals and managers in multinationals and born global organizations navigate cultural complexity and foster cooperation.

The authors hope the ideas on intercultural dynamics can facilitate collaboration and reduce conflict in intercultural encounters at the individual, organization, and societal levels.

This paper offers an overview on the state of the field and lays groundwork for more systematic inquiries on intercultural dynamics in competition and cooperation.

This study endeavors to deepen our understanding of intercultural conflict by the detailed development of a particular case. The case chosen is the controversy over spearfishing between the largely white protest community in northern Wisconsin and the Native American (Anishinabe) community in the same region. This study identifies and examines a kernel image which serves simultaneously as common and uncommon ground across the two communities, thus helping to escalate and prolong the conflict. This process is further explored through the identification and articulation of the rhetorical visions which embody the common sense of a community and are expressed through the collective discourse of that community. Finally, implications for intercultural conflict in general are discussed.

Based on the collectivism‐individualism structure, the present study compared organizational conflict management behaviors between Korea (a collectivistic culture) and the U.S. (an individualistic culture). Employing a three‐way factorial design (Culture type x Relational distance x Power relationship), the present study registered robust effects of culture type in determining one's organizational conflict management behaviors. Specifically, Koreans are found to be extensive users of solution‐orientation strategies, while Americans prefer to use either non‐confrontation or control strategies in dealing with organizational conflicts. Moreover, the data also indicated that Koreans are more sensitive in exercising power when facing conflicts with subordinates in the organization. On the other hand, the effect of relational distance (ingroup vs. outgroup) in determining one's choice of organizational conflict management styles is found to be minimal. Implications of present findings for future intercultural communication research are also discussed.

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.

Group criticism plays an important role in intergroup relations and conflicts, but few studies have related group criticism to intercultural communication contexts. This study aims to explore two cultural groups’ (Chinese international students in the USA and American domestic students) collective face concern as a unique experience in intercultural communication and other psychological responses while encountering group criticism targeting their country image.

A laboratory experiment was conducted assessing Chinese international students (n = 115) and American domestic students’ (n = 100) responses to a research-confederate critic (whose group membership was manipulated) criticizing participants’ country image such as blaming China and the USA for air pollution or using drugs in the Olympics. analysis of covariance, correlational analysis and regression analysis were adopted to analyze the data.

Chinese international students reported higher collective face concerns and lower liking toward the critic compared with American students. When criticism specifically targeted participants’ country image, Chinese international students reported more discomfort feelings than American students; and while responding to the critic who identified as participants’ ingroup member, Chinese international students’ discomfort feelings were more susceptible to their collective face than American students in the same condition.

This study illustrates cultural differences in collective face concerns and psychological reactions in responding to criticism targeting a country image in intercultural communication contexts.

Allowing for interaction with foreign cultures without the need to travel, intercultural virtual collaboration represents a potential tool to develop business students’ intercultural competence. This study aims to explore students’ perceptions towards the implementation of a research-based task sequence in a project in which undergraduate Business students from Spain collaborated virtually with undergraduate business students from The Netherlands during a semester. More specifically, this paper investigates what intercultural competence indicators were mostly developed by the sequence implemented; how much each task from the sequence in question developed different intercultural competence indicators; and how much students enjoyed participating in each task.

Data was collected through after-task reflection questionnaires. A quantitative analysis of Likert-type questions was carried out and open-ended responses were used to illustrate findings.

Results reveal that the task sequence developed different dimensions of students’ intercultural competence and, particularly, fostered a positive attitude towards intercultural relationships, increased students’ cultural knowledge and awareness and equipped students with skills to work in diverse teams. It also showed that as complexity grew along the sequence, the average students’ perception of their intercultural competence development tended to decrease. The majority of students’ very much liked participating in the different tasks.

Designing telecollaborative projects can be very challenging and understanding the learning potential of different pedagogical strategies for virtual collaborative environments can help teachers to take better-informed decisions.

This chapter describes the special advantages of globally networked learning experiences (GNLE) for engendering cognitive complexity as a means for developing mindful global citizenship among undergraduate students. Practitioners discover pedagogical approaches that take advantage of the possibility of direct communication with the cultural “other” afforded by recent advances in cost-free, user-friendly, robust, and reliable technologies. Examples of effective pedagogical practices, ideas for building successful faculty-to-faculty partnerships, suggestions for preparing participants, guidelines for selecting and implementing appropriate technologies, and resources for further exploration are provided.

The purpose of this paper is to better understand the impact of intercultural communication and personality on customer satisfaction and loyalty in grocery retailing. In this endeavour, this study illustrates the unique context of intercultural communication to highlight several improvements in the literature and to encourage the advancement of the intercultural communication in the literature.

To initiate the research, a survey approach was taken. In total, 681 questionnaires were returned out of 1,100 that were distributed within selected grocery retailers in Klang Valley, Malaysia. The measurement of the constructs and their interrelationships is examined based on partial least square-structural equation modelling.

The findings validate the proposed framework with statistically significant relationships among all constructs. Furthermore, it exposes additional insights into some practical and conceptual solutions for addressing the intercultural communication of culturally diverse encounters in the Malaysian grocery retail industry. These contributions postulate an impetus for future research in various service settings.

Based on role, interdependence and cognitive consistency theory, this study assesses the role of the personality of grocery retail consumers on intercultural communication competence (ICC) and its impact on inter-role congruence (IRC) and interaction comfort (IAC). It is anticipated that by filling this knowledge gap, the research will assist in strengthening retail communication strategies, which require intercultural communication adjustments in a multicultural business environment. The ICC is expected to improve the retail industry competitiveness when it positively influences IRC and IAC among customers.