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The purpose of this paper is to discuss cultural causes of conflict in the workplace and call for research to address what happens when cultures collide generating workplace conflict. The author assumes that because cultures differ in terms of functional solutions to problems of social interaction that there will be conflict when people from different cultures are interdependent in the workplace. The author discusses types of culture and their conflict management profiles with respect to three characteristics of conflict management: direct vs indirect confrontation; emotional expression, and third party conflict management. The author proposes what happens when cultures collide and calls for research on those collisions.

Application of the cultural literature on self-worth to three elements of workplace conflict: direct vs indirect confrontation of conflict, feelings and expressions of negative emotions associated with conflict and timing and type of third party intervention.

When people from dignity, face, and honor cultures are working together the fundamental differences in the logic of self-worth in these three types of culture may cause conflict. People from dignity and honor cultures are likely to confront conflict directly, while those from face cultures are more likely to confront conflict indirectly. Workplace conflict generates negative emotions, but culture seems to affect whether that emotion is anger, shame or both. The timing of third party intervention into workplace conflict, that is, how managers intervene in workplace conflict has some parallels with how community mediators act in that culture.

There is limited research comparing management of workplace conflict in dignity, face, and honor cultures. The author generates propositions and suggests a research strategy for collecting data to test propositions.

Understanding what is culturally normative in terms of self-worth, confrontation, emotional expression, and managerial intervention can help people involved in workplace conflict understand what they are experiencing. It can also help managers intervene effectively.

How people react to workplace conflict varies with culture as does how managers intervene. Knowing this provides people with the first element of cultural intelligence that may help them manage conflict to facilitate a more creative and effective multicultural work environment.

This paper integrates theory and research from cross-cultural psychology, the psychology of emotion and the literature on third party intervention into community conflict to explain the patterns of cultural conflict and conflict management in the workplace. It also suggests what it may take to manage cultural conflict in the workplace successfully.

One Acre Fund (OAF) was founded by Andrew Youn in 2005 for the purpose of helping to solve the chronic hunger problem in Africa. The idea is to provide the resources (seed, fertilizer, and education) necessary for African farm families to feed themselves when their land holdings are one acre or less. The business model of OAF is that of a cooperative: OAF buys resources like seeds and fertilizer in bulk at reduced prices and distributes them to small farmers who otherwise could not afford them. This case concerns the negotiation that OAF's manager of external relations and research, Moises Postigo, conducted to buy fertilizer in the last quarter of 2007. The case provides an opportunity for students to analyze a real-world deal-making negotiation in a developing economy. A number of aspects of the context of the negotiation and the negotiation process itself make for good class discussion. Postigo did a good job preparing for the negotiation, making the case one that emphasizes proper use of negotiation planning and sensitive understanding of the negotiation environment. Some of the elements that make for good discussion include the following: OAF was a new organization, unknown to the five major providers of fertilizer in Kenya. The negotiations were entirely conducted by cell phone. Negotiations went through stages of request for a bid, discussion with multiple bidders, selection of a provider, and negotiation. There were multiple issues, including price delivery and form of payment. Postigo was negotiating in the shadow of the possibility that the Kenyan government would start selling subsidized fertilizer to small farmers.

Analyze the fundamentals of a real-world negotiation; Consider cultural implications for negotiation strategy; Consider negotiation strategy decisions particular to the context: commodity purchase, developing country, etc. Understand how the economic and political context affects negotiations; Understand the importance of relationships in negotiations.

It is important to infer and diagnose whether a negotiator is trustworthy. In international negotiations, people may assume that high-trust nations are more likely to produce more trustworthy negotiators. Does this assumption hold universally? This study aims to address this research question by investigating the relationship between national-level societal trust and individual-level trust in negotiations.

This study uses a cross-sectional research design and a sample of 910 senior managers from 58 nations or regions. The hypotheses are tested by hierarchical linear modeling.

This study draws on the dynamic constructivist theory of culture to propose moderated hypotheses. Results show that societal trust predicts individuals’ social perceptions of attitudinal trust in negotiations, only when cultural face norms are weak rather than strong; societal trust predicts individuals’ social perceptions of behavioral trust in negotiations (i.e. high information sharing and low competitive behavior), only when negotiators process information analytically rather than holistically.

This study is the first to examine the relationship between national-level societal trust (i.e. generalized trust) and individual-level trust in negotiations (i.e. particularistic trust). It uses a large-scale, multinational sample to show that relying on societal trust to infer trust in negotiations is valid only in Western societies.

This study aims to address three important but under-researched questions in the trust and negotiation literature: What do negotiators do to determine the trustworthiness of a potential business partner? What trust criteria motivate their search and help them interpret the information their search reveals? Whether there are systematic cultural differences in search and criteria, and if different, why?

This study used qualitative methodology. The data are from interviews with 82 managers from 33 different national cultures in four regions of the world identified by cultural levels of trust in negotiation and tightness-looseness. Interviews focused on how negotiators determined the trustworthiness of potential business partners in intracultural negotiations.

Analyses revealed four search activities negotiators use to gather information about a potential business partner: due diligence, brokerage, good will building and testing; and five criteria for determining the trustworthiness of a new business partner: respect, mutual values, competence, openness and professionalism. Quotes illustrate how these search activities and criteria manifest in different cultures.

This study used multiple cases to build a longitudinal picture of the process. It did not follow a single case in depth. The study focused on identifying cultural central tendencies at the same time recognizing that there is always variability within a culture.

Knowing what is culturally normative allows negotiators to anticipate, interpret and respect their counterpart’s behavior. Such knowledge should facilitate trust development.

This study provides an in-depth understanding of cultural similarities and differences in the process of trust development in negotiating new business relationships.

The first across-the-table negotiation between Google and China concluded successfully in 2006, when Google received a license to establish a local domain (google.cn) targeted at Chinese Internet users and not subject to the “Great Firewall.” During these negotiations both Google and the Chinese government struggled to reach an outcome that would be acceptable to their constituents. Google was caught between pleasing its shareholders and preserving its reputation for free access to information, while China was balancing the desire for cutting-edge search technology and the concern that liberal access to information would undermine its political-economic model. In the end, the negotiation resulted in Google operating two domains in China: Google.com and Google.cn. In early 2010, Google announced that its corporate infrastructure had been the target of a series of China-based cyber attacks and accused the Chinese government of attempting to further limit free speech on the web. These incidents led to a public conflict and private negotiations between Google and the Chinese government, which culminated in July 2010 when the Chinese government renewed the google.cn license knowing that Google was redirecting all Chinese customers search to its google.hk.com site This case concerns the changes in Google and the Chinese government's environment that led to Google withdrawing services from google.cn and the Chinese government saving face by renewing the google.cn license. The case is based on the publicly reported events surrounding two series of negotiations between the U.S. technology giant Google and the Chinese Government regarding Google's license in China.

Based on the negotiation between Google and the Chinese government to allow access by Chinese citizens to a high-speed Chinese version of the Google search engine. In order to reach agreement with the Chinese government, Google had to agree to allow the government to censor access to some sites turned up by Google's search engine. In agreeing, Google compromised its open-access policy. There were inquiries into the agreement by the U.S. Congress and some outcry from U.S. citizens.

To learn how to analyze a negotiation from the perspective of each party when one is a government and the other a private-sector organization; a subpoint here is the difference between short-term and longer-term interests. To address the difficulties of balancing business ethics and financial objectives; an important point here is to address what it means to be ethical in a for-profit business environment. To understand the long-term effects of short-term actions.

This study aims to explain to negotiators how to go about learning about their counterpart’s interests and priorities and the strategies they are likely to bring to the intercultural negotiation table.

This study provides a review of theoretical and empirical literature on culture and negotiation strategy.

This study helps to understand the counterpart’s environment, including recent developments on the political economic and social front that define and constrain the role of the firm in society, affect the firm’s access to capital, generate the criteria by which society evaluates the firm and determine the level of involvement of government in the firm’s affairs. This study also explains how to investigate the counterpart’s interests and priorities – the motivations that underlie negotiator’s positions. Finally, it explains how to use multi-issue offers (MIOs) and patterns of changes in MIOs to infer the counterpart’s interests and priorities.

Negotiating in a global environment benefits from a clear understanding of how negotiators’ cultures influence their interests and priorities and the strategies they bring to the intercultural negotiation table.

This research proposes and evaluates hypotheses about patterns of communication in a multi‐party, multi‐issue negotiation. Data were from 36 four‐person groups. We found that the majority of groups initiated negotiations with a distributive phase and ended with an integrative phase—strong support for Morley and Stephenson's (1979) rational model of negotiation. We identified transitions between both strategic orientations (integration, distribution) and strategic functions (action, information), but found that the first transition was more likely to result in a change of orientation than of function and that negotiators were more likely to change either orientation or function (single transition) than to change both aspects of the negotiation simultaneously (double transition). Finally, we determined that negotiators used process and closure strategies to interrupt distributive phases and redirect negotiations to an integrative phase.

When researchers Jeanne Brett of Northwestern University and James Werbel of University of Texas at San Antonio set out to study the behaviour of transferred employees and their families, they found them coping with change in a variety of ways. Their findings included: