Interpersonal conflict between employees and managers: The Chinese immigrants experiences of acculturation in New Zealand public sector workplaces

<p>With the increase in globalisation and migration, the future workplace will become more culturally diverse. Significant literature points out that culturally diverse workplaces can create organisational conflict because of the workers’ differences in cultural values, attitudes, and work styles. New Zealand, like other countries, has also faced the challenge of an increasingly diverse workforce. Although the associations between cultural diversity and conflict management styles in different countries have been widely discussed, the existing literature focuses more on comparison studies with participants who are from different countries. There is a lack of research investigating Chinese employees who live overseas and work in overseas organisations. Research on how young Chinese migrants cope with conflict in New Zealand organisations is scarce. The purpose of this study is to explore Chinese migrant employees’ preferences for styles of conflict management and the reasons they perceive these styles, as well as the influence of acculturation and ethnic identity orientation. The study argues that acculturation, the process of cultural change, is one of the factors that relates to the use and perceptions of different conflict management styles. This study explores how immigrants who have acculturated, learned and adopted their host society’s cultural characteristics, perceived and faced conflict issues in the workplace. More particularly, this study investigates how the role of ethnic identity influences different conflict management styles. A qualitative phenomenological method is employed in this study to obtain a deeper picture of conflict phenomena among Chinese migrant employees who have been through the process of acculturation. This method is useful for describing the lived experiences of conflict and acculturation. The data consisted of twenty one in-depth interviews with Chinese migrant employees from mainland China who work in twenty different New Zealand public sector organisations. The findings of this study reveal that due to their acculturation experiences, interviewees have developed an integrated bicultural identity that is rooted in good feelings about being New Zealanders, accompanied by a positive sense of Chinese ethnic identity. They view their own identity as a combination of both New Zealand and Chinese identities. Depending on the situation and the nature of their interpersonal relationships, interviewees can switch between these two identities without a problematic struggle. Based on the influence of this integrated bicultural identity, the study finds that young Chinese migrant employees prefer to use a combination of integrating and compromising conflict management styles. The tendency to use integrating conflict management is highly influenced by their adaptation to New Zealand cultural values and attitudes. Being New Zealanders gives these bicultural Chinese migrant employees confidence to confront and integrate conflict directly, and solve it in cooperative manner. The findings also show that Chinese beliefs and values continue to be maintained. The principles of Confucianism are deeply rooted and included showing mutual respect, avoiding embarrassment to other parties, controlling emotions or psychological impulses. Under the influence of being Chinese, young Chinese migrant employees incline towards compromising style depending on the circumstances. However, if integrating and compromising styles fail to resolve the conflict because the other party refuses harmony and escalates the conflict, young Chinese migrant employees would change their strategies by asking for third-party interventions and seeking for a sense of justice and fairness.</p>

Interpersonal conflict between employees and managers: The Chinese immigrants experiences of acculturation in New Zealand public sector workplaces

<p>With the increase in globalisation and migration, the future workplace will become more culturally diverse. Significant literature points out that culturally diverse workplaces can create organisational conflict because of the workers’ differences in cultural values, attitudes, and work styles. New Zealand, like other countries, has also faced the challenge of an increasingly diverse workforce. Although the associations between cultural diversity and conflict management styles in different countries have been widely discussed, the existing literature focuses more on comparison studies with participants who are from different countries. There is a lack of research investigating Chinese employees who live overseas and work in overseas organisations. Research on how young Chinese migrants cope with conflict in New Zealand organisations is scarce. The purpose of this study is to explore Chinese migrant employees’ preferences for styles of conflict management and the reasons they perceive these styles, as well as the influence of acculturation and ethnic identity orientation. The study argues that acculturation, the process of cultural change, is one of the factors that relates to the use and perceptions of different conflict management styles. This study explores how immigrants who have acculturated, learned and adopted their host society’s cultural characteristics, perceived and faced conflict issues in the workplace. More particularly, this study investigates how the role of ethnic identity influences different conflict management styles. A qualitative phenomenological method is employed in this study to obtain a deeper picture of conflict phenomena among Chinese migrant employees who have been through the process of acculturation. This method is useful for describing the lived experiences of conflict and acculturation. The data consisted of twenty one in-depth interviews with Chinese migrant employees from mainland China who work in twenty different New Zealand public sector organisations. The findings of this study reveal that due to their acculturation experiences, interviewees have developed an integrated bicultural identity that is rooted in good feelings about being New Zealanders, accompanied by a positive sense of Chinese ethnic identity. They view their own identity as a combination of both New Zealand and Chinese identities. Depending on the situation and the nature of their interpersonal relationships, interviewees can switch between these two identities without a problematic struggle. Based on the influence of this integrated bicultural identity, the study finds that young Chinese migrant employees prefer to use a combination of integrating and compromising conflict management styles. The tendency to use integrating conflict management is highly influenced by their adaptation to New Zealand cultural values and attitudes. Being New Zealanders gives these bicultural Chinese migrant employees confidence to confront and integrate conflict directly, and solve it in cooperative manner. The findings also show that Chinese beliefs and values continue to be maintained. The principles of Confucianism are deeply rooted and included showing mutual respect, avoiding embarrassment to other parties, controlling emotions or psychological impulses. Under the influence of being Chinese, young Chinese migrant employees incline towards compromising style depending on the circumstances. However, if integrating and compromising styles fail to resolve the conflict because the other party refuses harmony and escalates the conflict, young Chinese migrant employees would change their strategies by asking for third-party interventions and seeking for a sense of justice and fairness.</p>

Conflict Management Styles and Innovation Performance

The aim of this research is to empirically investigate the relationship between conflict management styles (CMSs), organizational agility, and innovation performance. Covariance-based structural equation modeling was used to test Rahim and Bonoma conflict management styles and their relations to organizational agility and innovation performance. A total of 460 questionnaires were collected from the Jordanian telecommunication companies. Findings revealed that integrating style has a significant impact on the organizational agility and innovation performance. Organizational agility mediates the relationship between compromising and integrating conflict styles and innovation performance. The obliging, dominating, and avoiding conflict management styles have an insignificant effect on innovation performance. This research has significantly contributed to the existing literature where prior studies were mainly conducted in the Western context. The conflict management field is still under research in the Middle Eastern business context.

Applying Conflict Management Styles to Resolve Task Conflict and Enhance Team Innovation

Task conflicts among group members have a significant impact on team creativity, so it is critical to identify which conflict resolution styles should be used. This paper aims to examine how various conflict management styles influence team creativity via task conflict. The empirical research was conducted using the Structural Equation Model (SEM) for a sample of 257 employees working for Vietnamese organizations. The results show that dominating style increases task conflict while combining and obliging styles reduce it. To take advantage of the creativity-related benefits associated with task conflict, team leaders should develop an open atmosphere that encourages participants' integrating styles, rather than dominating styles. The negative influence of obliging style reflects Vietnamese culture's high collectivism. The study provides various approaches for task conflict management and also highlights the role of controlling task conflicts in enhancing team innovation. It implies that employees will be able to work better as a team in practice if conflict management strategies are used in a flexible manner. It helps them to build a good connection and successfully implement new ideas. Further research should extend the conclusion of this analysis in various contexts to generalize the findings. Doi: 10.28991/esj-2021-01303 Full Text: PDF

LEVEL OF CONFLICT MANAGEMENT STYLE AND COMMITMENT OF BACHOK DISTRICT SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS

Interpersonal conflict is a very common and unavoidable phenomenon in any organization including schools. Therefore, it requires an approach to handle it to ensure the effectiveness of the organization on an ongoing basis, and whether directly or indirectly it affects the commitment of teachers in the school. The purpose of this study is to identify the level of the conflict management style of teachers, especially in day secondary schools in the district of Bachok, Kelantan. A total of 173 teachers from five schools in the Bachok district in Kelantan participated in this study. The results of the study show that the level of each dimension of conflict management is at a high level. While the level of each dimension of teacher commitment is also at a high level. In addition, the results of the study showed that there were no significant differences in conflict management styles based on gender, age, teaching experience, and educational level. Researchers have suggested that the MOE take several initiatives to reduce conflict among teachers by providing exposure through training, courses, workshops, and seminars on effective and constructive conflict management to increase teachers' commitment towards further excellence in the field of education today.

The Effect of Political Skill on Relationship Quality in Construction Projects: The Mediating Effect of Cooperative Conflict Management Styles

Negative consequences can arise if interpersonal conflicts in construction projects are not handled properly. This study aims to investigate the relationship among political skill, cooperative conflict management styles, and relationship quality. Multiple regressions were used to test the hypothesis based on 206 items of data collected from construction project practitioners in China. Results demonstrate the mechanism of action among political skill, conflict management styles, and relationship quality and verify the mediating effect of cooperative conflict management styles, providing enlightenment for future research on conflict management.

Conflict dynamics and management patterns of student nurses in governement hospitals in Adamawa state, Nigeria / Dinâmica de conflito e padrões de gestão de enfermeiras estudantes em hospitais do governo do estado de Adamawa, Nigéria

The complexities associated with healthcare centres have made conflict a part and parcel of their operational milieus. Student nurses on formal clinical training, being part of the system, are not resistant to the deleterious outcomes of such conflicts. Thus, this is study assessed conflict dynamics and management strategies of student nurses in government hospitals in Adamawa State, Nigeria. A descriptive survey design was adopted and a sample of 160 student nurses was selected through random sampling technique. A self-structured questionnaire titled “Student Nursing Conflict Questionnaire” (SNCQ) was used to elicit primary data. Data collected were analysed with frequency counts, percentage and standard deviation. The study discovered that the majority of student nurses frequently encountered conflict (50.6%) in hospitals and they often perceived it as something bad (70.6%). Also, the major types of conflict often experienced by student nurses were “nurse-student nurse conflict” (NSC) (36.9%) and “patient relatives-student nurse conflict” (PRSC) (36.9%). The main causes of these conflicts were lateness to the hospital ( = 3.375) and unclear definition of responsibilities between student nurses and other auxiliary health workers ( = 3.338). Furthermore, the main consequences of conflict on student nurses were lowering their productivity ( = 3.550) and discouraging effective training of student nurses ( = 3.569). The conflict management styles often adopted by student nurses were collaborating style ( =3.153) and accommodating style ( =3.025). Based on these findings, it was recommended that medical peace education should be promoted in all ramifications in health establishments in order to help those that wish to become health practitioners such as student nurses as well as those already practicing in the field to understand conflict behavioural dynamics for constructive mitigation to enhance their productivity and healthcare service delivery.

Study of Conflict Management Styles of University Teachers at Post-graduate Level: The Impact of Gender and Marital Status

The objective of the study was to identify the conflict management styles of Pakistani teachers teaching at the post-graduate level. The study also aimed to investigate differences, if any, between male and female as well as married and un-married teachers regarding the use of conflict management styles. The sample of the study consisted of 300 male and female teachers from five public universities of Lahore district. We found that collaborating conflict management style is used most frequently by teachers who participated in this study. In this regard, the majority of teachers were found to use the avoiding technique “keep yourself away from conflict” to resolve the conflict. There was a significant difference between married and un-married teachers regarding their competing and compromising conflict management styles. However, no significant difference was found between male and female teachers regarding their conflict management styles. More research may be conducted in academic institutions regarding conflict management skills among teachers. The study suggested that educational institutions may also formulate their teams of expert teachers, which may work effectively during the times of conflicts or crisis.