Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-skm99 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T14:04:29.280Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Intervening in Employee Disputes: How and When Will Managers from China, Japan and the USA Act Differently?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2015

Jeanne M. Brett ,
Catherine H. Tinsley ,
Debra L. Shapiro  and
Tetsushi Okumura
Jeanne M. Brett
Affiliation:
Northwestern University, USA
Catherine H. Tinsley
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, USA
Debra L. Shapiro
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, USA
Tetsushi Okumura
Affiliation:
Graduate School of Nagoya City University, Japan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We investigated how third party managers from China, Japan and the USA intervened in employees' disputes. Consistent with predictions, we found (using non-linear HLM analysis) that managers who were superiors to the disputants behaved autocratically and/or decided on conservative (e.g., contract adhering) outcomes; but managers who were peers (especially in China and the USA), generally involved disputants in decision-making and obtained integrative outcomes that went beyond initial contract related mandates. Our results extend prior research and theorizing using the dispositional and constructivist perspectives on culture by introducing norm complexity as an explanation for variations in third party conflict intervention behaviour within one culture.

Keywords

constructivist theoryculturedispositional theorydispute resolutionthird party文化冲突调停第三方特质论建构论
Type
Articles
Information
Management and Organization Review , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , July 2007 , pp. 183 - 204
Copyright
Copyright © International Association for Chinese Management Research 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adler, N.J. 1991. International dimensions of organizational behavior (2nd ed.). Boston, Mass.: PWS-Kent.Google Scholar
Barry, B., & Shapiro, D. L. 2000. When will grievants choose voice: A test of situational, motivational, and attributional explanations. International Journal of Conflict Management, 11(2): 106–134.Google Scholar
Brett, J. M. 2001. Negotiating globally: How to negotiate deals, resolve disputes, and make decisions across cultural boundaries. San Francisco, Calif: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Brett, J. M., Karambayya, R., Tinsley, C. H., & Lytle, A. 2006. ‘The Paradise Project’. Northwestern University, Dispute Resolution Research Center, Negotiation, teamwork, and decision making exercises.Google Scholar
Briley, D. A., Morris, M. W., & Simonson, I. 2000. Reasons as carriers of culture: Dynamic versus dispositional models of cultural influence on decision making. Journal of Consumer Research, 27: 157–178.Google Scholar
Brislin, R. W. 1980. Translation and content analysis of oral and written materials. In Triandis, H. C. & Berry, J. W. (Eds.), Handbook of cross-cultural psychology, Vol. 2: 389–444. Boston, Mass.: Allyn & Bacon.Google Scholar
Cattell, R. 1988. What is and what might be in present-day research methods concepts. In Nesselroade, J. R. & Cattell, R. B. (Eds.), Handbook of multivariate experimental psychology: 10–20. New York N.Y.: Plenum Press. Available from URL: http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/product/enduse/imports/c2010.html; http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/product/enduse/exports/index.html.Google Scholar
Economist Intelligence Unit. 2003. Country profile: China. London: The Economist Intelligence Unit. Available from URL: http://www.eiu.com/china.Google Scholar
Elangovan, A. R. 1995. Managerial third-party dispute intervention: A prescriptive model of strategy selection. Academy of Management Journal, 20(4): 800–830.Google Scholar
Gelfand, M., & Realo, A. 1999. Individualism-collectivism and accountability in intergroup negotiations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84(5): 721–736.Google Scholar
Heine, S. J., Lehman, D. R., Peng, K., & Greenholtz, J. 2002. What's wrong with cross-cultural comparisons of subjective Likert scales? The reference group effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(6): 903–918.Google Scholar
Hofstede, G. 1980. Culture's consequences: International differences in work-related values. Beverly Hüls, Calif: Sage.Google Scholar
Hong, Y., Morris, M. W., Chiu, C., & Benet-Martinez, V. 2000. Multicultural minds: A dynamic constructivist approach to culture and cognition. American Psychologist, 55(7): 709–720.Google Scholar
Karambayya, R., & Brett, J. 1989. Managers handling disputes. Academy of Management Journal, 32: 687–704.Google Scholar
Karambayya, R., Brett, J. M., & Lytle, A. 1992. Effects of formal authority and experience on third-party roles, outcomes, and perceptions of fairness. Academy of ManagementJournal, 35: 426–438.Google Scholar
Kirkman, B. L., & Shapiro, B. L. 1997. The impact of national culture on employee resistance to teams: Toward a model of globalized self-managing work team effectiveness. Academy of Management Review, 22(3): 730–757.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirkman, B. L., & Shapiro, D. L. 2001. The impact of cultural values on job satisfaction and organizational commitment in self-managing work teams: The mediating role of employee resistance. Academy of Management Journal, 44(3): 557–569.Google Scholar
Kitayama, S. 2002. Culture and basic psychological processes – toward a system view of culture: Comment on Oyserman et al. (2002). Psychological Bulletin, 128: 89–96.Google Scholar
Laurent, A. 1983. The cultural diversity of western conception of management. International Studies of Management and Organization, 13(1-2): 75–96.Google Scholar
Leung, K., & Bond, M. 1989. On the empirical identification of dimensions for cross-cultural comparison. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 20: 133–151.Google Scholar
Lind, E. A., Kanfer, R.Earley, C. 1990. Voice, control, and procedural justice: Instrumental and noninstrumental concerns in fairness judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59: 952–959.Google Scholar
Lytle, A. L., Brett, J. M., Barnsness, Z. I., Tinsley, C. H.Janssens, M. 1995. A paradigm for quantitative cross-cultural research in organization behavior. In Staw, B. M. & Cummings, L. L. (Eds.), Research in organization behavior, Vol. 17: 167–214. Greenwich, Conn.: JAI press.Google Scholar
March, R. M. 1990. The Japanese negotiator: Subtlety and strategy beyond western logic. New York N.Y.: Kodansha International.Google Scholar
Morris, M. W., & Fu, H.-Y. 2001. How does culture influence conflict resolution? A dynamic constructivist analysis. Social Cognition, 19(3): 324–349.Google Scholar
Morris, M., & Gelfand, M. 2004. Cultural differences and cognitive dynamics: Expanding the cognitive perspective on negotiation. In Gelfand, M.J. & Brett, J. M. (Eds.), The handbook of negotiation and culture: Theoretical advances and cultural perspectives: 45–70. Palo Alto, Calif: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Morris, M. W., & Peng, K. 1994. Culture and cause: American and Chinese attributions for social and physical events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(6): 949–971.Google Scholar
Oyserman, D., Coon, H. M., & Kemmelmeier, M. 2002. Rethinking individualism and collectivism: Evaluation of theoretical assumptions and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 128: 3–72.Google Scholar
Raudenbush, S. W., & Bryk, A. S. 2002. Hierarchical linear models: Applications and data analysis methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage.Google Scholar
Schneider, S. C., & Barsoux, J. L. 1997. Managing across cultures. London: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Schwartz, S. H. 1994. Beyond individualism/collectivism: New cultural dimensions of values. In Kim, U., Triandis, H. C., & Yoon, G. (Eds.), Individualism and collectivism: 85–117. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Shapiro, D. L., & Brett, J. M. 2005. What is the role of control in organizational justice? In Greenberg, J. & Colquitt, J. A. (Eds.), Handbook of organizational justice: 155–178. Mahwah, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Shapiro, D. L., & Tinsley, C. 2001. Intervening ‘fairly’ in employee disputes among nationally-different employees: Is this possible? In Gilliland, S., Steiner, D., & Skarlicki, D. (Eds.), Research in social issues in management: Theoretical and cultural perspectives on organizational justice, Vol. 1: 187–213. New York N.Y.: Information Age Publishing, Inc.Google Scholar
Tinsley, C. H. 1998. Models of conflict resolution in Japanese, German, and American cultures. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83(2): 316–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tinsley, C. H. 2001. How we get to yes: Predicting the constellation of conflict management strategies that are used across cultures. Journal ofApplied Psychology, 86(4): 583–593.Google Scholar
Tinsley, C. H., & Brett, J. M. 2001. Managing work place conflict in the United States and Hong Kong. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 85(2): 360–381.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tinsley, C. H., & Pillutla, M. 1998. The influence of culture on business negotiations in the U.S. and Hong Kong. Journal of International Business Studies, 29(4): 711–728.Google Scholar
United States Department of Commerce. 2003. US Foreign Trade Highlights. Available from URL: http://www.ita.doc.gov/td/industry/otea/usfth/tabcon.html/.Google Scholar
Von Glinow, M. A., Shapiro, D. L., & Brett, J. M. 2004. Can we talk, and should we?: Managing emotional conflict in multicultural teams. Academy of Management Review, 29(4): 578–592.Google Scholar