conflict management styles Malaysia vs USA

Cross-cultural conflict management According to the research of Geert Hofstede, Malaysia scores a 26 on individualism, which means that it is a collectivist country, characterized by “long-term commitment to the member group”, where loyalty is one of the most important aspects of the culture (Hofstede Insights, 2018). Because collectivist cultures place a value on long-term relationships, and loyalty to the group, these elements help define when conflict exists, and how it is resolved.

Indeed, the idea of conflict itself is subject to cultural values – the American view of conflict tends to reflect when two people disagree on something, and that disagreement seems to be intractable. Yet, in many of Asia’s collectivist cultures, the approaches to conflict are quite different. Part of the difference is that in the US, interpersonal conflict can be resolved by the two parties simply walking away from the transaction or conflict.

In Asia, time frames are longer and relationships matter more, so people may define conflict differently. In essence, if there is interpersonal disagreement in a country like Malaysia, the two people might realize that they need to continue working together or living together, for a much longer period of time. The ability to simply walk away is much lower, and that raises the bar for what is even perceived as conflict.

A small slight can be the source of conflict in America, but in most collectivist cultures small slights are simply not considered a worthwhile source of conflict. In Malaysia, the preference of conflict resoluition styles is for the integrating and compromising styles, whereas in the US the preference is for the competing style (Lather, Jain & Shukla, 2010). There are a couple of reasons why Malaysia is so different in this regard.

Integrating makes sense because Malaysia is an integrated country, consisting of Malay people, Indian people who were brought over by the British in the 19th century, and Chinese, who have been migrating to Malaysia for several hundred years. This mix of people is compelled to live together in one country, so they rely on integration and finding compromise just to make their country work. It is no surprise, therefore, that this is the predominant conflict resolution style in the country.

The integrating and compromising approaches align with face concerns, both self-face and mutual face. The different parties understand that if they work together to find common ground, they can help each other to save face in such negotiations by each coming away with something that they want from the conflict.

There is no desire, as there would be in the United States, to compete to win entirely – both parties recognize that in a collectivist culture there is an ongoing, long-lasting relationship that must be maintained, that compromise is critical to this, and that if all parties come away with something that they want, it will be easier to work together again in the future (Rose, Suppiah & Othman, 2007). Thus, Malaysian conflict resolution style reflects both elements of collectivism and elements that are uniquely Malaysian.

Lather et al (2010) note the differences between Malaysia and other Asian collectivist nations in terms of conflict resolution style preferences. All collectivist cultures show a strong dislike for a dominating style, which is more the preferred style in individualist cultures. This is because an individual winning at the expense of another is seen as a zero sum game, whereas working together to promote mutually satisfactory outcomes is a means by which the collective group can improve their situation and get ahead (Gunkel, Schlaegel & Taras, 2016).

All told, conflict resolution can be quite different around the world, and the collectivism-individualism divide is.