Cross-cultural conflict managementAccording 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...
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,…
