Conflict Handling A Cross Cultural Analysis On Differences Between French And Chinese Management

Purpose:The purpose of this paper will be to evaluate the differences between French and Chinese in their approach to conflict.This paper will also delve into how French and Chinese will navigate conflicts and their differences.Methodology/approach:Through an experiment measuring the time it takes for a conflict to break out and the kind of vocabulary used during the disagreement,the author evaluated how conflict was handled by both French and Chinese and the differences.The experiment consisted in an activity,being the planning of a wedding according to customer specifications,to do in pair.The two people participating were the subject,and an accomplice playing the role of the manager of the subject.Thus,the accomplice by proposing ideas that would go against the customer request for their wedding,created the possibility for the subject to express his disagreement and enter into conflict.The author acting only as the experimenter for the experiment gathered the reaction through recording which provided the data used in this paper.The data was then treated statistically and studied to understand how culture impacted the tendency to enter into conflict and manage it.Findings:French people will more easily enter into conflict and use a more assertive vocabulary compared with Chinese people who will try to convince their counterpart through more convoluted way.This research noticed a clear difference in term of number of conflict and in term of when the first conflict occurred between the two groups.Furthermore,and what is even more interesting is how the conflict took place.Chinese and French used really different vocabulary and wording to express their disagreement.It was observed during the experiment that French would heavily rely on words linked to their individuality to manifest their opinion.Whereas Chinese would prefer to use general assumptions,or speak about"what people do" than their own experience.An unexpected observation came up though.Where French people enter into more conflict than Chinese,they won't insist as much.They tended to give up easily once the manager dismissed there claim once or twice.On the contrary Chinese,tended to stick a bit longer to their disagreement and even though being much less straightforward would still try to obtain the decision they want.Practical applications:In term of practical application,this paper bring a highly interesting insight as how subordinates from French or Chinese culture will act in the context of work.Knowing that French will be at ease in opening conflict but will surprisingly shy away relatively quickly in front of an assertive manager and that their Chinese counterpart might not speak up on their disagreement and will use convoluted way in order to reach their goal.All this give managers confronted to multicultural team an edge to better understand and manage their subordinates.It is also relevant for people other than managers to better understand how themselves might act in front of their manager and colleagues.