Research On Cross-Cultural Conflict Management Of Chinese-Owned Enterprises In Ethiopia

With the steady development of China’s economy and implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative,more and more Chinese-owned enterprises have undergone internationalization and joined the rank of international corporations.Nowadays,Ethiopia has become an essential destination for investment from Chinese-owned enterprises.While most Chinese-owned enterprises have realized localization of general staff in Ethiopia,they face cultural conflicts brought by cultural differences internally and externally.This problem has a significant impact on companies’ development.Cultural differences between people from China and Ethiopia caused by different histories,social patterns,and economic systems may lead to misunderstanding,friction and even conflicts within the enterprise.Cross-cultural conflicts have the potential to damage the harmony between the management and staff,weaken team cohesiveness,and thus are not in the interest of global strategy implementation by Chinese-owned enterprises.Hence,how to implement crosscultural conflict management has become an essential and inevitable subject for Chinese-owned enterprises.At present,many scholars at home and abroad are studying the problems of cultural conflicts and cross-cultural conflict management.Nevertheless,researches by domestic scholars in this field are mostly biased,focusing more on the cultural adaptation and conflict management confronted with joint ventures or International enterprises in China.In contrast,researches on cultural conflicts and cross-cultural conflict management of Chinese-owned enterprises in other regions and countries are still insufficient.This is especially true for Chinese-owned enterprises in African countries including Ethiopia.Moreover,empirical researches on relevant crosscultural conflict management are yet to be fulfilled.Huajian International Shoes City(hereinafter referred to as Huajian(Ethiopia))is one of the first Chinese-owned enterprises that settle in Ethiopia.Combined with a literature review concerning Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory and a model ofcultural integration,this thesis conducts an interview on real circumstances and problems of Huajian(Ethiopia)in the process of cross-cultural conflict management along with a questionnaire survey of 200 in total Chinese and Ethiopian employees.Based on the above analysis,this thesis aims to discover the problems,specific causes and solutions to cross-cultural conflicts of case enterprise,thus contributing to the optimization of cross-cultural conflict management.This thesis found that there exist five types of cross-cultural conflicts in Huajian(Ethiopia),which include value orientation,business philosophy,management mode,institutional culture,and communication.They can be attributed to such factors as the non-integration of values,neglect of communication,and lack of experiences in crosscultural conflict management.Therefore,this thesis proposes to achieve cultural integration through cultural innovation to tackle cross-cultural conflicts between two partners of the company and create a distinctive corporate culture.This thesis further proposes to solve the problems of inadequate communication,conflicts in business philosophy and management modes by improving communication mechanism and promoting internal communication.In response to the lack of experiences in crosscultural conflict management,it suggests strengthening personnel training and cultivating an efficient cross-cultural management team.