Understandings of conflict: a cross-cultural investigation

Two understandings of "conflict" are derived from a multi-cultural East-West experience: as a fundamental threat in which conflict is normally avoided, and as competitive games in which conflict is associated with confrontation and negotiation, and is sought after. Suggests that it is the view of conflict as competitive games that is promoted through "managerialism" and that it is this view that is largely being transferred to post-iron-Curtain countries, despite the fact that conflict as competitive games does not lend itself easily to HR and management practice in cross cultural situations. Questions the appropriateness of transporting models of HR that promulgate the free-market myth to transitional economies.