Conflict Management Style Preference: Does National Culture Matters?

This study is aimed at identifying the conflict management style' preference of Pakistanis and Chinese managers, who are working in hydropower projects of Azad Kashmir. It also explores the role of national culture dimensions in the choice of conflict management style. It seeks to answer the question, whether the dimensions of a certain national culture, plays any role in the choice of conflict management style of its followers, especially when they are working in multicultural work environment? Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory (ROCI) is used to identify the preferred conflict management styles of managers and Cultural Values Scale (CVSCALE) measures Hofstede's cultural dimensions at individual level. A sample of 201 Pakistanis and Chinese was surveyed via close ended questionnaire through emails and in person. Descriptive statistics and linear regression were applied to tests the hypothesized relationship by using SPSS. The Chinese and Pakistanis managers prefer to use avoiding and compromising style, respectively. Both are higher power distant, collectivist and masculine; however, Chinese managers fall on higher side of the continuum of these three dimensions. The Pakistanis managers are risk averse as compare to their Chinese counterparts. The strong and significant regression results bolstered our research argument that national culture dimensions are the major determinants of the choice of conflict management style of managers. The research findings augment our understanding of Pakistani and Chinese culture and how these cultures shape the conflict management strategy of their followers. This enhanced understanding is instrumental in embracing diversity at work place and managing its negative effects. Further, it mitigates the adverse effects of the destructive conflicts at culturally diverse workplaces, which is curial to success and failure of such organization/projects. This research adds values to existing literature on conflict management styles in Pakistan as no effort has been made earlier, which has jointly explored the conflict handling style of Pakistani and Chinese managers, along with, investigating the role of Hofstede' national culture dimensions in choice of management styles, especially when Chinese and Pakistani are working together in a home-foreign land setting.