Business Commons^™

Understanding Conflict Avoiding Behavior In China : The Role Of Goal Interdependence And Behavioral Intentions, Lin Wang

Theses & Dissertations

It is a commonly held belief that people from collectivistic, large power distance or high-context cultures, such as China, tend to be less confrontational, which could be counter-productive in organizations. Contrary to this traditional view, this study posits that conflict avoidance can be constructive depending on the specific actions protagonists take. It adopts Deutsch’s (1973) theory of cooperation and competition to understand conflict avoiding behavior between employees and their supervisors, indicating that people’s perceptions of goal interdependence significantly influence their behavioral intentions that in turn predict their overt actions to avoid conflict. Specifically, it proposes that goal interdependence greatly affects …