Recent research has suggested that employees are highly affected by perceptions of their managers' pattern of word-action consistency, which T. Simons (2002) called behavioral integrity (BI). The authors of the present study suggest that some employee racial groups may be more attentive to BI than others. They tested this notion using data from 1,944 employees working at 107 different hotels and found that Black employees rated their managers as demonstrating lower BI than did non-Black employees. Mediation analyses were consistent with the notion that these differences in perceived BI in turn account for cross-race differences in trust in management, interpersonal justice, commitment, satisfaction, and intent to stay. Results of hierarchical linear modeling were consistent with the idea that middle managers' perceptions of their senior managers' BI "trickle down" to affect line employee perceptions of the middle managers and that this trickle-down effect is stronger for Black employees. The authors interpret these results as indicative of heightened sensitivity to managers' BI on the part of Black employees. They also found a reverse in-group effect, in that Black employees were substantially more critical of Black managers than were non-Black employees.

This paper develops an expectancy model for Chinese-American differences in conflict-avoiding, and tests this model using a scenario study with respondents from Taiwan and the US. Our results show that a higher Chinese tendency to avoid conflict is explained by higher Chinese expectations that direct conflict will hurt the relationship with the other party, and by greater concern for the other party among Chinese. It is not, however, explained by differences in the expected career costs/benefits of good/bad relations with others. Also, Chinese are more sensitive to hierarchy than Americans, so that avoiding is heightened more for Chinese than for Americans when the other party is of higher status. Qualitative results suggest that Chinese-American differences in time frames may also explain differences in avoiding. Implications for businesses and management are suggested.

In an increasingly globalized workplace, the ability to communicate effectively across cultures is critical. We propose that the quality of communication experienced by individuals plays a significant role in the outcomes of intercultural interactions, such as cross-border negotiations. In four studies, we developed and validated a multidimensional conceptualization of Quality of Communication Experience (QCE) and examined its consequences in intracultural versus intercultural business negotiation. We proposed and found three dimensions of QCE, namely Clarity, Responsiveness, and Comfort. Findings from intercultural and same-cultural negotiations supported the hypotheses that QCE is lower in intercultural than intracultural negotiation; and that a higher degree of QCE leads to better negotiation outcomes. Moreover, we found evidence that the beneficial effects of higher QCE on negotiation outcomes are more pronounced in intercultural than intracultural negotiation. We propose an agenda for future research and identify implications for practice. --Gergen, 1994 pp. viii At no time in human history has the contact between individuals from different cultures been greater. Today, managers and professionals at all levels work and interact with people from different cultural backgrounds. Employees travel around broader regions while their jobs remain headquartered in one place. Global virtual teams are created to address important strategic challenges and to enable companies to become globally competitive. Supplier and customer value chains circle the globe. As a result of this globalization process at both the societal and organizational levels, it becomes more and more important to be aware of cultural differences and be able to interact effectively with people from other cultures (e.g. Adler, 2002;Lane, DiStefano & Maznevski, 2006). Since communication is the "heart" and "central instrumental process" (Lewicki & Literer, 1985; p. 157) in social interactions, we propose that the quality of communication experience (QCE) of those involved in international business is likely to be consequential because it affects the dynamics and outcomes of these intercultural encounters.Intercultural negotiation represents one of the most common and critical challenges in conducting international business. The specific interaction involved in cross-cultural negotiation presents an ideal situation in which to explore the consequences of QCE due to the criticality of information sharing, the high level of uncertainty experienced by those involved, and the need for negotiators to come to a common understanding (Carroll & Payne, 1991). Gibson, Maznevski and Kirkman (2009) argue that the influence of culture on individuals' behavior is strongest in situations that do not provide specific guidance or explicit rules on how to deal with cultural differences, as well as those that require close collaboration among people. Mixed motive and 3 multi-issue negotiation that involves both distributive and integrative issues is one such...

This research examines the dynamics of consensus building in intracultural and intercultural negotiations achieved through the convergence of mental models between negotiators. Working from a dynamic constructivist view, according to which the effects of culture are socially and contextually contingent, we theorize and show in two studies of U.S. and Chinese negotiators that while consensus might be generally easier to achieve in intracultural negotiation settings than intercultural settings, the effects of culture depend on the epistemic and social motives of the parties. As hypothesized, we find that movement toward consensus (in the form of mental model convergence) is more likely among intracultural than intercultural negotiating dyads and that negotiators’ epistemic and social motives moderated these effects: need for closure inhibited consensus more for intercultural than intracultural dyads, while concern for face fostered consensus more for intercultural than intracultural dyads. Our theory and findings suggest that consensus building is not necessarily more challenging in cross-cultural negotiations but depends on the epistemic and social motivations of the individuals negotiating.

In this study, we examine culture‐specific relationships between individual differences and distributive negotiations. We measured individual characteristics and their effects on distributive negotiations in both American[1] and Chinese cultures, using a Western‐based scale (the ‘Big Five’) and a Chinese‐based scale (CPAI). We found that agreeableness and extraversion (from the ‘Big Five’) affected negotiations for Americans, but not for Chinese. We found that harmony, face and Ren Qing (from the Chinese‐based scales) affected negotiations for Chinese, but not for Americans. Specifically, we found that in the American culture, those higher in extraversion and agreeableness achieved lower economic gain, whereas in the Chinese context that those high in harmony, face, and Ren Qing were more likely to be influenced by opening offers and achieve lower economic gain in distributive negotiations. Our study highlights the need to examine negotiations using culturally sensitive constructs and measures.