Harmony and Conflict: A Cross-Cultural Investigation in China and Australia

Leung, Kwok; Brew, Frances P.; Zhang, Zhi Xue; Zhang, Yan

doi:10.1177/0022022110363474

Cited by 164 publications

(239 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…In contrast, people high on disintegration avoidance focus on the negative consequences of a strained relationship and avoid actions or events that may hurt interpersonal relationships to protect their self-interest. These two individual orientations have been validated in China and Australia (Leung et al, 2011), as well as in Singapore (Lim, 2009). Across these three cultural groups, harmony enhancement is related to the conflict style of integrating or problem solving, while disintegration avoidance, conflict avoidance.…”

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confidence: 99%

A dispositional approach to psychological climate: Relationships between interpersonal harmony motives and psychological climate for communication safety

Wang¹,

Leung

Zhou

2013

Human Relations

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and motivating environment to help employees fully unfold their potential (e.g., Pfeffer, 1994;Shalley et al., 2000). However, employees do not respond to the work environment mechanically, and their perception and interpretation of the environment are crucial in shaping their attitudinal and behavioural responses (James et al., 1978). For instance, a work environment designed to be motivating may not show the intended effects because employees do not perceive the environment as motivating (e.g., Deci et al., 1999). To address this issue, there has been considerable research in the past several decades on the role and dynamics of psychological climate -defined as 'the meanings that people impute to their jobs, co-workers, leaders, pay, performance expectations, opportunities for promotion, equity of treatment, and the like ' (James et al., 2008: 6). Psychological climate also has important practical implications, as it is related to a variety of major work outcomes, such as organisational commitment, job satisfaction, and performance (Carr et al., 2003;Parker et al., 2003). It is important to note that we are concerned with processes at the individual level, and research on organisational climate (Schneider et al., 2011), which conceptualizes climate as a property of an organisation, is not our focus.Despite the well-documented importance of psychological climate, our knowledge of its antecedents is surprisingly limited. This gap is problematic because a theory of psychological climate is incomplete without a clear understanding of the factors that shape its formation. Indeed, Parker et al. (2003: 408) recommended that 'clarifying the origins of psychological climate perceptions would help to clarify the specific mechanisms by which perceptions of the work environment influence individual outcomes.' The limited research on the antecedents of psychological climate has primarily focused on situational factors, such as 3 supportive supervisor, rewarding co-worker relationships, and high-performance human resource practices (e.g., May et al., 2004;Wei et al., 2010), which are conceptualized as cues for drawing inferences about the nature of a workplace. This line of work, while important, does not consider the possibility that people exhibit some degree of across-situation consistency in the perception of psychological climate because they tend to confirm what they are prepared to see (Snyder and Ickes, 1985). For example, some employees complain vehemently about their work environment even if many other employees perceive the same environment as attractive (Grensing-Pophal, 2001). Situational factors are not the only antecedents of psychological climate, as Brown and Leigh (1996: 359) suggested that 'psychological climate is likely to result from individual differences among employees, from differences in situations (i.e. features of organizational environments), as well as from the interaction between the person and situation.' The lack of research on dispositional antecedents of psychological climate limits the...

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A dispositional approach to psychological climate: Relationships between interpersonal harmony motives and psychological climate for communication safety

Wang¹,

Leung

Zhou

2013

Human Relations

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“…Relating cultural differences in dialectical reasoning to conflict, Leung, Brew, Zhang, and Zhang (2011) suggested that Chinese people perceive harmony as "a two-edged sword with both pros and cons." Moreover, research on culture and emotion has generally shown that, compared to their North American peers, East Asians (high dialectical thinkers) tend to be more comfortable with mixed emotions (e.g., Kitayama, Markus, & Kurokawa, 2000;Schimmack, Oishi, & Diener, 2002), that usually accompany conflict situations.…”

Section: Conflict Culture and Team Identitymentioning

confidence: 99%

When Should We Disagree? The Effect of Conflict on Team Identity in North American and East Asian Teams

Liang¹,

Adair²,

Hideg³

et al. 2012

PsycEXTRA Dataset

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Prior literature on conflict in teams has generally established that team heterogeneity (vs. homogeneity) influences the extent to which conflict occurs in teams. However, to date literature has not examined different types of culturally homogeneous teams' experience of team conflict and its effect on team identity. In two field studies, I look at the effect of team cultural composition and conflict on team identity (Study 1) and the effect of team cultural composition on the tendency to engage in conflict over time (Study 2). Consistent with the literature on culture and dialectical reasoning that suggests East Asians are better able to tolerate contradictions and mixed emotions which usually accompany conflict situations, my results revealed that conflict did not affect East Asian teams' identity, but it negatively impacted North American teams' identity. Further, my results revealed that North American teams reported higher levels of conflict during the initial team interaction, but East Asian teams reported higher levels of conflict during later team interactions. I discuss contributions to theory on team conflict and identity and implications for managing culturally homogeneous North American and East Asian teams.

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“…To explore how cultural patterns are carried by social assumptions or norms, Kwok pioneered a model of the basic dimensions of social axioms (Leung & Bond, 2004). His works on fairness judgment and harmony offered exemplary illustrations of how emic and etic research programs inform and stimulate each other (Leung, Brew, Zhang, & Zhang, 2011;Morris, Leung, Ames, & Lickel, 1999). A culmination of this sustained inquiry came in a recent conceptual paper (Leung & Morris, in press) that integrated many of his insights by proposing the conditions, respectively, under which values, schemas, and norms operate: Values play a more important role in accounting for cultural differences in weak situations where fewer constraints are perceived; schemas play a more important role when situational cues increase their accessibility and relevance; and norms play a more important role when social evaluation is salient.…”

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MOR volume 11 issue 3 Cover and Back matter

2015

Manag. Organ. Rev.

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Harmony and Conflict: A Cross-Cultural Investigation in China and Australia

Cited by 164 publications

References 37 publications

A dispositional approach to psychological climate: Relationships between interpersonal harmony motives and psychological climate for communication safety

A dispositional approach to psychological climate: Relationships between interpersonal harmony motives and psychological climate for communication safety

When Should We Disagree? The Effect of Conflict on Team Identity in North American and East Asian Teams

MOR volume 11 issue 3 Cover and Back matter

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