“…One potential explanation for the mixed findings might be that previous studies have often failed to consider the culture-specific pattern of emotional intelligence (Gunkel, Schlä gel, & Engle, 2014;Miller, 1997;Shao, Doucet, & Caruso, 2014). While previous studies have shown that preferences for conflict handling styles vary substantially across countries (e.g., Doucet, Jehn, Weldon, Chen, & Wang, 2009;Gabrielidis, Stephan, Ybarra, Pearson, & Villareal, 1997;Kim, Wang, Kondo, & Kim, 2007;Posthuma, White, Dworkin, Yá nez, & Swift, 2006;Ting-Toomey et al, 1991), only a small number of studies (e.g., Kaushal & Kwantes, 2006;Komarraju, Dollinger, & Lovell, 2008;Morris et al, 1998) has analyzed the underlying reasons for these differences. Prior research suggests that differences in individuals' orientation toward different cultural value dimensions (i.e., the set of aspects that characterize a society according to its apparent place within the continuum of patterns described by the respective aspect) may be one promising explanation for cross-country differences in individual preferences for conflict handling styles (e.g., Holt & DeVore, 2005;Komarraju et al, 2008).…”