INTERCULTURAL CONFLICT MANAGEMENT IN MULTICULTURAL VIRTUAL TEAMS: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY THROUGH A SERIOUS GAME

Abstract

Conflict is a fact of organizational life, and intercultural conflict is even more complicated to cope with. Conflict is not always perceived negatively, but in some cases, task conflict can turn into functional conflict. The purpose of this research is to investigate the influence of cultural background, emotional intelligence (EI), and intercultural competence (IC) on the choice of intercultural conflict management styles/behavior (ICS) and the adaptation of ICS in two types of conflicts: task and relationship conflict. Relationship conflict is considered dysfunctional because it threatens and weakens the bond between interlocutors, and it escalates more easily than task conflict. In the literature, Emotional Intelligence (EI) is viewed as an interesting variable to help increasing job performance. Since the virtual context catches greater attention presently, organizations have started to consider the potential benefits of utilizing virtual teams. Virtual teams often are international and include culturally diverse members, which makes it more difficult to manage conflict (Griffith et al., 2003; Zornoza et al., 2002). Furthermore, the influence of Intercultural Competence (IC) on conflict management among diverse employees is also worth being explored. Based on Intercultural Conflict Resolution/Management Styles/Behavior framework proposed by Hammer (2005), the concept is under one cultural dimension, individualism and collectivism, when dealing with disagreement and emotions across cultures. Additionally, Nardon and Steers (2009) stated that these two cultural dimensions had been widely used in studying organizational management research across cultures. The four Intercultural Conflict Resolution/Management Styles/Behavior include discussion, dynamic, accommodation, and engagement styles. However, the result from the pilot study suggested that the engagement style should be dropped out because it was seen as the most inappropriate style in the conflict situation. Thus, it is not included in this study, and only three styles of Intercultural Conflict Resolution/Management remain. And the study of intercultural conflict in multicultural virtual teams has been called for more recently. Therefore, this study explores the influence of cultural background, EI, and IC on the choice of intercultural conflict management styles/behavior in task and relationship conflict, and the adaptation of conflict management styles/behavior to culturally diverse team members. Cultural diversity is studied on the basis of two cultural dimensions, power distance and individualism/collectivism. Samples (n=339) included in this study were Thai respondents (n=106, high power distance & collectivism), French (n=114, high power distance & individualism), and Americans (n=119, low power distance & individualism). They were mainly working professionals from different professional fields. An innovative data collection method was employed, based on the development of a serious game. Its name is CRIT the serious game; CRIT stands for conflict management in intercultural teams. Four main sections were included in CRIT, the serious game: questions about demographic data, a multi-item scale measuring EI, and then a quasi-experimental scenario revealing participants’ IC and ICS. An additional objective for the serious game is to make the player gain a particular knowledge from the game. To do so, the score feedback and recommendations were sent to each player after the game completion. After completing various statistical analyzes, the findings of this study confirm, but also contradict the existing theory to some extent. Regarding the choices of intercultural conflict resolution/management styles/behavior proposed by Hammer (2005), Americans use the dynamic and the accommodation style more than Thai and French, while used the discussion style the least. Thai and French players significantly use the discussion style the most, while there is no statistically significant difference between the use of the accommodation and the dynamic style between Thai and French. In addition, the result from our pilot study concluded that the “engagement style” of the selected four intercultural conflict management style model (Hammer, 2005) was removed since it was recognized as an inappropriate intercultural conflict management style.. Thus, it is not included in this study, and only three styles of Intercultural Conflict Management remain. Concerning the Intercultural conflict management styles/behavior, communication approach (direct/indirect) and emotional strategy (expressive/restraint) used in the overall sample, the results conclude that all three cultures frequently use an indirect approach rather than a direct approach. However, Americans use the indirect approach the most. On the contrary, both Thai and French use the direct approach the most. Furthermore, all three cultures use an emotionally restraint approach more than expressiveness. And, when looking at the sub-samples, Americans frequently use emotional expressiveness; in contrast, both Thai and French frequently use the emotionally restraint approach. In short, the findings of this study conclude that the cultural background, EI, and IC influence the choice of ICS styles/behavior and the adaptation of ICS to culturally different team members. Specifically, it was partially demonstrated that ICS styles/behavior varies across cultures. A significant relationship between EI and conflict management behavior was demonstrated, as well as between EI and IC and the adaptation of conflict management behavior to cultural differences.