Traditional chineseconflict management style

Since 30 years the country of the superlatives surprises the world with a breathtaking growth. The blossoming economy has pulled numerous enterprises from the whole world. But many managers are having a tough time trying to manage local human resources. It seems that the western leadership and management concepts do not cope with the local culture.

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The demand to comprehend leadership across the world is becoming necessary and more urgent since the inevitable trend of globalization. Thus Chinese leadership needs to develop more compatible with western leadership, thereby Chinese MNEs become more adaptive and competitive in the current global business environment. Against this background, this paper focuses on Confucian leadership, the most important Chinese leadership shaped by traditional Confucianism for more than years, and attempts to explore the compatibility of Confucian leadership and transformational leadership.

Therefore, it is demonstrated that Confucian leadership plays a vital role in shaping the management style and performance of Chinese companies, and there can be a high level of compatibility between Confucian leadership and transformational leadership. As the inevitable trend of globalization, especially in business circles, the demands for mutual penetration and understanding among various nations have been driven.

Against this background, the need to understand leadership around the world is becoming necessary and more urgent. With the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative from , China has maintained its remarkable strength in the world economy.

Thus, it is urgent to develop a deeper understanding of successful Chinese business models and how they differ from those of western [ 1 ] through researching Chinese culture and management practices. That is why this research focuses on Confucian leadership. Meanwhile, with the development of Global Economic Integration, an increasing number of Chinese companies have been influenced by the influx of western management theories and practices.

Under this tremendous change, Chinese leadership needs to be developed, thereby Chinese MNEs become more adaptive and competitive in the path of Chinese enterprises going global. In addition, Tsui et al. Thus, this paper creatively attempts to explore the Confucian-transformational leadership, a new leadership that combines both the wisdom of traditional Chinese Confucianism and the essence of western transformational leadership theory.

The aim of this paper is to answer the central research question: is Confucian leadership compatible with transformational leadership in Chinese MNEs? Around the research question, this paper will conduct a case study of Haier Group and demonstrate the findings of the relationship between the leadership of Zhang Ruimin and Haier, and use this typical example to further indicate the role of Confucian and transformational leadership in shaping and influencing Chinese MNEs.

As the most orthodox culture in Chinese history, Confucianism, which was consolidated by Confucius BC , played a vital role in guiding and shaping Chinese thinking and behavior for more than years. Confucianism is an ideology of scholars, gentlemen, or ritual managers [ 3 ]. According to Cheung and Chan [ 4 ], the foundation of Confucianism is rituality, which can be expressed in the form of propriety or politeness, and it is regarded as the goal of education which distinguishes junzi gentlemen from the normal uncultivated person [ 5 ].

This rituality forms virtue morality , which consists of benevolence or humaneness such as love, kindness, forgiving, and generosity to others including subordinates [ 3 , 5 ] and keeping faith, justice, righteousness, and loyalty, particularly to superiors [ 4 ]. The ideal of Confucian is to be a sage to maintain social order through virtuous practice. Thus, Confucianism can be seen as the rule of man, which emphasizes that people should be in the right place to exert the right authority. To achieve order, stability, and harmony under this social hierarchy, five particular interpersonal relationships that Confucius termed as wulun are developed: emperor and subject, father and son, elder brother and younger brother, husband and wife, friend and friend.

These relationships have mutual and complementary obligations that the junior should respect and obey the senior, and the senior should protect and care for the junior [ 6 ] To sum up, Confucian values comprise cultivation of virtual, keeping order of social hierarchy, maintenance of interpersonal relationships, and creation of harmony, etc.

In this conceptual framework, Confucian business leadership style, principles, and constants are clearly identified.

In addition, Fernandez [ 5 ] established two models of leadership from the perspectives of aims and values of Confucianism. Figure 1 is the Confucian path to leadership. In other words, the qualities of leadership can be acquired through a conscious effort of self-cultivation and continuous learning. Along this road, superior leaders should take three things into account at any time: careful thinking, careful speaking, and careful acting.

In this way, Confucian leaders first perfect themselves through the practice of self-cultivation the internal aim and then achieve social harmony through the exemplary conduct of the leader the external aim. Fernandez [ 5 ] indicated that kindness and justice are two fundamental values in the Confucian system: kindness means loving people; justice means treating things properly.

From the practice of kindness and justice, trust and social harmony can be achieved. Trust is what connects one person to another, and Confucius thought that if people trust their government, they will overcome difficulties and ultimately lead to the prosperity of the nation. Harmony means the observance of proper rules of behavior, which ensures social order and stability. Therefore, a leader must aim at bringing trust and harmony to society. The majority of contemporary literature paid attention to the role of Confucianism in shaping the management styles and practices of Chinese managers.

Canchu Lin [ 10 ] conducted a survey of scholarly literature on the effect of Chinese culture on leadership practices in mainland China and other East Asian countries. He found that leadership attributes such as benevolence, sympathy, forgiveness, friendliness, trust, and fulfillment, harmony, learning, loyalty, righteousness, and humility are all results of Confucianism. They highlighted the function of moral obligation that facilitate leader to guide and encourage, enrich, and educate subordinates and indicated that it is virtue and harmony that enable the leader to balance conflicts between different interests of stakeholders.

Many scholars provided valuable evidence to these theories. Results indicated that their leadership styles are based primarily on relationalism and harmony, virtuous practice, hierarchy, and moderation, and these cultural factors play important roles in facilitating collaboration and coordination, trust and respect, recognition of talent, and other achievements in the relationship between them and subordinates.

Evidence suggested that their practices are well in accord with Confucian culture, and these practices indirectly promote the success of their companies. Wah [ 13 ] provided evidence of the influence of Confucian values on Chinese family-owned business management in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Ma and Tsui [ 14 ] analyzed the leadership behaviors of fifteen highly successful Chinese business leaders and revealed the influence of Confucianism in their leadership practices.

Even it is acceptable that practices and management styles of Chinese managers are directly shaped by Confucian leadership, which may further promote the development of companies, while there lacks literature or direct evidence on the relationship between Confucian leadership and organizational performance. Specific to this gap, this paper attempts to continue to study the impact of Confucian leadership on organizational success. Transformational leadership has been the dominant focus of contemporary leadership research.

It is a leadership style that depends on the long-term development of and rewards in followers. According to Bass [ 15 ], transformational leadership comprises factors of charismatic leadership, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. Transformational leader prefers to act as a charismatic role model, an ability of leaders to arouse enthusiasm, faith, loyalty, pride, and trust in themselves and their aims, to exert idealized influence and create a captivating vision for the future to promote inspirational motivation, set high performance expectations to enhance the problem-solving capabilities of followers and encourage them to challenge the status quo, and provide support for followers through maintaining a developmental and individualistic orientation toward them to foster intellectual stimulation [ 15 — 17 ].

The effectiveness of leadership can be measured by examining if it can produce effective managerial outcomes, for instance, acceptance of and satisfaction with leadership [ 18 ], organizational commitment and job satisfaction [ 19 ], job performance or competence [ 20 ], and innovation [ 21 ]. Taking all these factors into account, transformational leadership is particularly effective and appears to be a common cause of various favorable outcomes [ 19 ].

Moreover, Shin and Zhou [ 22 ] conducted a survey of employees and their leaders from 46 Korean companies, and Zhang et al. They found that transformational leadership is positively related to creativity potential of individual employees and group creativity. Under the trend of globalization, management and leadership styles are developing to a convergent stage contemporarily: on the one hand, Chinese companies have expanded across the world. On the other hand, western values have flowed into China along with a massive influx of foreign investment.

With the rise of China as a new key economic partner in the international stage, questions of the compatibility of managerial philosophies between East and West arose [ 11 ]. For the aim of exploring the compatibility of Confucian leadership and transformational leadership, research which draws attention to the comparison between Chinese leadership and western leadership from an across-cultural view is valuable for my study. For example, Chen Oi Chin et al.

Jiang et al. These research outcomes have great reference value, which helps to evaluate leadership from a variety of cultural perspectives. However, their limitations should be noticed. First, they lack focus. This paper concentrates on two specific leadership styles; thus, further research is based on and develops those previous research.

Moreover, Cheung and Chan [ 4 ] focused on the differences rather than similarities between Confucian leadership and transformational leadership, while in my view, they have many similarities which are not given attention to. Therefore, my research seeks compatible factors that facilitate the collaboration of people from different cultural backgrounds. This paper aims to explore if Confucian leadership is compatible with transformational leadership in Chinese MNEs.

This central research question will be interpreted by a identifying characteristics of Confucian leadership; b analyzing the impact of Confucian leadership on companies; c exploring the compatibility of Confucian leadership and transformational leadership; d investigating the benefits the Confucian-transformational leadership can bring about for enhancing the development of Chinese MNEs. Since there are no existing models for the two types of leadership, this research had to explore them separately.

To achieve research objectives above in a more reliable way, the analysis and measurement of data about Confucian leadership are based on research outcomes of authoritative academic articles: the archetypal model of the modern Confucian business leader [ 8 ] and the model of leadership by Confucian values [ 5 ]. Since these models are capable of identifying the characteristics of Confucian leadership and transformational leadership, thus they are suitable for my research purpose.

A qualitative approach is used in this paper since my data is collected in the form of descriptions and will be interpreted and analyzed through nonmathematical procedures, although some relevant information is numerical. I selected Haier as my case for three reasons. First, Haier is a successful Chinese MNE that owns traditional Chinese cultural features but also needs to confront the impact of western management philosophy on the road of expanding business overseas.

In addition, many scholars have studied Haier Group from various managerial perspectives, and their research can provide valuable data and information for my study. It should be noticed that this research has three main limitations. First is my research problem is relatively new; thus, it lacks an existing mature theoretical model which combines both Confucian leadership and transformational leadership.

Second is secondary data are not generated for the target research question; thus, they may not be perfectly matchable as primary data could do, although they are relevant to the research topic. Last is the problem of lacking comparison and generalization: even focusing on one single case can provide a deep insight into the unique question; the argument for its credibility and contribution exists. Haier Group is the global leading brand of white household appliances, which manufactures 15, varieties of items in 96 product lines, with headquarters in Qingdao, China.

It is widely known in the global business world for its customers spread in more than countries and regions. As shown in Figure 3 , from a debt-ridden small factory to a successful giant international company, Haier has experienced six developmental phases. Thus, the development process of Haier is regarded as one of the ultimate Chinese business success stories, the management exploration of Haier is treated as a world asset, and the leadership of Zhang is known as an illustration of the efficacy of strong Chinese leadership based on Confucian cultural values [ 8 ].

Therefore, his leadership accords well against the archetypal model of the modern Confucian business leader [ 8 ]. When he was appointed as the Director at the Qingdao refrigerator factory, the company was at stake and it seemed hopeless that over workers were waiting for pay anxiously as their salaries were already several months in arrears, and 51 workers intended to leave [ 30 ].

He immediately took action to change the terrible situations. Even though there was a huge difficulty, Zhang still did his best to borrow money from a nearby production bridge and arrange all workers' pay. Besides, he cared for subordinates more by taking many detailed things into account.

For example, he borrowed money to buy each worker a gift of five catties of fish to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year and to replace trucks to buses to make workers more comfortable especially for those who carried children. For instance, to instill the importance of quality performance, there is a large pair of footprints drawn on the floor of the factory. At the end of every shift, employees who have performed worst that day must stand on the footprints and listen to the criticism of their faults and those who performed best then stand on the footprints and tell how they achieve their outstanding performance in front of every employee [ 31 ].

One difficulty Zhang met was that when he put forward a reengineering plan in , there was great opposition and some senior executives were openly against it. At the same time, Zhang insisted as he believed that this change was right. Harmony he. The virtue-guided leadership of Zhang is also demonstrated by the corporate social responsibility of Haier. With this spirit, CSR of Haier fosters a harmonious balance among Haier, different stakeholders, and the environment Table 2.

Education and study are hallmarks of Confucianism. Confucius put emphasis on education and indicated that qualities of leadership can be acquired through a conscious effort of self-cultivation and continuous learning.

According to Fernandez [ 5 ], individual perfection through self-cultivation is the internal aim of Confucian leadership. Consistently, Zhang never stopped working hard to pursue perfection.


The Role of Confucian-Transformational Leadership in Shaping and Influencing Chinese MNEs

Leaders and employees deal with conflict as they collaborate in the everyday life of organizations and as they confront crises. Depending how they manage conflict, they can frustrate employees and provoke customer complaints but also stimulate their relationships and decision-making. The possibilities of constructive conflict are significant and documented, but the challenges to making conflict constructive are significant too. The practice of defining conflict as a win-lose battle has obscured ways of managing conflict constructively. Fortunately, researchers have developed concepts and findings that can help managers and employees manage conflict. A first step is developing a useful, unconfounded definition of conflict.

Chinese philosophies,; Strategic management in China, today it allows measured Western incursion, but within a traditional Chinese governance system.

A Chinese Approach to Management

Cultural influence resulted in the kind of employment relations when the senior management team gives instructions to the subordinates who have to follow the directions. Also, Confucianism has always played an essential role in every aspect of Chinese relationships, including employment Mazanec et al. Confusion tradition implies that the word of elderly or senior authority is the most influential one, and the management style has always conformed to this definition. SHRM has proven to impact corporate entrepreneurship Tang et al. Despite the restrictions, specialists note steps towards decentralization. Zhang mentions that Chinese companies experience the movement from despotic management to hegemonic one. Such change enables the workers to obtain more rights concerning their work options. Thus, it can be mentioned that China is making the first steps towards altering its traditional employment relations, but these steps are rather restricted by the government and authorities. Hong Kong, which has been under British rule for a long time, has been impacted by the British Empire in many aspects, including employment relationships.

Traditional Chinese leadership and employee voice behavior: A cross-level examination

traditional chineseconflict management style

Who is leader? Leader is a person who owns the power of commanding and influence. Leader also has been defined as an ordinary person who do extraordinary thing that make an indelible impact in our life. Nevertheless, leader stills a key person that you would look up to in an organisation who gives you motivation and direction to success VanGundy There is no specific effective leadership style to be applied on a leader Mazyck I personally think that the traits and behaviour from the different leadership style is very important to be mixed and performed in order to become a good leader.

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management style advantages

In Confucian philosophy, all relationships are deemed to be unequal. Ethical behaviour demands that these inequalities are respected. Thus, the older person should automatically receive respect from the younger, the senior from the subordinate. This Confucian approach should be seen as the cornerstone of all management thinking and issues such as empowerment and open access to all information are viewed by the Chinese as, at best, bizarre Western notions. It should be borne in mind that many people in China — as well as in many other Asian countries — see the lack of observance of hierarchical values as the root cause of the problems of the West. These problems include the twin Western diseases of moral degeneration and the anarchic idea that an individual is more important than the group to which they belong.

Integrating the traditional and the modern conflict management strategies in Nigeria

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Results show that compromising and avoiding are the most preferred methods of conflict management in China, while accommodating and competing.

Chinese Leadership Concepts

As the business world becomes more global, employees will likely face someone from another country at some point in their careers, companies will negotiate with companies from other countries, and even employees of domestic companies will likely encounter someone from another country. Additionally, many multinational companies rely on expatriates to run their local operations. An expatriate is foreign employee who moves to and works in another country for an extended period of time. All of these trends mean that during your career you are likely to encounter someone from a different culture and that the potential for cross-cultural tensions is high.

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Chinese organizational behavior is the product of history. In this paper, we propose an introduction to the philosophical bases of Chinese behavior. This introduction is contextualized and historically situated; then compared to Western thinking to ensure that its value for organizations is understood. We examine first the dominant Chinese philosophy schools and decode their possible meaning for managing organizations. In particular, such issues as organizational structure, leadership, emotions and time-orientation are discussed in reference to traditional values.

Inter-organizational conflicts can be extremely harmful.

Interpersonal Harmony and Conflict for Chinese People: A Yin–Yang Perspective

Employees, their skills and work ethics are the primary driving force of any company. Despite this logic, work culture, a directly related factor, is oftentimes underestimated as an important criteria for a successful business. A work environment where employees are motivated and positive breeds the best work performance. Successful companies offer a positive working environment where employees can focus on their work. The million dollar question is: how do you implement such a work culture? Let alone, how do you implement a positive and efficient work culture in China?

Yuan, W. Past studies have suggested that organizations in Western countries value competing or solution-driven methods of workplace conflict management. On the other hand, studies have argued that organizations in Eastern countries value harmonious relationships and saving face more than their counterparts in the west. This study focuses on the conflict management styles and preferences of Chinese and American employees working in multinational companies in China.

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  1. Tajind

    I still know one solution