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1 – 10 of 11This paper proposes a broad perspective for studying the influence of culture on the process of conflict management. Three models of conflict management are described, based on…
Abstract
This paper proposes a broad perspective for studying the influence of culture on the process of conflict management. Three models of conflict management are described, based on the culture framework of Glen (1981). In the confrontational model, conflicts are conceptualized as consisting of subissues, and a sense of reasonable compromise aids resolution despite a confrontational style. In the harmony model, conflict management starts with the minimization of conflict in organizations through norms stressing observance of mutual obligations and status orderings. Conflicts are defined in their totality, and resolution is aided by avoidance and an accommodative style. Less emphasis is placed on procedural justice, as on maintenance of face of self and others. Third parties are used extensively, and their role is more intrusive. In the regulative model, bureaucratic means are used extensively to minimize conflicts or to aid avoidance. Conflicts get defined in terms of general principles, and third party roles are formalized. The implications of the differences among the three models for conflict resolution across cultures and for future research are discussed.
M. Kamil Kozan and Canan Ergin
This study aims to extend cross‐cultural conflict management research to the intra‐cultural level. Schwartz's (1992, 1994, 1996) values measure, designed to be used at both the…
Abstract
This study aims to extend cross‐cultural conflict management research to the intra‐cultural level. Schwartz's (1992, 1994, 1996) values measure, designed to be used at both the societal and the individual levels, was related to styles of conflict management and preference for third party involvement Data were collected from 435 employees of 40 organizations in Turkey, a country where subcultural differences have resulted from Westernization efforts. Among conflict management styles, avoidance was found to be preferred by those having strong tradition and conformity values. In the subsample that reported conflicts with peers, the forcing style was used more by those strong in power values. When third parties were involved in the conflict, subjects high in achievement and stimulation were less likely to be the ones who invited their involvement. The tendency to leave the initiative to the third party was stronger among subjects that had high universalism and benevolence values. The implications of these findings for conflict management practice and future cross‐cultural research are discussed.
M. Kamil Kozan, Canan Ergin and Kadir Varoglu
This study aims to develop an influence perspective for managerial intervention in subordinates conflicts, which helps to represent various strategies identified in the literature…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to develop an influence perspective for managerial intervention in subordinates conflicts, which helps to represent various strategies identified in the literature in a single model. Managers' power base was then related to their intervention strategies. Drawing upon Social Judgment Theory, anchoring of subordinates positions is studied as a moderating variable.
Design/methodology/approach
Thirty nine supervisors and their 165 subordinates from several organizations in Turkey filled out a questionnaire reporting power base of supervisor and their intervention strategy utilizing the critical incident technique.
Findings
Referent power of superior led to mediation in subordinates' conflicts. However, mediation decreased while restructuring, arbitration, and educative strategies increased with increased anchoring of subordinates' positions. These latter strategies mostly relied on reward power of manager. Subordinate satisfaction was highest with mediation and lowest when supervisors distanced themselves from the conflict.
Research limitations/implications
The present study could only test the moderating effect of escalation as an anchoring variable. Future studies may look at the anchoring effect of whether the dispute is handled in public or in private, and whether the parties have a competing versus collaborative or compromising styles.
Practical implications
Training of managers in mediation may be essential in cultures where they play a focal role in handling subordinates conflicts. Such training may have to take into account their broader influence strategies and use of power.
Originality/value
An influence perspective is useful in integrating the vast array of managerial intervention strategies in the literature. Furthermore, the anchoring effect provides a theoretical explanation for managers' use of more forceful intervention with less cooperative subordinates.
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M. Kamil Kozan, Canan Ergin and Demet Varoglu
The purpose of this paper is to investigate strategies used by managers when intervening in subordinates' conflicts and the factors affecting choice of strategy in Turkish…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate strategies used by managers when intervening in subordinates' conflicts and the factors affecting choice of strategy in Turkish organizations, where heavy emphasis is placed on intermediaries in managing conflicts.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected by means of a questionnaire from 392 employees of a convenience sample of 59 organizations, most of which were located in Ankara.
Findings
Factor analysis results showed that managers utilize as many as five strategies: mediation, inquisitorial (similar to arbitration), motivational tactics, conflict reduction through restructuring, and educating the parties. The conditions under which these strategies are used were analyzed by regression. Harmony emphasis in the organization led to increased use of mediation. However, harmony emphasis, when coupled with a low degree of delegation of authority to subordinates, resulted in increased use of the inquisitorial strategy. Harmony emphasis, when combined with substantive (as opposed to personal) conflicts and with high impact conflicts led to educating the subordinates. Motivational tactics were used more when the conflict had high impact at the workplace and had escalated or threatened to get out of control.
Research limitations/implications
Readers are cautioned on possible common factor bias; relations between variables may have emerged as a result of the data being reported by the same respondent.
Originality/value
The findings have research implications for future studies and for training of managers for conflict intervention in collectivistic cultures.
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S. Nazli Wasti, M. Kamil Kozan and Ayca Kuman
Using a baseline model of buyer‐supplier relationships, the study aims to identify the types of relationships in the Turkish automotive industry, and to test predictions as to how…
Abstract
Purpose
Using a baseline model of buyer‐supplier relationships, the study aims to identify the types of relationships in the Turkish automotive industry, and to test predictions as to how these relations would differ across contextual, managerial, and social climate variables.
Design/methodology/approach
Questionnaire data from 51 buyers in automaker firms and 72 supplier firms were subjected to K‐means cluster analyses to establish relationship groups in the two samples. Differences across the groups were tested using ANOVA and Scheffé tests.
Findings
Three relationship types (captive supplier, market exchange, and strategic partnership) were identified both in the buyer and supplier data. Significant differences were observed in terms of contextual (product and supplier characteristics), managerial (information exchange and cooperation), and social climate variables (mutual understanding, payoff equity, and satisfaction). Turkish buyers were found to strategically segment their suppliers based on product and supplier characteristics, whereas supplier groups were differentiated along social climate variables.
Research limitations/implications
The Turkish results differ somewhat from the ones for developed countries, which suggests that more work should be conducted in emerging economies. Future research that uses matched pairs of buyers and suppliers may provide in‐depth insights.
Practical implications
The results demonstrated a perception (hence, communication) gap between buyers and suppliers in how they differentiated relationship types. Strategic partnership led to cooperation in both samples, and to satisfaction, mutual understanding, and equity in the supplier sample.
Originality/value
This study used data from both parties, contrasted buyer‐supplier relationships in an emerging market with those in developed markets, and highlighted the effects of the industry's historical evolution on the present state of buyer‐supplier relationships.
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Dirk De Clercq and Renato Pereira
This investigation aims to unpack the negative connection between employees’ experience of resource-draining career compromise and their organizational citizenship behavior, by…
Abstract
Purpose
This investigation aims to unpack the negative connection between employees’ experience of resource-draining career compromise and their organizational citizenship behavior, by theorizing a mediating role of their depersonalization of organizational leaders and a moderating role of their conformity orientation in this connection.
Design/methodology/approach
The hypotheses were tested with survey data collected among employees who operate in the construction retail industry in Portugal.
Findings
A critical reason that frustrations about unwanted career adjustments translate into a reluctance to undertake work efforts that exceed formal job descriptions is that employees develop dehumanized perceptions of the people in charge of the company. This explanatory mechanism is less prominent, however, to the extent that employees’ personal orientation favors rule adherence.
Practical implications
For HR managers, this research identifies a key channel, indifference to organizational leaders, through which disappointments about compromised career developments escalate into rejection of voluntary work activities, which otherwise might leave a positive impression on leaders and enhance employees’ careers. It also reveals that organizations can subdue this detrimental process by leveraging a sense of conformity among their workers.
Originality/value
This study adds to HR management research by showing how a mismatch between employees’ current career situation and their own meaningful career goals paradoxically might direct them away from extra-role work behavior that otherwise could provide meaningfulness. This harmful dynamic, which can be explained by their propensity to treat organizational leaders as impersonal objects, can be avoided to the extent that employees draw from their conformity orientation.
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Lena L. Kronemeyer, Herbert Kotzab and Martin G. Moehrle
The purpose of this paper is the development of a patent-based supplier portfolio that can be used to evaluate and select suppliers on account of their technological competencies.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is the development of a patent-based supplier portfolio that can be used to evaluate and select suppliers on account of their technological competencies.
Design/methodology/approach
In addition to traditional approaches, the authors develop a supplier portfolio that characterizes suppliers according to the similarity between supplier's and OEM's technological competencies as well as their technological broadness. These variables are measured on the basis of patents, which constitute a valuable source of information in technology-driven industries. Contrary to existing binary measurement approaches, the authors’ portfolio uses semantic analyses to make use of the specific information provided in the patents' texts. The authors test this method in the field of gearings, which is a key driver for the automotive industry.
Findings
The authors identify six generic positions, characterizing specific risks for an OEM to become either technologically dependent or dependent on suppliers' production capacities. For each position the authors develop specific management strategies in face of the aforementioned risks. The approach helps OEMs navigate in the competitive landscape based on the most recent and publicly available information medium.
Originality/value
This work explicitly applies the construct of technological competencies to supplier evaluation and selection on the basis of portfolio approaches. Furthermore, the authors improve the use of patents for supplier evaluation in two respects: First, the authors analyze OEMs and upstream suppliers on an organizational level. Second, the authors utilize advanced semantic analysis to generate variables for the measurement of the criteria mentioned above.
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Erik de Waard, Peter de Bock and Robert Beeres
A typical governance challenge that has emerged with the introduction of shared service centers and other forms of service-related centralization within organizations is how to…
Abstract
Purpose
A typical governance challenge that has emerged with the introduction of shared service centers and other forms of service-related centralization within organizations is how to balance horizontal integration with vertical accountability. From a transaction costs perspective, this study aims to analyze the relationship between intra-organizational demand and supply linkages, asset specificity and coordination costs.
Design/methodology/approach
For this purpose, a case study has been conducted within a European military organization that has undergone major budget cuts, forcing it to start following a strategy of functional concentration with captive buying and selling relationships between internal customers and suppliers.
Findings
The research findings clarify that organizational hybridity may be the result. In a supplier role, the organizational elements are primarily concerned with efficiency, while operational effectiveness predominates when they are in the customer position. Also, the results show that focusing on standardized service delivery may sometime carry too far. When services are treated as being standard, while in reality, they ask for a more tailored approach, productive internal demand and supply collaboration will be put at risk. Moreover, the organizational actions needed to restore the internal supply chain’s efficacy will seriously increase transaction costs.
Originality/value
Despite being mentioned as a key governance category, actual research on the practicalities of internal captive buying and selling, in relation to the functioning of SSCs, is still lacking. To advance on this topic, the present research introduces knowledge from supply chain management theory, where dedicated inter-organizational buyer–supplier interaction in the automotive industry has already received academic attention.
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Oluremi B. Ayoko and Charmine E.J. Härtel
To provide a new way of conceptualizing the leader's role in managing conflict for increased task and social outcomes in culturally heterogeneous workgroups (CHWs).
Abstract
Purpose
To provide a new way of conceptualizing the leader's role in managing conflict for increased task and social outcomes in culturally heterogeneous workgroups (CHWs).
Design/methodology/approach
The objectives of the paper can be met by hypothesizing the proposed relationships and testing them quantitatively using multiple regression.
Findings
Finds that the effect of conflict in CHWs depends, in part, on the way the parties concerned manage it, and in particular the group leader.
Research limitations/implications
The major limitation of the current research is that it is theoretical. Future research will now need to test the propositions put forward in this paper.
Practical implications
The paper conceptually identified some skills and behaviors that are pertinent to effective leadership in culturally heterogeneous workgroups.
Originality/value
The model presented in the paper and the research emanating from it should assist in training leaders for these workgroups.
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