Interpersonal Conflict Among AGC Corp.’s Employees

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Table of Contents

The Issues and their Causes
Managing Team Environment and Priorities
Cultural Context
Internationalization of Organization
Onboarding Mr. Mao
Stage Development of the Team
Possible Intercultural Differences
Solving Conflicts
Reference

The Issues and their Causes

The primary issue in AGC Corp is interpersonal conflict amongst employees. The case study shows that the innovative product line team has had several interpersonal conflicts. Following these differences, an experience Chinese engineer resigned a month ago, complaining about the team’s lack of clarity, trust, and respect. Such a problem contributes to other issues, including project delays, rumors among employees, high staff turnover, and cost-cutting. AGC Corp is experiencing difficulties in managing a positive work environment. Other issues affecting the firm are economic downturn and stiff competition, often caused by global market changes.

Interpersonal conflict is caused by cultural differences, different viewpoints, communication barriers, and exclusive workplace cultures. Cultural differences are misunderstandings based on diverse beliefs, customs, rules, and values of multiple cultures (Osland et al., 2020). Employees who lack cultural competence or the ability to understand people from their cultures may experience interpersonal conflicts. Employees may also differ in their viewpoints regarding an issue (Osland et al., 2020). Communication barriers are often caused by cultural diversity, indirect communication, and language barriers (Osland et al., 2020). A workplace could also be practicing a culture that excludes people from other cultures. In the case study team, the Canadian, Mexican, and Chinese cultures might have posed difficulties in communication and sharing beliefs and practices.

Managing Team Environment and Priorities

Handling interpersonal conflicts among employees would first require addressing the root cause. In this case, the cause of the conflict is a misunderstanding caused by cultural differences. The priority is to communicate with the team to address the issue. The discussion would entail encouraging team members to understand each other’s points of view (Osland et al., 2020). Being attentive and active listeners is critical for employees to understand each other. The team members are encouraged to show empathy for each other and avoid over-focusing on conflicting situations (Osland et al., 2020). The team would also need to develop effective communication skills.

Therefore, the next priority would be to offer intercultural competence training to the employee. The training helps employees to understand their cultures and those of others. They learn to communicate without prejudices and stereotypes (Osland et al., 2020). Upon attaining such skills, the team members can work with members from diverse cultures. The next priority would be to create an inclusive organizational culture that is culturally diverse (Osland et al., 2020). Developing a diverse business culture helps employees to respect the values and beliefs of other culturally diverse workers (Osland et al., 2020). Later, the team would need to learn conflict resolution management, such as talking or reporting interpersonal issues to the management. He would not have left if the resigned engineer had learned about conflict resolution tactics.

Cultural Context

The existing team is made up of three Canadians and two Mexicans. The new team will comprise Canadians, Mexicans, and a single Chinese. Mexicans and Canadians have low-context culture, which entails being logical, concerned with other individuals, action-oriented, and analytical. Low-context communication is explicit, vivid, and direct, leaving nothing to infer (Osland et al., 2020). In a low-context culture, instructions and rules are written or spoken, explicit and specific. On the other hand, the Chinese belong to a high-context culture, are usually contexed, and do not need further information. High-context culture communication is implied and often uses contextual elements such as tone of voice, the status of an individual, and body language (Osland et al., 2020). Their rules are implied, indirect, and often nonverbally communicated (Osland et al., 2020). Finally, while high-context culture people have close-knit groups of people, those of low context are more diverse and embrace individualism.

High and low-context culture distinctly influences the worldviews and behaviors of employees. High-context culture, employees will prefer indirect communication and are more likely to use non-verbal cues (Osland et al., 2020). They also believe that the true intent of the message is not communicated directly and is left to interpretation. This group does not need summaries and written follow-ups after meetings (Osland et al., 2020). Indeed, in high-context cultures, individuals find low-context communication styles as distrustful and a waste of time. Lastly, they take time to form new relationships and trust long-term ones. On the other hand, in low-context cultures, employees communicate directly and pay more attention to literal meanings than context (Osland et al., 2020). They emphasize the accuracy of the information and appreciate summaries and follow-ups. Finally, low-context culture, employees are not likely to automatically understand messages communicated in non-verbal cues.

Internationalization of Organization

AGC Corp expects to serve customers in the international market in the future. Internationalizing a company means that the firm will deal with a more diverse culture of employees and customers (Osland et al., 2020). If the company is to open branches internationally, it will be dealing with culturally diverse employees and customers. In the meantime, the new team must be prepared to deliver in the international market effectively. The team will require culturally competent skills, among others. Cultural competence is the ability to effectively interact with and understand people from other cultures (Osland et al., 2020). Employees must be in a position to understand the cultural differences that comes with various worldview points. Therefore, each team member should have a basic understanding of their culture because they cannot understand others if they do not understand theirs. The team should have a positive attitude toward cultural differences and readiness to accept and respect those differences.

Cultural competence is critical because it allows team members to build long-lasting relationships with people of diverse cultures. It also eases the communication and process of doing business (Osland et al., 2020). Therefore, the team must learn to pay attention to both large and small details of cultural aspects. Active listening helps individuals to know when to interrupt, ask questions, and communicate (Osland et al., 2020). The team must also practice showing interest in other cultural values, beliefs, and norms. Finally, they should be ready to use their imagination or walk in other people’s shoes. Imagination might not portray the picture perfect of an issue from a different culture, but it is important to try and understand.

Onboarding Mr. Mao

The first step to onboard Mr. Mao would be introducing him to the organizational culture. He must be told about the communication and values of the company. Communicating and emphasizing company values helps employees to share the approved values. Some of these values include integrity, honesty, teamwork, innovation, fairness, accountability, innovation, and trustworthiness (Osland et al., 2020). The next measure is to celebrate Mr. Mao’s cultural and capability differences. According to Osland et al. (2020), one way to make employees feel welcome is to show that one respects their traditions and backgrounds. Onboarding Mr. Mao will also need to offer him a guide or mentor within the organization, preferably from the team. The guide or mentor will help him around and make him feel less lonely. Lastly, it is crucial to encourage the employee to give feedback and contribute ideas to the teamwork.

Things to remember are those related to Mr. Mao’s cultural differences and how cultural context affects his behavior and viewpoints. Following his high context culture, Mr. Mao will need at-time instructions because follow-ups might feel distrust. It is also essential to know that he will take time to trust the team members due to his close-knit culture (Osland et al., 2020). The employee has never been to Canada or America and might not be familiar with speaking English. In such a case, he might need to interpret information before he can understand constantly, and much patience is needed. Mr. Mao occasionally uses nonverbal cues and may not be direct with other employees. The employee will mostly turn to the leader, not a fellow employee, for help. In high context culture, people have higher respect and value for a person in power than others (Osland et al., 2020). Mr. Mao uses indirect or implied communication because of his cultural context. Therefore, it will be normal for Mr. Mao to orally and one time communicates an important idea that would need writing to the team members.

Stage Development of the Team

The team is at the forming stage of group development. This is the first stage of group development, where the team members the first team and get acquitted with each other (Osland et al., 2020). Although there is an existing group, in this case, it is still in forming stage because of the joining of a new leader and employees and the introduction of a new project. The team is at the orientation stage regarding the new project. In the first stage, the team members exhibit politeness, avoiding controversy, attempting to define tasks, and orienting with others (Osland et al., 2020). Members’ feelings and thoughts might include excitement, optimism, wondering what to expect, and uncertainty. Led by the team leader, the forming group discusses team goals, individual roles, strategy, and ground rules.

The team would need to relinquish the comfort zone of non-threatening topics and risk the possibilities of conflict. Getting out of the comfort zone means asking difficult and compromising questions, challenging ideas, and thinking critically to provide the best solutions to problems (Osland et al., 2020). In doing so, they will need to set the team vision and mission, establish objectives and tasks, and set team expectations. They will need to prepare operating guidelines, become effective in meetings, and contribute and give feedback to ideas.

Possible Intercultural Differences

Some intercultural differences expected in the team include communication barriers, individualism versus collectivism, and power distance. The team will experience language barriers, especially if Mr. Mao does not speak English. There could be problems and misunderstandings when the team members cannot understand each other (Osland et al., 2020). The Chinese might also experience culture shock and difficulties adapting to a new culture. Another possible difference is individualism versus collectivism (Osland et al., 2020). The Canadians and Mexicans share the American culture, which embraces individualism. Individualism’s cultural value entails people viewing themselves from a personal perspective. They practice independence and autonomy in work and achieve set goals (Osland et al., 2020). Contrary, the Chinese practice collectivism, which entails working as a group to achieve team goals. Mr. Mao might find it difficult to see his team members work independently and not as a group from time to time.

The Canadians and Mexicans hold low power distance while the Chinese hold high power distance. The team will experience power distance differences, and may cause conflict. The low power distance team will believe in equality and that inequality should be minimized, especially between the employees and the leaders (Osland et al., 2020). They will therefore be close to their leader and maintain constant communication. Mr. Mao has high power distance cultural values, which means he has to be humble to the leaders because they are superior to him. He is less likely to grow close to the team leader and only communicates when necessary.

Solving Conflicts

The most convenient way to address the potential conflict is to develop and enforce positive intercultural communication. The team members should be trained to look beyond their perspectives (Osland et al., 2020). Considering another person’s perspective and understanding that it may differ from theirs is critical to effective communication. Therefore, understanding and respecting their views is a way to find common ground. The next aspect is to pay attention to what is said and left unsaid (Osland et al., 2020). The employees must learn to pay attention to nonverbal cues, written and oral communication, behaviors, and intentions. Being keen on these concepts allows them to understand each other’s message.

It is also critical for the team members to familiarize themselves with other cultures by becoming interculturally competent. The acquired knowledge helps them to interact and effectively communicate with people of diverse cultures. The interpretative approach is the most convenient to foster positive intercultural communication. According to Osland et al. (2020), the approach seeks to describe the culture and not predict its behavior. Researchers using this approach find and describe patterns of communication to understand how it is to be a member of a particular culture. This approach will help the team members understand why members of varied cultures communicate in a certain way.

Reference

Osland, J. S., Mendenhall, M. E., Reiche, B. S., & Szkudlarek, B. (2020). Advances in global leadership (13^thed.). Emerald Group Publishing.

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