Conflict Management Styles among Employees of Sino-American,

Building on Rahim and Bonoma’s conflict management model, this study examines conflict management styles in Sino-American, Sino-French, and state-owned enterprises in Mainland China. Through a probability survey of 374 subjects from Sino-American and Sino-French enterprises, and 150 employees from state-owned enterprises in Guangdong Province, China, this study found that Chinese in foreign-invested enterprises and state-owned enterprises do not differ from each other in conflict management styles such as avoiding, compromising, obliging, integrating, and dominating; the same is true for American and French employees. However, Chinese and Westerners did differ from each other in most conflict styles. The study confirms that Chinese tend to be more avoiding than Western employees in conflict management regardless of organiza-tional environment, and that both Westerners and Chinese have the same tendency of adopting compromising style.