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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
COOPERATIVE AND COMPETITIVE CONFLICT IN CHINA
Dean Tjosvold
Kwok Leung
David W. Johnson
China is a powerful test of the universalistic aspirations of Deutsch’s (1949, 1973) theory of cooperation and competition and, in particular, its utility for understanding the conditions and dynamics through which conflict becomes constructive. China would seem to be a most inhospitable culture for the theory. As part of a collectivist culture, Chinese people are expected to be particularly wary of conflict and its open discussion (Leung, 1997). Many social scientists consider the application of Western developed theories to Asia unwarranted, even “imperialistic” (Li, Leung, Chen, and Luo, 2012). Since 1994, we have conducted cooperation and competition research in China and East Asia by using experimental, survey, and interview methods to understand interdependence and conflict and their manifestations in areas such as organizational teamwork and leadership, supply chain relationships, and government-business partnerships.
Although the work of Deutsch and other theorists of conflict management cannot be assumed to apply to other cultures, conflict theories that cannot be applied to various cultures are increasingly irrelevant in our global marketplace. Demonstrating that this theory can be applied in China would seem to be strong indirect evidence that it can be useful in various cultures and countries. In addition to substantial research in North America and growing research in China, studies directly document the value of the theory in other countries, including those in Europe and the Middle East (Desivilya, Somech, and Lidgoster, 2010; Tjosvold and Chia, 1989; Tjosvold and de Dreu, 1997; Vollmer and Seyr, 2012) as well as India (Bhatnagar and Tjosvold, 2012), Japan, and Korea (Chen, Tjosvold, and Pan, 2010; Tjosvold, Nibler, and Wan, 2001; Tjosvold and Sasaki, 1994; Tjosvold, Sasaki, and Moy, 1998; Tjosvold and Tsao, 1989).
This chapter proposes that the considerable research documenting the value of the theory for China, coupled with studies conducted in other countries, suggests that the cooperative and competitive framework can be fruitfully applied to understand conflict management in non-Western as well as Western cultures. However, much more research is needed to support the argument that the theory of cooperation and competition is highly useful for understanding conflict management worldwide.
Deutsch’s (1949) original theory aims to explain the development of relationships and values; actors were expected to have motives and goals, without assuming particular values and preconditions. China provides an opportunity to understand how values and other preconditions have an impact on the cooperative and competitive management of conflict. Chinese people are, for example, thought to be particularly oriented toward the projection and protection of social face and to rely on high-context, nonverbal communication. Studies have focused on the impact of Chinese values on cooperative conflict.
Westerners, believing they are open and responsive, often conclude that Chinese people avoid conflict and are closed to dealing with differences. They see themselves as democratic and Chinese as autocratic. Our studies explore and explode these generalizations about China.
The chapter first summarizes arguments against generalizing Deutsch’s theory to China and East Asia. It then describes our experimental, interview, and survey research approaches. Our studies show that Chinese people can use open discussions productively, especially within a cooperative context, and they value relationship-oriented, cooperative leadership. Research in China is just beginning to challenge and extend the theory. The final sections outline research and major practical implications, including how to manage conflict in Sino-Western teamwork.
SHOULD THE THEORY OF COOPERATION AND COMPETITION BE APPLIED IN CHINA?
Many social scientists are skeptical that Western theories can be applied in such collectivist cultures as China, arguing that an imposed theoretical framework captures the cultural experience only of the West. Specific objections can be raised to the application of Deutsch’s theory. The theory assumes that individuals are self-interested. Their actions and feelings are hypothesized to depend on whether they believe their self-interests are cooperatively or competitively related. As collectivists rather than individualists, Chinese are thought to pursue the interests of their groups rather than their own individual interests. Is the Deutsch assumption that self-interest motivates group behavior justified in China?
A related objection is that in a collectivist society, Chinese people are highly oriented toward cooperation rather than competition and independence. Are the Chinese able to interact in competitive and independent ways, or are these experiences infrequent and countercultural?
Deutsch argued that conflict is an inevitable aspect of social interdependence and that even with highly cooperative goals, group members conflict. However, the Chinese culture highly values harmony, making conflict anathema.
A related though somewhat inconsistent objection is that conflict, when surfaced, is inevitably competitive, although Deutsch argued that conflict has a cooperative face. The Chinese word for conflict connotes “warfare,” suggesting that conflict is invariably win-lose. Is the cooperative conflict approach viable in China?
Chinese people are thought to avoid conflict because they are particularly sensitive to social face and highly averse to interpersonal hostility and assertive ways of handling frustrations and problems. These values make it difficult to initiate conflict; even disagreeing easily and nonverbally communicates an aggressive affront to face. With social face values, can conflict be dealt with directly and open-mindedly?
Chinese society is considered traditional and hierarchical—one where employees readily defer to their superiors. But open conflict is more consistent with participative management. Is open-minded discussion consistent with hierarchical values in China?
More generally, the open-minded teamwork proposed by Deutsch’s theory supports organizations pressured to maximize value for customers. Deming and other popular theorists have argued that teamwork and conflict are necessary because of market demands to serve customers with quality products and services. China still remains a largely centrally controlled economy dominated by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that appease ministers rather than serve customers. Are Chinese organizations using cooperative conflict to serve customers?
Studies have directly tested the validity of Deutsch’s theory in China. Before examining these findings, the next section reviews the experimental and field methods employed.
RESEARCH METHODS IN CHINA
North American research methods to test the theory, like the theory itself, cannot be assumed to apply in China. East Asian researchers have modified our North American methods. Trained in both the East and West and based in East Asia, researchers have debated the theory and developed the methods. The research network itself has demonstrated the value of cooperative teamwork and constructive controversy. We are most grateful for our colleagues’ openness and contributions to the research.
In an initial step, network members as well as managers in the region argued that cooperation and competition were both important in Chinese organizations. Concretely, they translated the major concepts and research questions into Cantonese (the local Hong Kong dialect), Mandarin (the national language of China), Japanese, and Korean. This process also simplified and improved the English operations. Interview, questionnaire, and experimental methods have all been used to test the theory.
Interviews
The interview studies have employed the critical incident methodology. Rather than provide general ratings, respondents describe concrete experiences. Interviewers can establish a relationship with the respondents, provide an informal and personal climate, clarify and answer questions, and encourage the respondents. Chinese people, with their re
lationship-oriented culture, were thought likely to respond positively to this climate.
The interview has a highly defined structure. For example, in a study on developing commitment to Japanese organizations in Hong Kong, Japanese and Chinese managers were asked to identify a specific interaction that affected their commitment and to describe the setting, what occurred, and the consequences (Tjosvold, Hui, and Law, 1998). Then they answered specific questions about goal interdependence, constructive controversy, and consequences that allow statistical tests of the framework and hypotheses.
The interviews provided rich descriptive information about effective and ineffective interaction between Japanese and Chinese that affected commitment. Data were coded and sorted to identify the reasons for cooperative, competitive, and independent goals; the interaction behaviors that occurred; and the consequences of the interactions. These interview methods have been used to study cooperation, competition, and constructive controversy in a variety of organizational contexts.
Questionnaires
Questionnaire surveys allow for the sampling of many people and the use of independent sources for outcome measures. For example, 191 pairs of supervisors and employees were recruited from ten SOEs in Nanjing and Shanghai to participate in a leadership study on goal interdependence, justice, and citizenship behavior (Tjosvold, Hui, Ding, and Hu, 2002).
Employees completed questionnaires on cooperation, competition, independence, and constructive controversy with their supervisors and their level of procedural, distributive, and interactional justice. Their supervisors completed questionnaires on the extent to which the employees engaged in in-role performance (productivity) and extra-role performance (organizational citizenship). The overall model supported by a structural equation analysis of the data showed that a strong sense of justice promoted cooperative goals. These goals led to open-minded, constructive controversy, which in turn resulted in high levels of job performance and citizenship behavior.
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