Cultural Value Orientation and Conflict Management Style of Chinese Companies in Germany

This dissertation examines the influence of culture on the conflict management styles of Chinese executives when interacting with their German staff in Chinese companies located in Germany. In other words, it seeks to determine whether the Chinese executives adjust their conflict management style to the German cultural environment or not while examining how German managers react to the behavior of Chinese managers in Germany. In so doing, it breaks new research ground because it focuses on Chinese companies in Germany because most previous Sino-German studies focus on German companies in China. And it is one of the first studies to consider all cultural dimensions of Hofstede within the scope of intercultural conflict management. This dissertation, thus, explores an aspect of conflict management that has received little attention from researchers so far and, thus, makes a valuable contribution to the field. The dissertation uses both a questionnaire and interviews. It, thus, combines both quantitative and qualitative research methods so as to employ the advantages of each research method while avoiding potential pitfalls inherent to each research approach. The findings have practical implications for Chinese managers in Germany as well as theoretical implications for the field of intercultural conflict management; hence, making this dissertation so valuable.