INTERCULTURAL CONFLICTS

In our 13th class of intercultural management, Heiko, explained to us the importance of finding a common ground in negotiation and in multicultural teams, due to the benefits that this can bring to the final result of any negotiation. Characteristics like leadership, authority and communication are fundamental in the multicultural teams, because those are the ones that will lead the whole team to a successful result.
According to Heiko, a person that does not know their group will be afraid because the uncertainty of how the group will perform the task, and from my point of view this can be directly related with the Hofstede dimension because on team works people might feel that there is a lack of security.

We also saw that there are two different dimensions that are related with the two components of conflict and this is named ''The intercultural conflict style model''

• Discussion: People with this characteristic will have a more direct communication but hiding their emotions. 
• Engagement: People with this characteristic will have a more direct communication and expressing their emotions.
• Accommodation: People with this characteristic will have an indirect communication and also will hide their emotions.
• Dynamic: People with this characteristic will implement an indirect communication but will express their emotions.

 EXAMPLES

Other theory developed by Bruce Tuckman related with the performance, behavior and success of the team work is call ''Developmental Sequence in Small Groups''.
Where four stages will define the good or the bad development of the work team, the four stages are Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjourning

The forming stage is the first one, where all the people in the group are getting to know each other and finally defining the roles.
The storming is the second one where all members begin to express their opinions not just according to the work but also the disagreements that they have in team rules.
The third one is the norming, where people start to crate tools to solve the differences giving a feedback.
Performing is the fourth stage when people start to develop the project and work on their roles and when new members are integrated easily.
The last stage is the adjourning one when is the time to celebrate the success of the team.

From my point of view it was the most interesting topic because with just five statements we can define the success or the failure of a team work.

QUESTION!!!

What does conflict mean into intercultural management?

It can be seen that conflict is the most common problem when talking about cross cultural relations, every country is trying to protect its sovereignty at any cost.

On the other hand into intercultural management when talking about teams, it can be seen that people have always different opinions and feelings making the communication and arrive to a common desision much harder.

• Wooten, L. (n.d.). CONFLICT MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR GRANTMAKERS. Retrieved May 14, 2015, from https://www.michiganfoundations.org/sites/default/files/resources/Conflict Management Strategies for Grantmakers.pdf
• Schmidt, H. (Director) (2015, May 5) Finding Common Ground - Multicultural Teams. Lecture PowerPoint. Lecture conducted from EAFIT Universty, Medellin.