Review

Article Review: Managing cross-cultural conflict in organizations This text reviews the article whose core focus is on cross-cultural, which is quite evident in numerous organizations (Mayer & Louw, 2012). Since, these conflicts if not managed as necessitated bear detrimental effects on organizations’ progress despite having effective strategies meant to attain its goals. For instance, cross-cultural conflicts in any organization if respective authorities do not resolve them well lead to distress and distraction besides dysfunctional relationships in workplaces (Mayer & Louw, 2012). Conversely, if managed as necessitated these conflicts lead to positive impacts ranging from job satisfaction, stress discount to individual well-being. To ensure effectiveness in resolving these conflicts entails use of varied approaches that vary significantly with organizations.
Key words: Interests; beliefs; values; psychology; behavior; sociology; communication; conflict management; cross-cultural
Article Review: International Journal of Cross Cultural Management
Introduction
Conflict is a growing concern in numerous organizations globally. Based on Mayer and Louw’s article, conflict is part of a person; hence, it is a ubiquitous feature of professional and socio-cultural interaction (Mayer & Louw, 2012).
Summary
In this article, authors have addressed its theme from other studies’ methodological approaches ranging from positivist to communal constructivist besides interpretative paradigms (Mayer & Louw, 2012). Hence, it permits for a comprehensive variety of research statistics. Conflict is termed as being part of human. Based on this study, currently researches concerning effective management of cross-cultural conflict have been on the rise for the decades both globally and at interdisciplinary level. These different perspectives include and not limited to sociology, psychology, anthropology, health and behavioral sciences as well as communication (Mayer & Louw, 2012). According to Mayer and Louw (2012), conflicts can affect decision-making process; output, creativity, lead to distress, employees’ distraction and relationships in working places besides individual effectiveness (Mayer & Louw, 2012). However, if well managed can bear benefits ranging from job satisfaction, stress discount to individual well-being of the involved parties especially in the working place (Mayer & Louw, 2012). In workplaces, effective management strategies encompass first diagnosing and analyzing of organizational conflict, and eventually devising effective intervention procedures or approaches to resolve it. The strategies used by the organizations include, analyzing types of impacts and conflict resolution style. Moreover, cooperation in organizations is among the main concepts in reducing conflicts in a globalized setting. Internalization process across diverse organizations has led to focus on multicultural, intercultural and trans-cultural conflict-related investigation (Mayer & Louw, 2012). This cross-cultural research is brought about by the increased potential for multicultural conflict in the intercontinental workplace. In such settings multicultural conflicts entail a theoretic approach to culture, its descriptions, concepts and the cultural influences on personal interaction, conflict besides its management. Identifying the cause of the conflict is one of the basic tasks in conflict management. Conflict is associated with matters of standards as well as individuality. This is because conflict frequently arises when a person or a group of people observes dissimilarities besides opposition amongst themselves and others about values, interests, needs as well as beliefs (Mayer & Louw, 2012). Conflict is viewed as, an episode created through perception besides being assumed to be influenced by culture and that lead to knowing the being of multiple realities.
Reflections
The most important conclusion made with this research article is that multicultural organizations are the ones that usually experience intercultural conflicts (Mayer & Louw, 2012). This shows that much conflict is more often in international organizations where most people are from diverse cultural backgrounds as compared to local firms.
The research article classifies correlation between conflict and culture. If the study had been performed on multicultural organizations, the outcomes would have offered extra validity as well as accuracy. The research carried out mostly focus on intercultural, cross-cultural and trans-cultural conflict-related (Mayer & Louw, 2012). However, if the research was carried out on international organization the results could be accurate.
The study in this article proposes that there is a problem with organization production and culture. However, additional study will need to be carried out concerning the procedure the organizations go through towards increasing their output (Mayer & Louw, 2012). Additionally if the researches were conducted in organizational settings, perhaps the staff would have given very true information hence the results could have resulted with increased reliability and accuracy.
Implications
This research article suggests some great conclusion about negative impacts on organizational productivity, increased cost and culture (Mayer & Louw, 2012). The conclusion may exemplify to organizations that conflict minimization need to be integrated as much as possible. Once a staff becomes more involved in conflicts, the organization’s output goes down as well as incurring other unnecessary costs (Mayer & Louw, 2012). If an international organization has staff with conflict, a program need to be started to assist them emerge from it. The overall objective of an organization is to discover incomes as much as possible and in safe environs. However, additional efforts need to be made to certify that organizations have minimal conflicts.
References
Mayer, C. & Louw, L. (2012). Managing cross-cultural conflict in organizations. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 12(3), 3-8.