Running head: CONFLICT 1

Module 6 Paper

Paige Tadlock

Arizona State University

OGL350

Organizational Conflict

February 20, 2022

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Organizational Conflict

Conflict is an inevitable part of our society that is expected when working within an

organization. Without proper awareness, individual and cultural differences can heavily

influence organizational conflict. Thankfully, there are many ways to alleviate and manage

conflict within organizations.

Cross-cultural conflict is the clash between two cultures due to differences in opinion

and/or perspective. Many American expectations and standard ways of thinking are different in

various different cultures. An example of something that many people value in American culture

is punctuality. The YouTube video “Being on Time – Enhancing Intercultural Dialogue”

provides the perfect example of a cross-cultural clash within an organization. Adinaya and her

manager come from different cultures, meaning that they do not always see eye to eye or have

the same perspective on things. Adinaya was ten minutes late for her shift, and it was not the first

time. Due to this being an ongoing issue, her manager decided to speak with her about her

ongoing timeliness issue. Offended, Adinaya defends herself by explain that her hard work

makes up for the time lost in those ten minutes. While she is a great and reliable employee, from

the manager’s cultural perspective, this does not make up for her not respecting the time that she

was scheduled to start her shift. He was not finding fault with Adinaya’s work ethic, his culture

just believes in punctuality, while Adinaya’s may care more about effort and work ethic than

timeliness. Ultimately, it is not about the time that Adinaya arrived, but more importantly that all

of his employees are consistently following rules and guidelines. Adinaya took this conversation

to offense and as an attack on her work abilities and personality, however, this is not how the

manager intended it. I do not agree with the way that Adinaya’s manager dealt with this issue,

and I think that there were many different ways to approach this problem that would have
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produced a better outcome. When managing conflict there are two categories that solutions can

fall into, either satisfying your own agenda or compromising and satisfying the other person’s

wants (Scott, 2016, p. 727). However, in an organization, compromise is very important in order

to be able to successfully keep moving forward. A way to strengthen your ability to compromise

is increasing your cultural intelligence, which is the ability to identify the differences in human

behavior across different cultures (Scott, 2016, p.728). If Adinaya’s manager would have

approached her with the intention of trying to understand and respect her perspective, a

compromise may have been able to be made. Also, with increased cultural intelligence, the

manager would have had the ability to explain why he believes in the importance of punctuality

so Adinaya did not take it as a personal threat, and also, he would have encouraged her to explain

why culturally, punctuality is not as important as hard work, for example.

Like we discussed above, compromise and negotiation are tools that help individuals

work through their organizational conflict and differences in behavior. An example of

differences in behavior across cultures, is the way that Akio Toyoda, chief of Toyota, handled

the brand-threatening crisis regarding a recall. Miscommunication is likely to happen within

cross-cultural clashes, as in this situation, not everything said was received well after translation.

Toyoda seems to be in the “hot seat” due to the way that he responded to a recall issue on Toyota

vehicles. Nicely explained by Asian Studies professor Jeff Kingston, in Japanese culture, a way

that issues tend to be handled is, “if it stinks, put a lid on it”, and frankly that is what Toyoda has

done with this recall issue. If addressed in the way that American culture expects, there may not

have been such an uproar about the issue. This situation is an example of how easily differences

in culture can lead to miscommunication and disagreements. A huge cultural clash in this

situation the fact that in a United States company in our American culture, it would be expected
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for them to be honest and to address an issue like a recall promptly (Voight, 2010).

Understanding differences in culture does create a different perspective and awareness that may

allow you to have a more understanding outlook on the situation. The article, “25 Fascinating

Chart of Negotiation Styles around the World” by Gus Lubin, discusses the differences across

cultures and how they address and handle conflict. When speaking of Japanese culture, it

mentions that big decisions are usually made behind the scenes and not publicly announced, and

Toyoda did just that (Lubin, 2014, p. 6). If you understand that in Japanese culture most conflict

is handled privately, you would not be as judgmental and would be more understanding in this

situation.

The story of The Giraffe and the Elephant by Thomas R. Roosevelt Jr. illustrates the

concept of diversity management and directly relates it to applicable life scenarios. In short, the

elephant in the story is too big and “different” to fit into the giraffe’s woodshop. The elephant

tries to make himself at home, but no matter what he does, the giraffe has to continuously try to

make him smaller. This is a perfect illustration of how individuals from different cultures feel in

order to “fit in” to an organization or workplace. If someone is different, whether it be looks,

opinions, or perspective, they usually will feel obligated to make themselves smaller in order to

fit in with the majority. While this happens very often, it is not okay and should be handled

differently. If each individual worked on themselves and their own emotional and cultural

intelligence, cross-cultural conflict and lack of representation throughout an organization may

decrease in occurrence. The giraffe and elephant perfectly illustrate a diversity mixture, which is

a group of individuals who simultaneously have things in common while also having major

differences (Roosevelt, 1996, p. 5). The key dynamics that relate to diversity management is that

many people are hesitant to truly embrace their cultural differences, and make themselves
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smaller in order to fit in. Individuals who hold management positions within organizations must

encourage all individuals to respect their own cultures as well as everyone else’s and allow them

to feel empowered to stick up for what they believe in. The most important aspect of this within

an organization is making sure that cultural differences are being viewed as an advantage that

having many perspectives allows the organization to make the best possible decisions that

benefit each individual person.

I appreciated the opportunity to take the Personal Diversity Maturity index because it

allows you to truly be honest with yourself and learn more about you and your perspectives.

Honestly, I scored lower than I expected myself to. My main takeaway from this is that we are

all supposed to be constantly learning and adapting to strive towards the individuals that we want

to be. Landing in the moderate Diversity Maturity category places me as an individual who is

open to learning new ideas and behaviors regarding diversity. I really like that you are provided

with specific pieces of reading to allow you to make observations and challenge yourself to learn

more in order to increase your score.

We will in a very diverse world with various different cultures and perspectives. Each

and every individual deserves respect and inclusion despite their differences. I have enjoyed this

course as it has given me direct feedback on my own unconscious biases, it has reiterated the

importance in exposing yourself to learning about different cultures and has taught how to

manage diversity and cross-cultural conflict within organizations.