ABSTRACT
Organisations vary according to the way in which conflict is approached and what sorts of remedies are considered appropriate. Based on crosscultural comparisons of how managers diagnose the causes of interdepartmental conflict, Hofstede (1994: 139ff.) argues that different nations have different ideas about what constitutes the ideal organisation. Borrowing dimensions identified in the Aston studies, he distinguishes organisations according to the degree of concentration of authority and the extent to which activities are structured. Given a dispute between two departmental heads, different nationalities are likely to approach the problem in different ways. The French, for example, are likely to identify the source of the conflict as negligence on the part of the manager to whom the two departmental heads report. The solution is for them to submit the matter to their common boss. The form of organisation advocated has a highly structured hierarchy, a classic bureaucracy. The
A Chinese secretary at a Sino-American joint venture voiced the following complaint about her American general manager who had majored in Chinese:
The trouble is he has turned himself into a fool by reading all those books about us. He often thinks there is a hidden meaning behind whatever we say. Actually, not many people here have the time to think about hiding their true meaning. We simply do not have the time. But he often asks people what they mean by saying this and that. This really annoys people because often we mean what we say and even if we mean something else, we are not going to tell him anyway. He has also learned to eavesdrop. Once he wanted me to eavesdrop on the conversation between the Chairman of the board and the deputy manager two doors away. I told him I wouldn’t and that it was no good him trying as they were speaking in the local dialect so even if he could hear anything, he would not be able to understand.
