Conflict in the context of global organizations

In the last byte, we looked at some of the structure issues that could give raise to conflicts. In today's byte, we look at how conflict is influenced by the increasing globalization.

Many Multi-National companies employ people from different ethnic and cultural groups. This gives rise to vast differences amongst individuals and increases the potential for conflict.
 

Individualism means that people believe that their individual interests take priority over society's interest. Collectivism on the other hand that people put the good of group first. Given the cultural contexts, individualism/collectivism could lead to have a lot of influence conflict in managerial context.
 

Power Distance across cultures is another source of conflict in the era of globalization. The source of conflicts in case of power distance would result from the way one respect people in higher levels of power.
 

How people perceive the uncertainty and how they attempt to avoid uncertainty is another source of conflict in the scenario of globalization. Some cultures handle uncertainty better than others.
 

Time orientation is another dimension that could lead to conflicts when working with people across different cultures. Chinese are generally having a long term orientation, while the US and Russian countries have a short term orientation.
We next look at the various forms of organizational conflicts.