This document discusses managing intercultural conflict. It outlines five styles for dealing with conflict: dominating, integrating, compromising, obliging, and avoiding. Productive ways to manage conflict include narrowing the issue, cooperative problem-solving, and open communication. Destructive ways involve escalating negativity, bringing in new issues, and using power/threats. Effective conflict management requires recognizing different styles, being adaptable, understanding context, maintaining contact through dialogue, and being willing to forgive. Mediation using a third party can help resolve conflicts.

1. MCM-472
Intercultural
Communication
Fall 2014 - Dept of Mass Communication, NUST
Instructor: Waqas Naeem

2. Week 13- Intercultural conflict
Conflict management

3. Intercultural Conflict
Just to recap, we talked about five specific styles for
dealing with conflict:
● Dominating
● Integrating
● Compromising
● Obliging
● Avoiding

4. Managing Intercultural Conflict
Productive Destructive
Narrow the conflict to an issue or
definition
Escalate the negativity
Limit the conflict to the original
issue
Escalate to numerous other
issues
Cooperative problem-solving, for
example, “How can we work this
out?”
Use of power, threats, coercion,
for example, “Either you do what I
want, or else”

5. Managing Intercultural Conflict
Cooperation Competition
promote perceived similarity,
trust, flexibility
promote coercion, deception,
suspicion and rigidity
open communication limit communication
exploration sticking to what you know

6. Managing Intercultural Conflict
Exploration:
● The parties must first put the issue of conflict on hold and then explore
other options or delegate the problem to a third party.
● Blaming is suspended, so it’s possible to generate new ideas or positions.
● A sense of joint ownership of the recommended solution
● It should encourage individuals to think of innovative and interesting
solutions to the conflict at hand.

7. Managing Intercultural Conflict
Dealing with conflict
1. Stay centered and do not polarize
Move beyond either-or; self-restraint

8. Managing Intercultural Conflict
2. Maintain Contact
Dialogue

9. Managing Intercultural Conflict
3. Recognize the Existence of Different Styles
Unwillingness to recognize management style
differences is not good, because it will lead to negative
evaluation of each other

10. Managing Intercultural Conflict
4. Identify your preferred style
It’s better if you know which style you use
most often in dealing with conflicts
It is also important to recognize which conflict
styles “push your conflict button”

11. Managing Intercultural Conflict
5. Be creative and expand your style repertoire
Adaptibility and flexibility
No objective way
Better than getting stuck in one management
style

12. Managing Intercultural Conflict
6. Recognize the importance of conflict context
It is important that the context explain the
behaviour as much as possible

13. Managing Intercultural Conflict
7. Be willing to forgive
This means letting go of—not forgetting—feelings of revenge
Both revenge and forgiveness are instinctual and universal among humans and
both have developed as adaptive mechanisms in human evolution
Compensation
Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa

14. Mediation
Using a third-party to resolve conflict

15. Q&A
mn.waqas@gmail.comContact