Cooperative conflict management as a basis for training students in China

Chinese educators recognize that for their students to take advantage of new opportunities, as well as handle emerging threats in their rapidly changing society, they must learn to manage many conflicts. But Chinese collectivism and valuing harmony may seem to make Western approaches to conflict resolution culturally inappropriate. This article reviews recent research that provides a theoretical foundation for the training of conflict skills among Chinese students. Contrary to common assumptions, studies indicate that Chinese people not only can manage their conflicts openly but they can do so productively and enjoyably. Chinese values need not work against managing conflict. Indeed, when appropriately expressed, Chinese values have been found to promote open, constructive conflict management. These recent studies suggest how Western-based training on cooperative conflict can be modified for effective, culturally acceptable conflict management training in China.

**********

   The gentleman agrees with others without being an
   echo. The small man echoes without being in agreement.
   --Confucius

CHINESE EDUCATORS RECOGNIZE that their students must be particularly resourceful to participate in China's political and economic reform. They realize that educational methods should also be updated to prepare their students to take advantage of opportunities and cope with the many challenges they'll face as China rapidly changes from a centrally controlled to an open, market-oriented society. This more open society requires, among other capabilities, that students be able to work in teams and effectively manage conflict as they participate in modern organizations and negotiate their own careers.

Chinese educators, as well as politicians and managers, are considering Western ideas and methods to aid the reform. There is a willingness to apply modern, Western ways but also a commitment to make these methods fit Chinese culture. This can be challenging when educating students to manage conflict. Training students to manage conflict has been thought to contradict basic Confucian values of harmony and relationship enhancement. Shouldn't Chinese students learn to suppress their individuality and conform to the collective? Isn't harmony a central virtue of Chinese society? Indeed, shouldn't students resolve conflict by learning to passively accept authority rather than through structuring controversy in the classroom?

The Hong Kong Cooperative Learning Center is training educators and developing the knowledge base for cooperative learning and conflict management training in Chinese classrooms. Educators in mainland China have been particularly open to experimenting with cooperative learning and training their students in the social skills necessary to learn and work in teams.

This article reviews recent research that provides a theoretical foundation for the training of conflict skills among Chinese students. Contrary to common assumptions, studies indicate that Chinese people not only can manage their conflicts openly, but they can do so productively and enjoyably. Chinese values need not work against managing conflict. Indeed, when appropriately expressed, they have been found to promote open, constructive conflict management. These recent studies suggest how Western-based conflict resolution training can be modified for effective, culturally acceptable conflict management training in China.

The Need for Conflict Management Training in China

Although research in the West suggests the value of conflict and the need to manage it, the utility of open approaches to conflict, as well as the theories to analyze it, cannot be assumed to apply to a collectivist society like China (Hofstede, 1993). Although avoiding conflict may traditionally be preferred, educators recognize that the reform and opening up of the Chinese economy have made avoiding an impractical general approach to conflict resolution in today's China.

The traditional value of avoiding

Researchers have documented that Asians prefer to avoid dealing with conflict, whereas Westerners tend to confront conflict directly (Kirkbride, Tang, & Westwood, 1991; Tse, Francis, & Walls, 1994). They have drawn upon considerable research in cross-cultural management and psychology to conclude that a sense of interdependence explains these differences. Chinese scholars have argued that their culture is highly relational and its first virtue is human heartedness or humanity (Liu, 1986). Imbued with a strong sense of duty and hierarchy, Chinese people are expected to see themselves in the context of others and understand the need for reciprocity and obligations. Consequently, they are highly sensitive to the possibility of losing social face in public; they avoid conflict so they and their conflict partners need not fear disrespect and alienation (Cocroft & Ting-Toomey, 1994).

The reality of conflict

Although Chinese people may wish for relationships without conflict, conflict is part of family life and comes with working in organizations in China as well as in the West. Conflict occurs as China transforms itself to its own version of an open, modern, market-oriented society--a change that ranks as one of the world's great adventures with risks to match. Members of Chinese organizations may face even more conflicts and barriers than their Western counterparts as they examine and update state-owned enterprises, build a full range of market-oriented companies, reform their planned economy, and work with Japanese, American, Southeast Asian, Hong Kong, European, and other international partners.