Catherine H. Tinsley

Models of conflict resolution in Japanese, German, and American cultures

The author developed 3 models for resolving conflict from previous literature: resolving conflict by (a) deferring to status power (b) applying regulations, and (c) integrating interests. Preference for a model is argued to be influenced by culture, which filters information and guides members toward a particular model. The normative conflict models of Japanese, German, and American business managers are predicted from their group rankings on 3 dimensions of cultural variation: ( a) hierarchical differentiation, (b) explicit contracting, and (c) polychronicity. The majority of specific hypotheses about cultural group, dimensions, and conflict model are confirmed. Implications of these findings for international business managers as well as cross-cultural researchers are discussed.

How Near-Misses Influence Decision Making Under Risk: A Missed Opportunity for Learning

Although organizations appear to learn from obvious failures, we argue that it is harder for them to learn from “near-misses”---events in which chance played a role in averting failure. In this paper, we formalize the concept of near-misses and hypothesize that organizations and managers fail to learn from near-misses because they evaluate such events as successes and thus feel safer about the situation. We distinguish perceived (“felt”) risk from calculated statistical risk and propose that lower levels of perceived risk encourage people with near-miss information to make riskier subsequent decisions compared to people without near-miss information. In our first study, we confirm the tendency to evaluate near-misses as successes by having participants rate a project manager whose decisions result in either (a) mission success, (b) near-miss, or (c) failure. Participants (both students and NASA employees and contractors) give similar ratings to managers whose decisions produced near-misses and to managers whose decisions resulted in successes, and both ratings are significantly different from ratings of managers who experienced failures. We suggest that the failure to hold managers accountable for near-misses is a foregone learning opportunity for both the manager and the organization. In our second set of studies, we confirm that near-miss information leads people to choose a riskier alternative because of a lower perceived risk following near-miss events. We explore several alternative explanations for these findings, including the role of Bayesian updating in processing near-miss data. Ultimately, the analysis suggests that managers and organizations are reducing their perception of the risk, although not necessarily updating (lowering) the statistical probability of the failure event. We speculate that this divergence arises because perceived risk is the product of associative processing, whereas statistical risk arises from rule-based processing.

Why Near-Miss Events Can Decrease an Individual's Protective Response to Hurricanes

Prior research shows that when people perceive the risk of some hazardous event to be low, they are unlikely to engage in mitigation activities for the potential hazard. We believe one factor that can lower inappropriately (from a normative perspective) peoples perception of the risk of a hazard is information about prior near-miss events. A near-miss occurs when an event (such as a hurricane), which had some nontrivial probability of ending in disaster (loss of life, property damage), does not because good fortune intervenes. People appear to mistake such good fortune as an indicator of resiliency. In our first study, people with near-miss information were less likely to purchase flood insurance, and this was shown for both participants from the general population and individuals with specific interests in risk and natural disasters. In our second study, we consider a different mitigation decision, that is, to evacuate from a hurricane, and vary the level of statistical probability of hurricane damage. We still found a strong effect for near-miss information. Our research thus shows how people who have experienced a similar situation but escape damage because of chance will make decisions consistent with a perception that the situation is less risky than those without the past experience. We end by discussing the implications for risk communication.

How Near-Miss Events Amplify or Attenuate Risky Decision Making

In the aftermath of many natural and man-made disasters, people often wonder why those affected were underprepared, especially when the disaster was the result of known or regularly occurring hazards (e.g., hurricanes). We study one contributing factor: prior near-miss experiences. Near misses are events that have some nontrivial expectation of ending in disaster but, by chance, do not. We demonstrate that when near misses are interpreted as disasters that did not occur, people illegitimately underestimate the danger of subsequent hazardous situations and make riskier decisions (e.g., choosing not to engage in mitigation activities for the potential hazard). On the other hand, if near misses can be recognized and interpreted as disasters that almost happened, this will counter the basic “near-miss” effect and encourage more mitigation. We illustrate the robustness of this pattern across populations with varying levels of real expertise with hazards and different hazard contexts (household evacuation for a hurricane, Caribbean cruises during hurricane season, and deep-water oil drilling). We conclude with ideas to help people manage and communicate about risk. This paper was accepted by Teck Ho, decision analysis.

Exploring the Dominant Media How Does Media Use Reflect Organizational Norms and Affect Performance

This research provides strong support for the existence of dominant media norms within organizations and describes their influence on employees’ (a) perceptions of organizational norms, (b) reported media use, and (c) performance evaluations. Survey results demonstrate the presence of strong organizational norms for instant messaging (IM) and e-mail use within a large, high-tech organization. These norms, as well as supervisory behavior, may influence employees’ use of IM and e-mail and even more so when employees have strong polychronic orientations. In addition, employees who reportedly followed organizational norms by using IM and e-mail were awarded higher performance ratings by their supervisors, with 30% of the variance explained. The authors support the survey findings with in-depth interviews with participants exploring media use.

Managing the Intercultural Interface: Third Cultures, Antecedents, and Consequences

We offer a conceptualization of third culture in intercultural interactions and describe its different forms as well as its antecedents and consequences. Third culture is a multicultural teams shared schema that contains not only team and task knowledge, but also a shared set of beliefs, values, and norms grounded in the national cultures of the team members. We develop a typology to distinguish third culture schema form on two dimensions: third culture strength and third culture content. We then propose both team process and team composition variables that influence the emergence of these different forms. Furthermore, we use social identity formation and sensemaking mechanisms to propose the effects of these third culture forms on team performance.

Cross‐cultural Variance in Goal Orientations and their Effects

Nous avons compare l’orientation des buts d’un echantillon d’etudiants americains (n= 104) et un de Hong Kong (n= 175). Notre resultat principal indique que l’echantillon americain reproduit les resultats de la meta-analyse de Beaubien et Payne (1999), en indiquant une correlation tres pres de zero entre les orientations d’apprentissage et de performance. Cela suggere que les etudiants des Etats-Unis considerent ces deux orientations comme differentes. Cependant, tel que prevu, dans l’echantillon d’etudiants de Hong Kong, la correlation entre les orientations d’apprentissage et de performance est tres elevee (r= .71, p < .01) suggerant que ces etudiants ne font pas de distinction entre ces deux orientations (ou que ces deux orientations sont fondamentalement les memes pour eux). De facon similaire, nous avons trouve que les deux orientations de but sont associees positivement avec la performance en classe pour l’echantillon de Hong Kong alors que seule l’orientation d’apprentissage est liee a la performance pour les etudiants americains. Enfin, tel que prevu, les etudiants feminins dans l’echantillon chinois ont une orientation de performance plus eleve que les etudiants masculins. Cependant, les resultats ont aussi indique que le sexe n’est pas liea aucune des orientations dans l’echantillon americain. Ce dernier resultat est coherent avec les resultats de Button et al. (1996) mais non avec ceux de Beaubien et Payne (1999). We compared goal orientations of United States (n= 104) and Hong Kong (n= 175) student samples. Our major finding was that our United States sample replicated Beaubien and Paynes (1999) meta-analysis, indicating that the correlation between learning and performance goal orientations is near zero. This suggests that United States students embrace learning and performance goal orientations as separate and distinct ideas. However, as hypothesised, in the Hong Kong student sample, the correlation between learning and performance goal orientation was r= .71 (p < .01) suggesting that these students do not readily distinguish the two goal orientations (or that these two goal orientations are fundamentally the same to them). Similarly, we found that both goal orientations showed positive associations with classroom performance in the Hong Kong sample, but only learning goal orientation was related to performance in the US sample. Lastly, as hypothesised, female students in the Hong Kong sample had higher performance goal orientations than male students. However, gender was unrelated to both goal orientations in the United States sample—consistent with Button, Mathiew, and Zajacs (1996) findings but inconsistent with Beaubien and Paynes (1999) findings.

The Interplay between Culturally- and Situationally-based Mental Models of Intercultural Dispute Resolution: West Meets Middle East1

When involved in disputes, people’s stereotypes about one another and the situation can influence their attributions of motives and effectiveness at resolving the dispute. Stereotypes may be of particular concern when disputing parties have little knowledge about the individual across the table. In this study, we examined how respondents from different cultures evaluated the economic and relational goals of two disputing merchants - one from the West and the other from the Middle East. We tested the extent to which respondents’ expectations of the targets’ goals were driven by: 1) cultural information about each disputant (whether the merchant-disputant comes from the West or from the Middle East) and 2) the respondent’s own culturally-based mental model for approaches to resolving work-related disputes. We found very little evidence of cultural stereotyping in that respondents views of the Target Merchants’ goals were largely independent of the said culture of the Target Merchant. We did however find strong evidence that respondents from the United States, Turkey and Qatar hold different mental models about the goals a party has when resolving a work-related dispute. In particular, US respondents had a more variable-sum orientation than the other cultural groups, especially Qataris, whose mental model evidenced a fixed pie assumption regarding economic and relational goals. For example, Qataris and Turks viewed a goal of Maximizing one’s Own Gain as impeding a goal of Maximizing the Other Party’s Gain. Similarly, Qataris viewed Defending Honor as incompatible to the goals of Relationship Building and Giving Face, whereas Americans and Turks did not hold such a view. These differences, based on the country of the respondent, are discussed in detail.

Adopting a Dual Lens Approach for Examining the Dilemma of Differences in International Business Negotiations

International business negotiations are characterized by two levels of differences beyond those found in domestic business negotiations: individual level differences (in ne- gotiator priorities, preferences, perspectives, and scripts) and societal level differences (in national endowments, preferences (tastes), legal, economic and political systems, and gov- ernment involvement). These differences, which may be viewed by adopting a dual lens approach, include both micro/individual and macro/environment level differences. Moreover, these differences are both beneficial and costly to international negotiations, hence resulting in a dilemma of differences. This article examines both sides of the dilemma and concludes by offering negotiators advice on how to manage the differences inherent to international business exchange.

Interpreting Near-Miss Events

Abstract: We examine how, why, and to what degree project managers incorporate precursor events (specifically, near-misses) into their decision-making process at key points in a program or mission. An event is considered a “near-miss” if the outcome is non-hazardous, but if a hazardous or fatal outcome could have occurred. Through two student experiments we demonstrate that a “near-miss” bias can exist when making decisions in risky environments, and further, we examine if interventions can ameliorate this bias. This article is an important first step in understanding how information about prior near-miss events influence decision-makers and what to do about it.