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Intercultural conflict is the experience of emotional frustration and/or mismatched expectations between individuals from different cultures who perceive an incompatibility between their values, norms, goals, scarce resources, and/or outcomes during an intercultural exchange. Intercultural conflict occurs when cultural group membership factors influence how individuals approach, avoid, and manage conflict. During intercultural conflict, one’s group membership (i.e., culture) becomes a factor in how conflict is perceived, managed and resolved. Some of these cultural factors may be unconscious, such as one’s degree of individualism or collectivism. Other factors are probably very conscious. Intercultural conflict involves a certain degree of ethnocentric perceptions and judgments.

1. Video Link: Humor and Culture in International Business

Description: This TED talk explores the differences among cultures and the way we use humor in business.

2. Web Link: Cross-Cultural Case Studies: The East and West

Description: The article explores several case studies from people working in China and/or dealing with clients from Germany, India, and the U.S.

3. Web Link: 3 Cross-Cultural Workplace Conflicts for Americans and Hispanics

Description: As we saw in Chapter Three, Hispanics/Latinos represent the largest microcultural group in the U.S. At the CAL Learning website are three brief scenarios of potential conflict between Americans and Hispanics in the workplace.