Date: Oct 19, 2015
Time: 9:30am-11:00am
Venue: Room 802, Administration Building, Zijingang Campus
Speaker: Dr. Roy Chua, Singapore Management University
Topic: Gender, Task Conflicts, and Intercultural Collaboration
Host: Dr. Xie Xiaoyun
About the Speaker:
Roy Chua is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources at the Singapore Management University (SMU) Lee Kong Chian School of Business. Prior to joining SMU, Professor Chua was on the faculty of Harvard Business School for six years where he taught the core Leadership and Organizational Behavior (LEAD) course in the MBA program as well as the executive education program on talent management.
Professor Chua’s research draws on psychological and organizational theories to understand important social processes in business organizations. In his primary stream of research, he studies how cultural diversity in a globalized workplace influences creativity and innovation. Professor Chua also has a keen interest in understanding organizational behavior and management processes in the Asian context. He is an award winning management scholar and has published in leading academic periodicals such as the Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of International Business Studies, and MIT Sloan Management Review.
Outside academic research, Professor Chua is active in executive teaching. He has conducted case discussions and given lectures to various companies including Bank of China, Bank of East Asia, Goldman Sachs, SEACEN (South East Asian Central Banks), Shangri La hotel group, A.S. Watson, San Miguel, Hitachi, Barclays, DBS Bank, UOB (United Overseas Bank), Infineon, Unilab, Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS), Deutsche Knowledge Services, Deustsche Bank, Temasek Holdings, and John Clements Consulting.
Several times a year, Professor Chua is committed to running workshops and giving talks on a pro bono basis to nonprofit organizations and schools.
A native of Singapore, Professor Chua received a BSc with First Class Honors in Computer and Information Sciences from the National University of Singapore and a PhD in Management and Organizational Behavior from Columbia Business?School, Columbia University (New York). His recent research on “ambient cultural disharmony” won the 2013 Best Article Award at the Academy of Management.
Abstract:
Although working across cultures is commonplace in the global economy, as a field, we know little about how gender influences intercultural collaborations. This study investigates the role of gender in intercultural collaboration, examining how gender and cultural composition of dyads interact with task conflicts to predict collaborative creativity. According to social dominance theory and gender research, men are more assertive, tend to show more intergroup bias, and are more strongly oriented toward intergroup conflict and competition than are women. Thus, we theorize that when collaborating with male partners, individuals would experience more task conflicts, and males compared to females would perceive more task conflict when collaborating with foreign partners (out-group members). Consequently, we expect task conflict to decrease creativity in intercultural male-male collaborations. However, in female same-sex intercultural collaborations, task conflict has a positive relationship with the creative outcome because women are better at handling intercultural conflicts than men. This research sheds light on gender differences in managing cross-cultural conflicts and collaborations. It appears that women are better at harnessing the power of task conflicts for creativity benefits than do men when working across cultures.
