Are Our Goals Aligned? The impact of Cooperative Goal Interdependence on Nonnative vs Native English Speaker Conflict Interactions

Keywords: nonnative accents, workplace conflict, diversity

Abstract: While the effects of nonnative accents have been explored in various organizational settings (Gluszek & Dovidio, 2010; Huang, Frideger, and Pearce, 2013), limited attention has been given to exploring the experiences of nonnative speakers when they interact with native speakers in conflict contexts in the workplace. Across two studies, we explore and find that 1) nonnative speakers that engage in conflict with a native speaker experience less satisfaction with conflict process and relationship compared to those that engage in conflict with another nonnative speaker and 2) cooperative goal interdependence moderates the negative relationship between NNS-NS interaction and satisfaction with conflict process and relationship such that this relationship is weaker when goals are perceived to be cooperatively aligned.