Chinese and American Arbitrators : Examining the Effects of Attributions on Award Decisions

Most arbitration research has been conducted in United States, despite the growth of arbitration internationally. In this study, we plan to examine one area where cross-cultural differences between Chinese and Americans have been found - attribution - and explore what effects this might have on arbitrator decisions. Cross-cultural attribution literature indicates Americans tend to make more dispositional attributions, while Chinese tend to make more situational or contextual attributions, and that Americans tend to attribute results to a person's ability while Chinese tend to attribute results to a person's effort. We propose that these attribution differences influence arbitrator decisions and will conduct a cross-cultural field experiment to test our hypotheses