Handling stakeholder conflicts improperly in urban regeneration projects can easily lead to large mass incidents, which will have serious negative social impacts and damage the credibility of the government. Therefore, finding an appropriate mechanism to promote effective communication among stakeholders to balance their demands is an urgent task to achieve conflict resolution. Based on the theory of social exchange, this study puts forward a conceptual model of conflict resolution mechanism in the form of dialogue. The model describes in detail how to improve the prosocial motivation of conflicting parties in the dialogue process to improve the quality of communication and resolve conflicts: 1) Complying with the dialogue relational norms (flexibility, Solidarity and information exchange) can improve the communication quality of both parties by improving the prosocial motivation of the conflicting parties; 2) Individual/collectivism culture plays a moderating role in the influence of dialogue relational norms on prosocial motivation. Based on the above, the dialogue mechanism proposed in this study provides a reference for conflict resolution of stakeholders in urban regeneration projects.
Bowen Liu is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in management science and engineering in the College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China. Her recent research interests include stakeholder management and engineering project conflict.
Wenxue Lu received the Ph.D. degree in management from the School of Management and Economics, Tianjin University (TJU), Tianjin, China, in
2004. He is currently a Professor with the College of Management and Economics, TJU. He also serves as the Vice Dean of the School of International Project Management, TJU. His recent research interests include the contract theory and project management theory, especially focusing on conflict, dispute, and negotiation in project management.