Tom Putnam, the President of a Boston publishing company, had been working for several months witha French architectural firm that was designing the company's new printing facility in Fontainebleau,France. However, Tom was becoming increasingly frustrated with the many delays caused by the French architects. When the preliminary plans for the building, which the architects had promised by a certain date, had not arrived, Tom called them to enquire when he would be receiving the plans. The architects, somewhat indignant that he was calling for this reason, felt that Tom had doubted their integrity to deliver the plans. Tom was equally annoyed because they had missed the deadline, and what was worse, they did not seem to be the slightest bit apologetic about it. By the end of the phone call, Tom was convinced that his company's relationship with the French architectural firm had suffered a majorsetback.

1. Explain the type and source of the conflict. 2. Use the reconciliation framework for cross-cultural conflicts to give clear guidelines for both the U.S. President of the publishing company and the French architects.