Beyond the Dotted Line: How Cultural Awareness Can Prevent Costly Disputes

The root cause that hiding behind of all of the disputes are often the cultural misunderstandings. And nowhere is this more evident than in New Zealand's construction, an industry built not just on concrete and steel but on expectations, communication, and relationships from a diverse-cultural based community.

The Cultural Chasm in Construction

Construction is personal. Despite the hard hats, technical drawings, and contractual terms, it is a deeply human enterprise. For many in the Chinese community, building a house or renovating a shop isn’t just a commercial transaction, it’s a way of sending the message, an investment in family, or a legacy project. This emotional depth affects how people perceive value, trust, and risk.

In New Zealand construction system, it assumes a shared understanding of contract, liability, and process that doesn’t always translate. However, in Chinese culture, business often begins with a relationship, not a contract. Trust is built over meals, conversations, actions, not legal clauses. Once that trust is established, it can feel like an insult to introduce rigid, legalistic terms. I’ve seen many builders and clients skip proper documentation entirely because they believe their word or a WeChat message is better, and enough.

But when disputes arise, the lack of clarity becomes a weapon. Suddenly, the trust that was never written down is challenged by a legal system that prioritises written proof over lived experience.

From Renovations to Seascape: The Growing Dispute Landscape

In my role as an adjudicator and consultant, I’ve noticed a sharp increase in disputes involving Chinese parties. These range from small-scale renovation work that goes unpaid to complex commercial projects worth millions. The Seascape dispute is only the visible example, however, there are hundreds of silent disputes.

What links these cases is not just the cultural background of the parties, but the mismatch between expectations and legal frameworks. Too often, the contract is signed without real understanding of language, of implications, or of process. Even translation doesn’t solve the issue when the concepts themselves are foreign.

I spoke about one recent case involving a homeowner who trusted a contractor purely based on community reputation. No formal contract, no scope definition, just mutual ‘understanding.’ The project collapsed, leading to claims of defective work and unpaid invoices. The adjudication process became not just a legal battle, but a cultural collision.

While I have highlighted the Chinese community here due to my own background and lived experience, it's important to recognise that cultural disconnects exist across many other communities as well. Each culture carries different expectations around communication, trust, formality, and dispute resolution. Unfortunately, our current contracting models are often blind to these variations. They assume a level playing field of understanding and behaviour that simply doesn't exist. Without recognising these cultural nuances, we risk unintentionally setting up projects and people for failure. That gap between cultural norms and contractual expectations is a fertile ground for disputes, no matter the size of the job or the background of the parties.

That said, the most important part of any construction contract is what happens before it is signed. Cultural due diligence is not just a nice-to-have, it is essential.

We need to ask:

• Has each party fully understood the scope, risk, and responsibilities?

• Have the expectations, both spoken and unspoken, been unpacked?

• Is there mutual understanding of how disagreements will be handled?

  
  

None of these questions are adequately answered by standard form contracts. They require dialogue, trust-building, and often, translation, not just of language, but of intent.

I also highlighted how pre-contract education, particularly within the Chinese community, could dramatically reduce the number of disputes. Workshops, bilingual templates, and culturally informed advisory services could make a real difference.

What We Can Learn from Culture

Dispute resolutions like mediation, adjudication and arbitration, as a process, is fundamentally about fairness and consent. But fairness doesn’t look the same to everyone. In many Asian cultures, direct confrontation in mediation, adjudication, even in the form of structured arbitration, can feel dishonourable or uncomfortable. There is often a preference for face-saving, informal mediation, or quiet settlement.

Yet our systems often reward assertiveness and detailed paper trails. This mismatch can disadvantage parties who are culturally conditioned to avoid open conflict, even when they’ve been wronged.

To make arbitration more culturally appropriate, we need more than just interpreters. We need culturally attuned dispute resolution experts, culturally reflective procedures, and above all, humility to realise that our current systems are not universally fit-for-purpose.

Moving Forward: From ‘Tick Box’ to Trust-Building

You may ask "How do we avoid tokenism when incorporating culture?”

My answer is simple: start early, stay curious, and focus on systems, not stereotypes. Cultural competence isn’t about having a checklist, it’s about building enough trust and awareness that you don’t even need one. It’s about understanding that ‘a signed contract’ means different things in different cultural contexts, and designing processes that accommodate that reality.

For those of us working in the intersection of construction and conflict resolution, this means rethinking our approach to risk, responsibility, and relationship-building. It means training young professionals to listen before they draft, to question before they quote, and to build agreements as thoughtfully as we build our structures.

Your Contract is Only as Good as Your Conversation

The Seascape dispute and countless smaller cases are not outliers, they are symptoms of a system that prioritises formalities over foundations. If we want fewer disputes, we need more conversations. We need to bring people to the table not just to sign, but to understand.

Construction law is not just about resolving problems, it’s about preventing them. And the best prevention starts with cultural understanding.

Because in the end, a contract is only as strong as the conversation that came before it.