Week 8-9 MANAGING INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

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Week 8-9MANAGING INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

• MNGT 583 Özge Can

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Todays Questions

• What are the major communication challenges
  facing international managers?
• What are the various forms of verbal and
  nonverbal communication?
• What cultural factors are relevant here?
• How can managers overcome the barriers to
  effective intercultural communication?

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Communication

• Communication
• Exchange of information, be it words, ideas or
  emotions.
• Communication is only possible between people who
  to some extent share a system of meaning (hint
  hint culture)

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Communicating Across Cultures

• Aside from perceptions and interpretations of
  behavior, you need to communicate your feelings
  or reactions
• Even when speaking the same language,
  communication is not the same
• It is a function of culture, background and
  experiences
• Communication styles gt The tendency for a
  culture to adopt a common style of communicating
  that is tacit and difficult for others to
  appreciate

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Languages of the World

• Thousands of distinct languages and even more
  dialects
• But, only about 100 languages have more than one
  million speakers
• About 10 languages account for most of the
  communication on the planet
• Most widely spoken native language Chinese
  (Mandarin)

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Speaking Other Languages

• You need to communicate in the language of the
  country in which you are doing business
• Being monolingual, bilingual, multilingual
• On the other hand, English is becoming more
  pervasive in international business circles as a
  common language
• Many nations teach English as the second language
• Also the most common language in the academic
  world

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Communicating in Foreign Languages

• Even with great profiency in a certain language,
  you may still face many problems in verbal
  communication
• Dialects, accent and other variations as well as
  many subtle differences in use
• Even native speakers have same challenges
• Communicating within natives as opposed to with
  non-native speakers
• Example Americans and British

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Communicating in Foreign Languages

• Despite accuracy in the literal translation of
  words, the actual meaning of a word can vary
  considerably.
• Ex Japanese peoples indirect way of saying no
• Language might be a good indicator of underlying
  cultural values such as individualism and
  collectivism
• Ex dropping or requiring the pronoun (I, you,
  he or she)

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Beware Humor, Understatement or Irony!

• Sarcasm the last refuge of modest and
  chaste-souled people when the privacy of their
  soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.
• ? Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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• Ricky Gervais, creator of the tv series, The
  Office The difference between American and
  British humour
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Office
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vHK-Cf9R4q-c

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Affective vs. Neutral Cultures

• Members of cultures which are affectively neutral
  do not show their emotions but keep them
  carefully controlled and subdued.
• In contrast, in cultures high on affectivity
  people show their feelings plainly by laughing,
  smiling, grimacing, scowling and gesturing they
  attempt to find immediate outlets for their
  feelings.

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Affective vs. Neutral Cultures

• The amount of visible "emoting" (degree of
  affectivity) is a major difference between
  cultures.
• Examples
• Americans tend to exhibit emotion, yet separate
  it from "objective" and "rational" decisions.
• Italians and south European nations in general
  tend to exhibit and not separate.
• Dutch and Swedes tend not to exhibit and to
  separate.

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Test Yourself

• In a meeting you feel very insulted because your
  business counterpart tells you that your proposal
  is insane. What is your response?
• 1) I will not show that they have hurt/insulted
  me, because that would be seen as a sign of
  weakness and would make me more vulnerable in the
  future.
• 2) I will not show that I am hurt because that
  would spoil our relationship. This will allow me
  later to tell the counterpart how much I was hurt
  by their comment so they might learn from it. I
  rather show my emotions when they have more
  chance to improve our business relationship.

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Test Yourself

• 3) I will show clearly that I am insulted so that
  my counterpart gets the message. I believe the
  clarity of my message will allow me to be able to
  control even greater emotional upset in the
  future.
• 4) I will show clearly I am insulted so that my
  counterpart gets the message. If business
  partners cannot behave themselves properly they
  have to bear the consequences.

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Compliments, Criticism, Embarrassment and Apology

• Wide differences across cultures in terms of how
  often praise is given, what is praised and how
  people respond
• Personal traits and physical apearance or
  interpersonal things - relations in a context?
• In-group vs. out-group relations
• Difficulty in expressing and accepting
  criticisms, admitting mistakes
• Concern about face saving feeling of shame

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Compliments, Criticism, Embarrassment and Apology

• What is more important physical or psychological
  harm?
• Types of apologies
• Being direct vs. indirect
• Being extensive and intense v.s. simple and quick
• The meaning of and approach to forgiveness

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Written Communication

• Adoption of new communication methods-technologies
  
• Which communication types a culture prefer?
• e-mail vs. instant messaging and telephone
• How people in different cultures write an e-mail?
• Short, to-the-point or extented and flowery
• Use of personal (formal) tone vs. third-person
  (informal) tone

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Written Communication

• Bypassing when different people use the same
  words to mean different things and thus
  communication errors occur
• Example the meaning of the word profit
• Use of idioms and analogies

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Nonverbal Communication

• The subtle cues used to communicate within and
  across cultures, including facial expressions,
  appearance , eye contact and body movements
• Above and beyond what is being said
• How it is being said
• Interpersonal space and gestures
• Emotions and touch
• Vocal qualities

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A Research Example

• Riviello et al. (2012), Conference paper
• A cross-cultural study on the perception of
  emotions How Hungarian subjects evaluate
  American and Italian emotional expressions

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A Research Example

• In the present work a cross-modal evaluation of
  the visual and auditory channels in conveying
  emotional information is conducted through
  perceptual experiments aimed at investigating
  whether some of the basic emotions are
  perceptually privileged and whether the
  perceptual mode, the cultural environment and the
  language play a role in this preference. To this
  aim, Hungarian subjects were requested to assess
  emotional stimuli extracted from Italian and
  American movies in the single (either mute video
  or audio alone) and combined audio-video mode.
  Results showed that among the proposed emotions,
  anger plays a special role and fear, happiness
  and sadness are better perceived than surprise
  and irony in both the cultural environments. The
  perception of emotions is affected by the
  communication mode and the language influences
  the perceptual assessment of emotional
  information.

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Nonverbal Communication

• Interpersonal space the distance we have between
  ourselves and others when we talk and interact
• Different spaces are preferred by different
  cultures
• Gestures are usually more direct and deliberate
  and designed to convey a message
• Example a shoulder shrug, a thumps-up sign

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Nonverbal Communication

• Haptics the use or lack of touch as a
  communication tool
• Vocal qualities characteristics such as speed
  and loudness of ones voice that project
  information in communication
• People from different cultures prefer different
  levels of touch and speed of talking

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Context, again...

• Something communicated often carries importance
  abov and beyonf what is being said.
• So, context itself might be the ultimate example
  of nonverbal communication
• Difference in communication between high-context
  and low-context cultures
• The former is more subtle and nuanced and
  prefers face-to-face communication the latter is
  more direct and prefers written communication