Cross-Cultural Communication In Global Companies

Acknowledgements

Firstly, I should like to acknowledge a sincere and profound appreciation to my supervisor, Professor Wu Xiao Yu, for his patient instruction and unselfish support on this paper in his spare time. During the brewing and revising of the thesis, I was not only impressed deeply by Professor Wu’s academic ability but also moved by his responsible spirit.

My faithful thanks shall go to all of the professors that have given me wonderful lectures, too, which have not only helped me academically but also improved my attitude toward life. I shall owe my sincere thanks to these nice tutors: Professor Luo Guoliang, Professor Xia Zhengrong, Professor Xu Yaqin, Professor Xie Yi and so on.

My appreciation also goes to my family, friends and boss who have been encouraging me to complete this thesis and have offered me great help. 

Cross-culture Communication in Global Companies

Abstract:

With the success of Beijing’s application for Olympics and that of China’s entry into WTO, ‘internationalization’ and ‘globalization’ becomes frequently used terms. More and more people recognize that globalization has been the determined tendency of enterprise development in future. As a carrier of economics globalization and internationalization, Global Companies are providing larger platforms of cross-national communication for more people. With the gradual expansion of Global Companies, they have absorbed and accepted more and more people of different races and different nations from different areas, on whom the distinctiveness of culture could be seen clearly. Then, what shall the managers in Global companies do when facing such kind of complicated constitution of culture? A very important thing is to positively bring up talents of internationalization, who should hold the most fundamental qualification---cross-national communication skill. 

In fact, most of well-known executives in the world-class corporations consider this kind of communication ability as the key to their success. Recently, when talking about what is the primary ability as an Administration President, the Administration President of Nokia ---Jorma Ollila indicated that the ability of effective communication and managing staffs is foremost important. Kurt Hellstrom, Administration President of Ericsson also holds the same opinion. Thus, we can find easily how they are consistent in considering the function of cross-national communication ability in management.

Based on the research of culture and cross-culture, the purpose of this paper is to analyze cross-cultural communication in Global Companies, which will be directly confronted with various barriers, including miscommunication and cultural differences.

Chapter One is devoted to a brief introduction to Global Companies. Due to the nature of Global Companies, especially their cultural characteristics, cross-cultural communication becomes increasingly inevitable and necessary. 

Chapter Two: The first part is an introduction of the definition of culture; the second part and third part respectively introduce culture’s values and their roles in the management of Global Companies; the fourth part and the fifth part separately introduce the four dimensions of culture and their importance to international management and cross-cultural communication; the sixth part introduces two different groups of cultures.

Chapter Three firstly compares cross-cultural communication with Cross-national communication. Then it introduces two kinds of cultures beyond national culture- Subcultures and Overlapping Cultures. At last, it highlights the important implications of cross-cultural communication for managers in Global Companies.

Chapter Four analyzes the obstacle of cross-cultural communication- Miscommunication. The first part is an analysis of the nature of Miscommunication; the second part analyzes its motivations and conditions. The other parts are an analysis of miscommunication from several dimensions.

Chapter Five The first part introduces fundamental principles for communication; the second part points out the basic tasks of managers in Global Companies; the third part summarizes the skills of eliminating barriers to communication.

内容简介

随着北京申奥成功和中国加入世贸，"国际化""全球化"这样的词汇在中国使用的频率迅速提高。越来越多的人都认识到，实行全球化已是未来企业发展的必然趋势。跨国公司作为经济全球化与国际化的载体为更多的人们提供了跨文化交流的平台。伴随着跨国公司触角的不断延伸，它吸收并容纳了越来越多的来自不同地区，不同种族，不同民族的人才，但是每个人身上都有着明显的深刻的文化烙印。 那么面对日趋复杂的企业文化环境，跨国公司该如何应付呢？很重要的一点是要积极培养国际化人才，而国际化人才应具备最基本的素质就是跨文化沟通能力。

事实上，许多世界知名的企业管理者都将这种沟通能力看作是他们取得成功的关键。最近，诺基亚公司（Nokia）行政总裁Jorma Ollila在谈到什么是行政总裁应该具备的最重要能力时，他认为那应该是有效沟通和管理员工的能力。爱立信公司（Ericsson）行政总裁Kurt Hellstrom也有相似的看法。我们不难看出，他们是何等地认同跨文化沟通能力在管理工作中的重要性。

本文在探讨文化与跨文化的基础上, 研究了跨国公司内从管理层面进行跨文化沟通时需要注意的一些问题, 尤其是沟通障碍和文化的差异。

第一章 对跨国公司做了介绍。跨国公司的特性，尤其是文化方面的特性决定了在跨国公司内进行跨文化沟通的必然性与必要性。

第二章 第一部分介绍了文化的定义；第二部分与第三部分分别分析文化所包含的价值观及其对于跨国公司管理的重要性；第四部分与第五部分分别介绍了文化的多重属性及其对跨国公司管理与跨文化沟通的重要性；第六部分介绍了两组对立的文化。

第三章 首先提出了跨文化沟通与跨国文化沟通的定义，然后提出了两种超越国家文化层面的文化：亚文化与重叠文化。最后分析了跨文化沟通对于跨国公司内的管理层的重要性。

第四章 重点分析了阻碍跨文化沟通的障碍-误解。第一部分分析了误解的本质，第二部分分析了误解产生的条件，然后从多个角度分析了误解。

第五章 第一部分是保持有效沟通的基本原则；第二部分指出了跨国公司内的管理人员的基本任务；第三部分总结了扫除沟通障碍的技巧。

Content

Chapter One……………………………………………………….8

Introduction of Global Companies

1.1 What are Global Companies?

1.2 What are the Characteristics of Global Companies?

Chapter Two………………………………………………..…….13

Access to Culture

2.1 The Meaning of Culture

2.2 Defining and Understanding Cultural Values

2.3 The Importance of Cultural Values for Managers in Global Companies 

2.4 Cultural Dimensions

2.5 Cultural Dimensions’ role in International Management and Communication

2.6 Two Groups of Opposite Cultures

Chapter Three…………………………………………………….29

Cross-Cultural Communication

3.1‘Cross-cultural Communication’ and ‘Cross-National Cultural

Communication’

3.2 Going beyond National Culture

3.2.1 Understanding Subcultures

3.2.2 Understanding Overlapping Cultures

3.3 Necessity of Cross-Cultural Communication  

Chapter Four……………………………………………………..36

The Obstacle of Cross-cultural Communications-Miscommunication

4.1 Different View of Miscommunication

4.1.1 The Nature of Miscommunication

4.1.2 Possible Motives or Conditions of Miscommunication

4.2 To Analyze Miscommunication from a Cultural-anthropological Perspective

4.2.1 Cultural Variability  

4.2.2 Analysis of Cultural Variability and Miscommunication

4.3 To Analyze Miscommunication from Social-linguistic and Pragmatic

Perspectives

4.4 To Analyze Miscommunication as Problems of Identify

4.5 To Analyze Miscommunication from other Perspectives

4.5.1 Prejudice

4.5.2 Ethnocentrism

Chapter Five…………………………………...………………….53

How to Enhance the Effective Cross-Cultural Communications 

5.1 Fundamental Principles

5.1.1 To Strengthen Global Corporate Culture

5.1.2 To Recognize and Respect Cultural Difference

5.1.3 To Reconcile Cultural Difference

5.2 The Basic Tasks of the Management Team

5.2.1 Cross-Cultural Training

5.2.2 Team Building Activities

5.2.3 Self-improvement

5.3 Skills for Eliminating the Barriers to Communication

Conclusion……………………………………………………………58

Chapter One

Introduction of Global Companies

1.1 What are Global Companies?

A global company is in fact an ‘international’ or ‘multi-national’ company and it’s so called because the word ‘global’ is nowadays very fashionable. Search the web for ‘global company’ and you will find all kinds of companies ranging from import/export agencies to giant multinationals. One American trade magazine defines it as any company with more than ten percent of its sales outside the USA. The definition I prefer is ‘a company that can bring to bear its worldwide capability on any transaction and on any customer in any market it chooses’

The multinational corporation is the one that not only is based in one country but also possesses or controls the production or service facilities in other countries. This kind of enterprises may not be joint stock or private; they may be cooperative or state-owned. The author thinks, “Without direct investment overseas, there will not be the multinational corporations; without multinational corporations, more than 90% of the direct investments abroad in the world will not occur. These two relationships can not be divided”. In accordance with the statistics of the UN, the number of the worldwide multinational corporations has increased to 63,000 in 1999 from 15,000 in 1980, whose oversea affiliates have increased to almost 700,000 from 104,000, and where oversea investment amount has reached US$1,491,9 billion in 2000, which hit a new record. The multinational corporations integrate the production elements and resource advantages, which transcend the countries and areas limitation. About 1/3 of the current gross world production value is held by the multinational corporations among which more than 90% is controlled by the few huge multinational corporations. “It means that almost all the sections and all industries of the world economics are controlled by the large multinational corporations”.

1.2 What are the Characteristics of Global Companies?

It is hard to generalize the characteristics of a global company because a lot depends on the type of product or service the company provides and the delivery mechanism it uses. But most global companies meeting the above definition will have most of the following characteristics:

1.2.1   Global brands—Brands are the marks, which enable an industrial/commercial 

corporation or their group to be known by others. Brands are exclusive. They are carriers of products’ information and are the invisible capital of the corporation/group. Global brands are brands that are worldwide unique，recognized and protected. The brands of Global companies are always representing “Super quality of products & services”.

Eg.   is the brand of General Electric Company

1.2.2        Global corporate culture—It is a worldwide system of shared goals, values and behaviors suitable for all company staff with different races, different value views in a complicated and power-decentralized environment, such as the tenet of “IBM means service”, or Matsushita’s “to recognize our responsibility as entrepreneur, to pursue the improvement, to enhance the public welfare, to devote to the sustaining development of our world”.

A Global Corporate Culture usually has the following characteristics:

-         Being regardless of nationality, race, color, creed

In recruitment, selections and evaluation of staff members and providing remuneration and benefits to staffs, the global company usually apply the same standard in the global field and ignores the cultural differences

-         Being respectful for cultural difference

The global company admits the affiliates into the cultural system of the enterprise headquarters.  Wherever the global company set up branches, it must obey local cultures and regulations and respect the staffs’ customs, religions etc. Otherwise it is hard for it to get an adequate environment neither of personnel nor of business.

1.2.3          Core standards of talent

   In close relation with the global corporate culture, the global company usually has its core standards of personnel evaluation, especially for freshmen.

- Siemens: people with entrepreneur characteristic

With long history, Siemens is called “the cradle of entrepreneurs”. Actually, Siemens is looking for the people with entrepreneur characteristics. The basic requirements for the future entrepreneurs are those who should have excellent test scores, good command of language, wide interests, strong curiosity, willingness to improve work and the calmness and persistence under urgent circumstance.　　
 
- GE: not stick to one pattern

GE never cares where, which school and which country employees come from. “GE” possesses the elites of the intellectual circle. Young people may gain more opportunities in “GE” regardless of their qualifications and service records. There are many young managers in their thirties in “GE”, most of who were educated in the countries other than the USA and ever worked at least at two branches of “GE” before being promoted to be the superior managers.  

- P&G: Eight Basic Principles
Leadership; Honesty and integrity; Potential ability; Capability of bearing risk; Ability of innovation; Team-work spirit; Professional Skills. Here what is to be emphasized is all of these eight dimensions are paratactic.

1.2.4        Sophisticated information technology 

Nowadays, information technology means not only the simple application of computer, such as Windows, MS office software, etc., but also the internet technology and management systems.

Application of Internet Technology can bring a foremost benefit-saving time of information transmission. Additionally, by means of internet, traditional company’s cost down could be realized more quickly than Dotcom Company’s income upward, which could be proved by GE’s combination of Honeywell through internet in Oct. 2000. This has directly resulted in 30-50% cost down of administration in GE.

Most global companies have developed management systems according to company’s or functional requirements, such as ERP, which provides efficient and effective support to decision makers.

1.2.5        Functional, not national, structure, probably built around a product group.  

Matsushita Electric Corporation began in 1993 to carry out the system of individual job responsibility in all its business sectors. After long-term efforts, it has formed current business department system as is shown in Figure 1. Business departments of Matsushita Electric Corporation may be called as “internal companies of the enterprise ”, which integrates the research, development, production, sale, service and others as a whole, and every individual sector should take the running responsibility and will keep separate accounts as a main part.

Figure 1

                               Asia Pacific HQ

……..

GM

。。。

Note：

²        BU-Business Unit

²        GM-General Manager

²        R&D-Research & Design

²        HQ-Headquarter

²                Represent ‘Main reporting line, related to business &products closely’

²                Represent ‘Functional and administrative reporting line’

Chapter Two

Access to Culture

2.1 The Meaning of Culture

Culture is a concept familiar to most people. It is difficult, however, to specify what is meant by the concept. For example, two anthropologists (Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1952) catalogued 164 separate and distinct definitions of the word ‘culture’. This issue is further complicated by the fact that the word culture has several quite different meanings. Culture can refer to a shared, commonly-held body of general beliefs and values that define what is right for one group (Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck 1961; Lane and DiStefano 1988), or to socially elitist concepts, including refinement of mind, tastes and manners (Heller 1988).

The word apparently originates from the Latin word cultura, which is related to cultus, which can be translated as cult or worship. Members of a cult believe in specific ways of doing things, and thus develop a culture which enshrines those beliefs. 

According to the definition given by Hofstede, a worldwide well-known expert on cross-culture and management, culture is the common thinking made by which the members of one group of people are different from those of another group. Based on Hofstede’s definition, the following definition was proposed by Terpstra and David (Terpstra and David 1985:5), which delineates what is meant by the word culture in the international management context:

Culture is a learned, shared, compelling, interrelated set of symbols whose meaning provides a set of orientations for members of a society. These orientations, taken together, provide solutions to problems that all societies must solve if they are to remain viable.

There are several elements of this definition that are important for us to gain an understanding of the relationship of cultural issues and international management (Punnett and Ricks 1992):

(1)   Culture is learned—this means that it is not innate; people are socialized from childhood to learn the rules and norms of their culture. It also means that when one goes to another culture, it is possible to learn the new culture.

(2)   Culture is shared—this means that the focus is on those things that are shared by members of a particular group rather than on individual differences; as such, it means that it is possible to study and identify group patterns.

(3)   Culture is compelling—this means that specific behavior is determined by culture without individuals being aware of the influence of their culture; as such, it means that it is important to understand culture in order to understand behavior.

(4)   Culture is interrelated—this means that while various facets of culture can be examined in isolation, these should be understood in context of the whole; as such, it means that a culture needs to be studied as a complete entity.

(5)   Culture provides orientation to people—this means that a particular group reacts in general in the same way to a given stimulus; as such, it means that understanding a culture can help in determining how group members might react in various situations.

Because culture is so fundamental to society, it influences people’s behaviors in critical ways. Effective management depends, at least in part, on ensuring that people behave in ways that are appropriate for the organization. This means that understanding culture is important for managers. Where cultural differences exist they should be accommodated to achieve desired behavior and results. This is easier in theory than it is in reality. Each of us is influenced by our own culture, and people are inevitably somewhat ethnocentric as the following section explains.

2.2 Defining and understanding cultural values

Hofstede holds that culture embraces the system of values, which are the cornerstone of culture.

Values are useful in explaining and understanding cultural similarities and differences in behavior; thus, understanding values and their cultural basis is helpful to mangers in global companies. If they understand how values can vary from culture to culture, they are more likely to accept and interpret correctly behavioral differences. This acceptance and correct interpretation, in turn, enable managers to interact effectively with others whose values and behaviors are unfamiliar.

It is helpful to define the concept as well as to distinguish it from, and relate it to, others. This serves to delineate the domain of cultural values, and to underscore their importance to international managers. The following discussion begins with cultural values, then examines needs, attitudes and norms. These latter concepts are all similar to those of cultural values, but each contributes somewhat differently to behavior.

Values

Values have been described as enduring beliefs that specific modes of conduct or ideal states of existence are socially preferable to their opposites (Rokeach 1973); a value system is seen as a relatively permanent perceptual framework which influences an individual’s behavior (England 1978). Values establish the standards by which the importance of everything in society is judged. Throughout their definitions, the important issue for international management appears to be the role of social values in behavior.

In a general sense, values and norms are societal, while needs and attitudes are individual. Values interact with needs, attributes and norms as the following discussion explains.

Needs

Needs are described as forces motivating an individual to act in a certain way; once satisfied, needs no longer have an impact on behavior (see MOTIVATION AND SATISFACTION). For example, a need for food motivates people to seek food; once people have eaten, they normally no longer seek food (unless motivated by other needs). Cultural values interact with individual needs because they influence how people choose to satisfy their needs (see HERZBERG, F.).

It is generally accepted that two of the most basic and universal human needs are the need for food and the need for sex, yet satisfaction of these needs differs because of societal values. In most societies a value of human life precludes cannibalism to satisfy a need for food. Societies often have accepted times for eating, and even when people are hungry, they observe these timeframes. Similarly, social customs regarding sexual partners limit satisfaction of sexual needs.

Many societies practice restrictions regarding food, often associated with religious rituals. During Lent, Christians may forgo favorite foods or limit their intake of meat. During the month of Ramadan, Muslims fast completely during daylight hours. Some sects eat no meat, some do not allow beef, others prohibit shellfish or pork, and still others do not allow certain combinations of foods. Individual needs are put aside to observe these restrictions.

Many societies also have customs regarding the timing and selection of sexual partners. Some societies allow men to have multiple wives, others have group marriages where any partner may have sex with any other. In some locations marriages are arranged for girls at birth and they must remain virgins until marriage, in others men and women select their own sexual and marriage partners. As with food, individual needs are put aside to observe these restrictions.

Attitudes

Attitudes are described as a tendency to respond favorably or unfavorably to objects or situations, based on beliefs about them. Societal values influence what we respond favorably to and what we view with disfavor.

In a business setting dress can mean quite different things depending on what the society values, and how different types of dress are interpreted. If wearing a suit and tie indicates a conservative business perspective and conservatism is valued, this would result in a favorable attitude to someone in this attire. Elsewhere, if innovation in business was more highly valued, and wearing a brightly colored T-shirt and jeans was seen as indicating an innovative perspective, this might be viewed positively. Similarly, in some societies males with long hair are seen negatively, while in others long hair represents virtue.

Norms

Norms prescribe or proscribe specific behaviors in specific situations and result in standardized, distinctive ways of behaving. They are seen as normal (thus the word ‘norms’) and appropriate behavior. A typical US norm involves eating with the fork in the right hand and this seems acceptable and normal to people who have lived in the USA for extended periods. People in many other countries hold their forks in the left hand, and in other places forks are not used at all. For those accustomed to using the right hand for a fork, the reverse can be quite uncomfortable and using chopsticks in place of a fork almost impossible. Similarly, for those used to a fork in the left hand or chopsticks, the US norm is uncomfortable.

Norm probably originated from values but they no longer clearly represent these. The US norm of eating with the fork in the right hand would not be described as a ‘societal value’; it is simply the accepted way of behaving in the USA.

2.3 The Importance of Cultural Values for Managers in Global   

Companies

Managers in international businesses need to understand and appreciate a variety of differences among nations. Among other differences, nations exhibit varying cultural profiles; thus, understanding the cultural environment is a component of the international manager’s task. Managers who have worked in foreign locations acknowledge that understanding the culture in those locations is necessary if one is to manage effectively. Virtually all of the activities undertaken by managers are affected, at least to some degree, by the cultural environment. Consider some examples which show the importance of culture in the management process:

(1)   International firms need to negotiate with various foreign constituencies. Success in these negotiations rests on understanding the cultural background of the negotiators.

(2)   Strategic alliances are becoming more and more common between firms with different strategies and objectives. To succeed, managers may need to understand the cultural factors that influence organizational strategies and objectives.

(3)   Managers in foreign locations frequently find that employees behave in ways that are quite different from these managers’ expectations.

(4)   Expatriates (employees working outside their home country) find culture shock affects their general ability to function well in foreign locations. Cultural understanding and adaptability have been identified as contributing to better expatriation.

(5)   Various functional aspects of organizations, such as accounting, finance, and marketing can differ markedly from one location to another. For an organization to be effective overseas, these functional aspects must fit the local culture.

2.4   Cultural Dimensions 

In global cultural field, there is an famous ‘Hofstede’s value survey model’. The value survey model (VSM) has been widely discussed in international management literature and it appears to provide information of relevance from a managerial point of view. The Hofstede (1980) model proposed four dimensions of culture 

2.4.1 Individualism

Individualism (IDV) is the degree to which individual decision making and action is accepted and encouraged by the society. Where IDV is high, the society emphasizes the role of the individual; where IDV is low, the society emphasizes the role of the group. Some societies view individualism positively and see it as the basis for creativity and achievement; others view it with disapproval and see it as disruptive to group harmony and cooperation.

2.4.2 Uncertainty avoidance

Uncertainty avoidance (UAI) is the degree to which the society is willing to accept and deal with uncertainty. Where UAI is high, the society is concerned with certainty and security, and seeks to avoid uncertainty; where UAI is low, the society is comfortable with a high degree of uncertainty and is open to the unknown. Some societies view certainty as necessary, so that people can function without worrying about the consequences of uncertainty; others view uncertainty as providing excitement and opportunities for innovation and change.

2.4.3 Power distance

Power distance (PDI) is the degree to which power differences are accepted and sanctioned by society. Where PDI is high, the society believes that there should be a well-defined order of inequality in which everyone has a rightful place; where PDI is low, the prevalent belief is that all people should have equal rights and the opportunity to change their position in the society. Some societies view a well-ordered distribution of power as contributing to a well-managed society because each person knows what their position is, and people are, in fact, protected by this order. Others view power as corrupting, and believe that those with less power will inevitably suffer at the hands of those with more.

2.4.4 Masculinity

Masculinity (MAS) is the degree to which traditional male values are important to a society. Traditional male values incorporate assertiveness, performance, ambition, achievement and material possessions, while traditional female values focus on the quality of life, the environment, nurturing and concern for the less fortunate. In societies that are high on MAS, sex roles are clearly differentiated and men are dominant; if MAS is low, sex roles are more fluid and feminine values predominate throughout. Some societies see the traditional male values as being necessary for survival; that is, men must be aggressive and women must be protected. Others view both sexes as equal contributors to society and believe that a dominance by traditional male values is destructive. The extremes of each of these indices have been described. Most countries are not at the extreme, but may be moderately high or moderately low; thus, effective management practices will not usually reflect an extreme tendency.

2.4.5 Summary

An examinational of profiles of different countries shows the variety that is possible considering these four dimensions. Some examples illustrate how these might influence management practices.

(1)   New Zealand as a society is individualistic, does not avoid uncertainty and believes in equality and traditional male values. This would suggest that organizational structures will be relatively flat, with individuals making decisions on their own and competing for scarce resources.

(2)   Italy as a society is individualistic, avoids uncertainty and believes in equality (within the confines of sex distinctions) and traditional male values. This would suggest a similar structure, but a reliance on gathering information for decisions and an emphasis on job security and seniority are important components of the management system.

(3)   Singapore as a society is collectivist, does not avoid uncertainty, believes in power distinctions and is relatively low on masculinity. This suggests a paternalistic leadership system, with the leader expressing concern for subordinates and the quality of life, but without undue concern for job security.

(4)   Japan as a society is collectivist but also high on uncertainty avoidance as well as masculinity, and relatively high on power distance. This would suggest a system that seeks consensus among group members but is competitive and has clear distinctions in terms of power; job security would be stressed and jobs allocated on the basis of sex.

2.5 Cultural Dimensions’ role in International Management and Communication

The management process is often described as consisting of planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling. These aspects of the management process probably occur in some form in all businesses, but the form may differ depending on the environment. In particular, the cultural values that are typical of a particular society can influence what is effective in terms of the management process. Consider some extremes of the Hofstede dimensions as they might relate to aspects of the management process.

2.5.1 IDV’s role in International Management and Communication

Where individualism is high, individual input is sought from those individuals who have particular knowledge or expertise. Superiors are expected to make day-to-day decisions and communicate these to subordinates who are expected to carry them out. Input may be sought from subordinates, or others, who will be affected by decisions, or who have particular knowledge or expertise. Individuals may disagree with particular decisions, but will generally go along with them if the majority agrees, or if a person in a position of power has made the decision.

Individuals are given specific responsibility for completing tasks and achieving goals and objectives. The individual is expected to make the necessary decisions to carry through a given assignment. Management by objectives (MBO) is a popular approach, because MBO incorporates the idea of top management setting strategic directions, lower levels developing action plans to achieve these, and individuals accepting and working towards individual goals.

Where collectivism is high, organizational plans are formulated on the basis of the larger societal direction, and with input from all organizational members. The overall direction of the organization is discussed and agreed to throughout the organization. Decisions are made collectively, with all affected participating in the process. Disagreements are dealt with throughout the process, and consensus from all members is sought. Groups carry out tasks and assignments. There is pressure from the group for conformance to acceptable standards. When decisions need to be made, the group as a whole makes them. The quality circle approach is popular, because it incorporates the idea of bottom-up decision-making, consensus among members and group involvement.

Table 1 Different communication features according to IDV

High IDV

Low IDV

‘I’ consciousness is dominant

‘We’ consciousness is dominant

Bottom-up decision making is impossible

Bottom-up decision making is very possible

Disregard other’s feelings

Pay a lot of attention to other’s feeling

 Independent, Lowly rely on group’s thought

Highly rely on group’s thought

2.5.2 UAI’s role in International Management and Communication

Where uncertainty avoidance is high, uncertainty can be avoided by having group members share responsibility for planning and decisions, or, alternatively, by having one person in a position of power take responsibility. The advice of experts is likely to be important in formulating plans and making decisions. Planning provides security and is well accepted. Plans are likely to be detailed and complex, incorporating priorities and contingencies. Specific plans provide direction and little ambiguity. Strategic planning is as long-term as it is practical. Checks and balances ensure that performance is at the planned level, and allow for correction before a major departure occurs. Decisions are reached slowly. If responsibility is shared, then group agreement is important to the planning process, if a powerful individual makes the decisions, then these are imparted to subordinates as absolutes. In any case, disagreement is discouraged.

Where uncertainty avoidance is low, planning is flexible and relatively short-term. Uncertainty is seen as inevitable, and therefore the organization must be able to change direction quickly. Planning is accepted as providing guidance but not constraints. Formal planning is most likely to take place at top levels and be, at least partially, based on a subjective evaluation of opportunities. Personal preferences are likely to be evident in strategic directions. A certain amount of risk taking will be encouraged. Individuals are likely to accept the risk of individual decision-making, and the need for making quick decisions will be stressed.

Table 2 Different communication features according to UAI

High UAI

Low UAI

Usually feel worried in communication

Feel little pressure in communication

Conservative, dedicated, insist on consistency,

Comprehensive, flexible and open-minded

Hope to avoid possible conflict

Could accept conflict in certain range

Frequent outpouring of feelings

Little outpouring of feelings

Need regulations in written form

Dislike regulations

Very respect the opinions of authority and expert

Less respect the opinions of authority and expert

2.5.3 PDI’s role in International Management and Communication

Where power distance is high, planning and decision-making is done at the top. Input is accepted from those in powerful positions, but no input is expected from those at lower levels. Long-term plans are kept secret. Superiors make operational decisions on a daily basis, and assigned work to subordinates. All decisions are referred to the superior, and subordinates are discouraged from taking the initiative and making decisions. Subordinates accept assigned work and carry out tasks as instructed. Those in positions of power are respected; those in inferior positions expect that more powerful individuals will take responsibility for decision-making.

Where power distance is low, everyone is seen as being capable of contributing to the planning process, and input from a variety of organizational levels is sought in developing strategic plans. Decision-making in general is participative, and long-term plans are likely to be shared among organizational members. Operational decisions incorporate the views of those who must carry them out. The people involved in particular tasks are expected to make the routine decisions necessary to complete the task, and decisions are only refereed to the superior when they involve unusual circumstances. Power differences exist, but are minimized, and friendly relationships between superiors and subordinates are normal.

Table 3 Different communication features according to PDI

High PDI

Low PDI

Communication needs to be conducted orderly, abstain from reporting bypass the immediate leadership

Not care this very much

Be fear of authority and persons of power

Less such feeling

Distant relation between superior and subordinate

Easy to make friendship between superior and subordinate

It’s easy to feel worried in communication

On the contrary

2.5.4 MAS’s role in International Management and Communication

Where traditional masculine values predominate, strategic plans emphasize specific, measurable advances by the organization (for example, increases in market share, profitability, etc.); these are difficult but believed to be achievable, and results are observable. Strategic choices are made at the top level. Operational decisions will focus on task accomplishment and tasks will be undertaken by those people most likely to perform at the desired level. Certain tasks will be seen as more suitable for males, others as more suitable for females. In some cases, responsibility for different types of decisions will be on the basis of sex. Outside of their traditional decision making roles, each sex will tend to emulate the other.

Where traditional feminine values predominate, strategic plans will take into account the environment, the quality of working life, and concern for the less fortunate. Profitability and market share, for example, will be defined within this context. Operational decisions will focus on satisfaction with work and development of a congenial and nurturing work environment. Task accomplishment will be within this framework. Work will be seen as generally suitable for either sex, with more concern for assigning work according to individual abilities and preferences. Decision-making will be shared between the sexes. Decision making responsibility will depend on ability and preferences rather than sex. Male values of achievement, money and performance will rank equally with female values of nurturing, quality of life and caring for the less fortunate.

Table 4 Different communication features according to MAS

High MAS

Low MAS

Man is dominant

Man and woman are equal

Respect authority and showing self-confident

Think much of life

Independent in communication

Hope to rely on other members

Desire of self-expression is intense

Such desire is not intense

Fast pace

Low pace

2.6 Two groups of Opposite Cultures

2.6.1 Eastern and Western Cultures

Many scholars have written about cultural differences between the West and the East. Among them, three are highlighted here: cognition, relationship with nature, and the concept of truth. Western people is said to incline to think in a linear fashion.  A cause leads to an effect. In Eastern culture, a cause can be an effect as well as a cause that leads to an effect. The past, present and future are interconnected and therefore they affect one another. Western culture tends to be oriented towards mastery over nature while Eastern culture seeks harmony with nature. Regarding the concept of truth, the view of Western culture of ultimate truth or reality is based more on scientific and empirical explanation while that of Eastern culture is based more on existing truth. Cultural differences between East and West have a significant impact on the communication behavior and pattern.

Perceptions of cultural differences between East and West are insufficient to help business people get by when they are communicating across cultures. These perceptions have to be backed up by a clear understanding of the context of communication. According to Hall and Hall (1990), context refers to the information that circumscribes communication. One needs to understand that information (whether verbal or non-verbal) and the degree of background data (whether required or assumed) that has to be transmitted, varies from culture to culture.

2.6.2 High-Context and Low-Context Cultures

According to Hall (1976), any cultural transaction can basically be divided into two communication systems: High-context (HC) and Low-context (LC). In High-context transmission of message, most of the information is in the physical world or in individuals; only minimal information is in the transmitted message (explicated code). By contrast, in Low-context transmission of message, most of the information is in the transmitted message. Based on these two kinds of different, the cultures in this world can be classified into two major categories: High-Context and Low-Context cultures. In HC culture, the members usually have the same language of some race as well as the same norms of values, so information is easy to transmit; while in LC culture, it is on the contrary because various differences exist in the society, which result from the presence of many subcultures independent from each other

Although no one culture exists exclusively at either extreme, in general, LC cultures refer to groups of cultures that value individual orientation and overt communication codes and maintains a heterogeneous normative structure with low cultural demand characteristics. Conversely, high-context cultures refer to groups of cultures that value group identity orientation and covert communication codes and maintains a homogeneous normative structure with high cultural demand characteristics. For Hall, Germany, Scandinavia and the USA are situated at the LC end of the continuum; Chinese, Japanese and Korean cultures are located at the HC end. It is obvious that philosophy can influence communication – Confucianism, for example, has permeated the culture of all the three east Asian countries.

In HC cultures, that of Japan, for example, a larger portion of the message is left unspecified and accessed through the context, non-verbal cues and between-the-lines interpretation of what is actually said or written, which is reflected by frequent using of uncompleted sentence. In contrast, in North America, which is labeled as a LC culture, messages are expected to be explicit and specific. More is spelt out than left for the receiver to deduce from the context.  

Chapter Three

Access to Cross-cultural Communication

3.1 ‘Cross-cultural Communication’ and ‘Cross-National Cultural Communication’

In the literature on cross-cultural communication, the terms ‘cross-cultural communication’, ‘intercultural communication’ and ‘cross-national communication’ are frequently used interchangeably. Although ‘cross-cultural communication’ and ‘intercultural communication’ can be treated synonymously, an important distinction needs to be made between ‘cross-cultural communication’ and ‘cross-national communication’.

‘Cross-national communication’ takes place across political or national borders while ‘cross-cultural communication’ takes place across cultures. Both terms have their usefulness. If one is talking about communications between a multinational organization and its subsidiaries located in other countries, either ‘cross-national communication’ or ‘cross-cultural communication’ can be used. However, if one is speaking of communications between colleagues working in a multicultural organization located in a certain country, the term ‘cross-cultural communication’ is obviously more appropriate. In this study, the term ‘cross-cultural communication’ is used.

Two words need to be defined: ‘culture’ and ‘communication’. As both have various meanings, depending on the intention of the writer or speaker, for present purposes their definitions are as follows.

Culture can be defined as a community’s shared values, attitudes, behavior and acts of communicating that are passed from one generation to the next. Communication means a goal-directed and context-bound exchange of meaning between two or more parties. In other words, communication takes place between people for a specific reason by a particular medium and in a particular environment. An American meets a Japanese to negotiate a business deal. This context in which the communication takes place can be either within the same culture or across different cultures. In the example given, the business negotiation obviously takes place across different cultures. The communication involved is therefore a culture-bound activity. To communicate means expressing the uniqueness of one’s cultural heritage, and this includes not only the verbal and non-verbal peculiarities but also the preferred medium and context of communication.

The scope for cross-cultural communication is extremely wide. It is a multidisciplinary field of study with roots in anthropology, sociology, psychology, and linguistics, among other disciplines. For the purposes of this study, the focus will be on cross-cultural communication in business and management.

3.2 Going beyond National Culture

A focus simply on national culture can be somewhat misleading if one limits consideration to this level. There are clear cases where cultures transcend national boundaries (for example, the British culture in many former colonies) and other cases where several cultures are evident in one nation (for example, multiculturalism in Canada). Equally, because cultures change in response to the environment, they may become more similar or more different over time. On the whole, as discussed earlier, from the organization’s viewpoint, a focus on national cultures is an appropriate beginning. Within this framework, subcultures, overlapping cultures, and forces for convergence and divergence need to be considered.

3.2.1        Understanding Subcultures

Identifying subcultures and their values is necessary in some situations and can be particularly useful to international managers; for example:

(1)   A subculture may hold values that are in sharp contrast to those of the broader national culture. If a manager is interacting substantially with members of such a subculture, he or she will need to appreciate and accommodate these differences. Sikh immigrants to Canada still maintain their cultural heritage and believe in the importance of wearing turbans. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police-Canada’s famed Mounties-found it was necessary to accommodate this cultural custom in order to attract and retain Sikhs in the force.

(2)   The values of a subculture can be more similar to a foreign manager’s own cultural values than those of the broader national culture. A manager might want to seek out members of this subculture in situations where similar values are desired. A manager from a largely Christian country such as the United Kingdom might find some similarity of values with the Christian minority in Japan, and might seek out this group at certain times, particularly in times of grief.

(3)   Members of a subculture whose values are in conflict with the broader national culture may not be integrated into the workforce easily. Contrasting values may cause personal conflicts among employees from different groups. A manager must be sensitive to these potential conflicts and identify ways of dealing with them. The indigenous Malays and the Chinese in Malaysia have been described as exhibiting sometimes radically different values that can lead to conflicts at work. These are partially due to conflicting religious practices-the Malays, for the most part, are Muslims while the Chinese are Confucian and Buddhists- and partially due to attitudes towards work- the Malays are seen as easygoing and working to live, while the Chinese are described as concerned with getting ahead and work is more central to their lives.

(4)   Synergy can develop where employees with different values work together because they may view the same situation from varying perspectives. Managers who can effectively control interactions among employees with different values can benefit from the development of new and innovative ways of thinking. The Bata Shoe Company has subsidiaries throughout the world and finds that by bringing its diverse marketing managers together in Canada, new ideas for products and marketing approaches can be developed.

(5)   Working with a variety of subcultures within one national location provides many of the same experiences as working in a new national culture. Managers can increase their cross-cultural sensitivity by seeking out members of different cultural minorities and interacting and working with them on an ongoing basis. The USA is made up of many groups that maintain their cultural heritage in spite of being Americans. Some companies have made a virtue of this cultural diversity; for example, Monsanto is reported to have developed programs to ensure that all employees are culturally aware.

3.2.1        Understanding Overlapping Cultures

Subcultures are often encountered and cannot be ignored by international managers. The same is true of cultures that overlap national boundaries. There are many situations where groups in different countries share similar values. In fact, the subcultures identified previously (for example, the Sikhs) can be found in many countries and their values will be somewhat similar in each location. The similarities in values are often attributable to shared ethnicity or religion; some examples illustrate this potential overlap:

(1)   Rastafarians (members of a religious sect originating in Jamaica) can be found throughout the Caribbean and in Canada, the UK and the USA. Those values and customs associated with their religious beliefs remain similar even when they have been integrated into societies outside Jamaica.

(2)   The Jewish people often exhibit similar values no matter where in the world they have settled. To some extent this is because of shared religious beliefs, but even non-practicing Jews feel a kinship with other Jews in different parts of the world, and many Jews see this as a shared cultural heritage, not simply a religious similarity.

(3)   The British left a clear mark on many of their colonies, and the governing class in former British colonies retains many British characteristics.

(4)   The boundaries of many nations have been identified so that cultural groups have been divided. These groups often share more culture with their counterparts in other countries than with the nation in which they live. The Kurdish people of Iran, Iraq and Turkey provide a good example of this division of a culture. Ethnic Russians living in many of the new states formed from the USSR are in a similar situation.

It can also be helpful for international mangers to identify overlapping cultural values that may be found in different locations. Familiarity with the cultural values of a group in one location can then be useful in identifying values of a counterpart group elsewhere.

3.3 Necessity of Cross-Cultural Communication

It is described in “Digest of Worldwide Managers” about the culture dilemma of the cross-national management: “all worldwide managers who worked abroad found coincidentally that they themselves are in a dilemma, which means that they always are at a loss between headquarter and local branches.” For example, a global cosmetic company based in the U.S. has requested the Area Manger of Malaysia—Mr. John Watson to put the new products on the shelves. However, the locals disliked the soap’s flavor, nor the lipstick due to its expensiveness. Then for Mr. John Watson, how to adapt to the local culture becomes a problem. Another example: in 1992 Richard Sanford started to serve as General Manger of Janssen Corporation and Peter Schuster worked as his assistant. However, they have a great gap in recognizing and understanding Chinese culture. Benefited from the familiarity with Chinese language and culture and the marriage to a Chinese girl, Schuster was influenced deeply by Chinese culture during his work and focused on social relationship in management so that he had even solicited for a Chinese employee who was to be fired.  While Sanford thought that American culture was superior and it had brought new thoughts and spirit of creativity to China, due to which he insisted on that cross-national managers should take mother-country culture as standards of management instead of being limited by the local culture, otherwise the management efficiency and work effectiveness will be reduced. Therefore, the conflicts occurred between these two persons during the daily management.

Through above examples, we could find that cross-cultures necessarily exist in the global company and everyone in it can’t avoid the cross-culture communication. Especially for a manager, he/she must bear the cross-cultural communication into mind and try to hold the competencies of cross-cultural communication. Otherwise, he/she couldn’t get a harmonious environment of work.

In addition, as is shown by the research conducted by the famous AT Kearney Company about 778 companies in Europe and North America, more than half companies anticipate enlarging their international business scope in 3-5 years; More than 50% of those companies have developed new international market; 35 administration presidents have focused the training of the global managerial talents and aim at increasing the number of those personnel by 65% in the following 5 years. All these have shown that the cross-communication is not only the new requirement of global companies, but also that of the times for international manager.

Chapter Four

The Obstacle of Cross-cultural Communications-Miscommunication

4.1 Different Views of Miscommunication

In recent years, the growth in foreign travel for business, study and pleasure, the expansion of international trade and the migration of people seeking work in the multi-national companies have naturally led to a concomitant increase in contacts across national and ethnic borders. When there are significant differences in background knowledge, even the same message may be interpreted differently by different individuals. This may cause trouble in any situation of contact between them. It’s the failure of communication. Such miscommunication is another participant has not read one person’s intentions accurately and that future actions or opinions of the participant will predicate on the inaccurate reading. There are some popular synonyms for miscommunication such as misunderstanding, trouble, error, problem and breakdown. These terms belie certain assumptions about both the nature and conditions of miscommunication in intercultural settings.

4.1.1            The Nature of Miscommunication

In discussion of intercultural encounters, Gumperz and Roberts (1991) have focused mainly on the level of discourse strategies. They are concerned that the lack of shared background assumptions still forms a hidden barrier to understanding where purely linguistic competence depending on the command of the languages spoken can not be responsible for communication trouble. They point out that with the gradual bureaucratization of administrative procedures in government as well as in private sector enterprises, much of the business of modern institutions has come to be carried out through face to face meetings or interview, where members of the lay public interact with professionals whose background is often quite different from that of the members. The miscommunications that can arise in such circumstances are rarely recognized as such while participants are involved in a verbal exchange and intend on getting their own points across. Culturally different individuals are often less successful in managing and achieving their goals in public encounters. And, repeated miscommunication of this type can lead to mutual frustration, alienation and incompatibility and, over time, contribute to serious social problems.

Speech performance errors, such as slips of tongue, omissions, substitutions, disfluencies and errors of judgment about hearers’ language ability or about cultural presuppositions can lead to difficulties, but the miscommunications caused by these errors remain only potential until they are manifested in some forms of problematic discourse.

Miscommunication is the term usually applied, very loosely, to any sort of problem that might arise inter-actionally. Communication problems were treated as a kind of aberrant behavior, which should be eliminated (Coupland, Wiemann & Giles, 1991). Intentionally hostile or dissociative strategies of talk have even been seen as the product of unskilled individuals (Watzlawick, Beavin, & Jackson, 1967).  The social psychology of language (Giles & Coupand, 1991) has consistently adopted an explicitly applied orientation to language and interaction, with social evaluative data integrated theoretically into models of talk in context. Therefore, in communication science, it has been argued that the study of communicative competence is more appropriately seen as the ability to avoid problems, to deal with encounters and manage relationships in a manner that is adequate.

Banks, Ge &Baker argue that problematic discourse (as well as troubled talk and communication breakdown) undoubtedly encompasses miscommunication. As to the troubled talk and related terms, they encompass more inter-actional phenomena than just miscommunication. Language use and communication are in fact pervasively and even intrinsically flawed, partial, and problematic (Coupland, Wiemann & Giles, 1991). Communicative interchange becomes a fore-grounded rather than taken-for-granted process most frequently when we recognize its inefficiencies and its unforeseen or undesirable consequences. Therefore, we can’t gloss these rich varied processes under simplistic evaluative labels such as communication breakdown, communication failure, and indeed miscommunication itself. The study of language and communication processes should not avoid orienting to issues of miscommunication, but must do more conscious and systematic research.

Hinnenkamp focuses on critical moments of talk “exchange” that need treatment in order to enable the normal flow of talk to be continued smoothly, which, as a matter of fact, are repaired in one way or another. Miscommunication is in some cases applied as a moral judgment on the uses and abuses of language and communication. It designates primarily communication mishaps, or mismatches of mental states, deviations from communicative norms, or the consequences of low levels of communicative competence in specific domains. Some researchers address concerns with the encoding and decoding of the propositional and affective meanings of utterances; others are more concerned with contextualization of talk, in social relationships, in particular inter-group or institutional settings

In one word, it is not a case of miscommunication if the failure of one participant to understand the interaction at hand results from the other’s intentional efforts to baffle, confuses, or manipulate. That is to say, miscommunication is not a matter of intentionally caused misunderstanding. One that is unintended yet is recognized as a problem by one or more of the persons involved is a label for a particular kind of misunderstanding (Banks, Baker.1991). It can but does not necessarily lead to dissatisfaction or a breakdown of interaction. It is a form of troubled or problematic talk, but it is not simply a matter of difficulty because of disfluencies and speech errors.

4.1.2            Possible Motives or Conditions of Miscommunication

There are two basic conditions for miscommunication in intercultural encounters. The first condition is: the precipitating events are fundamentally the same as those that precipitate miscommunication in intercultural encounters. Many communication problems associated with inter-actional cooperativeness occur in intercultural settings. As to the first of the basic conditions, instances of miscommunication that are unrelated to cultural differences are not addressed by intercultural communication research and theory. We only need pay attention to those instances of miscommunication whose causes are the same as those in intercultural settings or the miscommunication that is exacerbated by cultural differences.

The second condition for miscommunication in intercultural encounters is: the precipitating events are uniquely attributable to cultural differences of participants. This condition exhibits not difficulties of expressive techniques but difficulties of incompatible cultural concepts that underlie expression

To sum up, the relevant sorts of misunderstandings addressed as miscommunication emerge from cultural differences, either exclusively or partially, in intercultural encounters. Therefore, it is important to understand well culture and types of encounters. Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional ideas and especially their attached values. Culture must embrace a group’s logic of expression that members accept as natural and foundational to the group’s way of being. As to the types of encounters, Kim(1986) has explored the definitional problems of such labels as interethnic, international, interracial, inter-group and intercultural. Multiple races, nations and so on tend to reflect different cultural attributes. And the properties of the shared knowledge of a social group, because of their distinctiveness, may cause trouble in interaction with members of another group. This is how intercultural miscommunication can take place.

4.2                To Analyze Miscommunication from a Cultural- Anthropological Perspective

There are two groups of cultural anthropologists making a study of interaction between individuals representing different cultures. The first groups of researchers, who are labeled ‘cultural dialogists’, emphasize the need to develop a humanistic view of communication theory and practice that would promote world understanding. The second school, referred to as ‘cultural criticism’, is guided by the principle of conflict and tries to identify points of conflict between individual cultures. Although these studies acknowledge the role of language in the manifestation of cultural differences, the underlying assumption is that cultural problems are more significant than linguistic problems. So hereby let’s have a look at the variability of culture.

4.2.1    Cultural variability

4.2.1.1      Compare different cultures

The successful intercultural understanding is based on recognizing the ways in which two cultures resemble one another as well as the ways in which they differ. The comparison of two cultures will provide a basis for better understanding of a person from other cultural backgrounds. Cultural anthropologists have gradually moved from a atomistic definition of culture, describing it as a more or less haphazard collection of traits, to one which emphasizes pattern and configuration. 

The distinctiveness of Chinese cultural characteristics has been recognized as: emotionally more reserved, introverted, fond of tranquility, overly considerate, socially overcautious, habituated to self-restraint and so forth. (Young, 1994).

In analyzing cultural variability, William B. Gudykunst and Stella Ting-Toomey argue that individualism-collectivism is the major dimension of cultural variability isolated by theorists across disciplines. They also point out that people in individualistic cultures tend to be universalistic and, apply the same value standard to all people. People in collectivistic cultures tend to be particularistic and therefore, apply different value standard to members of their in-groups and out-groups. And, all cultures Hall(1983) labeled as low-context are individualistic while all of the cultures Hall labeled as high-context are collectivistic. In one word, individualism-collectivism and low-context-high-context are broad dimensions of cultural variability that influence many different aspects of interpersonal communication. According to many investigations and data collected from that, Chinese culture belongs to high-context, collectivistic culture, while most of the Western cultures are low-context, individualistic cultures.

Chinese and all the Southeast Asian cultures have high scores on Hofstede’s (1980) power distance dimension and are high-context, collectivistic cultures. The Australian culture, the North European cultures and the United States culture have low scores on Hofstede’s power distance dimension and are low-context, individualistic cultures. (William B. Gudykunst, Stella Ting-Toomey P111)

4.2.1.2      Different Forms of Discourse and Different Styles of Verbal Communication

Cultural differences will also influence the form of discourse. Members of low power distance culture prefer informal codes of interaction, while people in high power distance cultures prefer formal codes of interaction. Because of the different cultures, Chinese discourse style is different from that of the Westerners. Chinese have a different way of recognizing and linking ideas in an overall framework. That’s why the Westerners often fail to penetrate and identify Chinese points of view effectively.

Young(1982) analyzed Chinese discourse concluding that “Rather than relying on a preview statement to orient the listener to the overall direction of the discourse, Chinese discourse relies heavily on contextual cues and tends to use single word items such as ‘because’, ‘as’, and ‘so’ to replace whole clause connectives commonly used in English. Such as ‘in view of the fact that’,  ‘to begin with’ or ‘in conclusion’: Chinese have a distinctive sense of how to combine and configure ideas to generate meaning.” Chinese are a highly diverse group with a great deal of geographical, class, and dialectal variability and regional stereotyping as well. Chinese share characteristics of discourse and interaction which make them different from non-Chinese.

As Hall and Ames see it, the logical sensibility is dominating Western thinking, which turns on various transcendental references with roots in philosophical speculation and revelatory religion. Western rhetoric grew out of classical educational ideas that sought to invigorate thought through public oral disputation. Western parents encourage greater vocal interaction in their children. Children are encouraged to express their own ideas freely and directly, while Chinese children are often encouraged to express what is socially shared rather than what is individual and personal.

Western people favor the deductive discourse style of ‘five Ws and one H’. They can get topic out onto the conversational floor right away so that they know what they are discussing. I have this impression whenever I make contact with my friends from Western countries. The Asian people favor the inductive pattern for the introduction of topics. Therefore intercultural miscommunication always arises because of the delayed introduction of a topic by an Asian participant. And, this is also the pattern available in Chinese. Additionally, in China, under ordinary circumstances, it is inappropriate and unusual for a person to introduce his or her own topic without first receiving the right to do so from the leaders. But, nowadays, some people in China, especially the younger generation, have adopted the Western deductive pattern for the introduction of topics. So the above mentioned problem lies in differences of both the cultural structuring of situation and participants’ roles.

The cultural variability dimensions of individualism-collectivism and low/high-context are used to explain the use of direct or indirect styles of verbal communication. While all stylistic variations of communication exist in each culture, and each culture attaches its own significance and normative value to different verbal modes of interaction.

Ting-Toomey (1980) has studied language patterns in Chinese-American families. She also found that members of tradition-oriented Chinese-American family use talk as a status resource while they use silence as an affiliative power strategy. In fact, Caucasian-Americans also perceive using talk as a means of social control, while native Chinese tend to regard silent as a strategy of control. Therefore, native Chinese are more tolerant of silence in conversation than Caucasians or Chinese-Americans.

4.2.1.3      Different Privacy-Regulations

Privacy-regulation is concerned with identity expressiveness dimension and the information accessibility dimension. Personal privacy might not be as major a concern for people in collectivistic cultures as it is for people in individualistic cultures. Members of individualistic cultures tend to engage in environmental control to assert their unique identity and to claim private space than do members of collectivistic culture. From the perspective of people in individualistic cultures, time can be controlled and wasted by individuals. From the perspective of people in collectivistic cultures, time regenerates itself without the necessary control and impositions by individuals. That’s why people in individualistic cultures with high privacy regulation need tend to monitor their time closely, while people in collectivistic cultures with low privacy regulation need tend to be fluid in their use of time. The examples of asking Western women’s age, yearly income and visiting a foreign friend without making an appointment also show this very clearly. So it’s necessary to know the different privacy regulations. Otherwise, misunderstanding will arise in intercultural communication.

4.2.1.4      Different Styles of Approaching Conflicts

According to Glenn, Witmeyer and Stevenson’s (1977)study of cross-cultural persuasive styles, members of low-context cultures are more likely to bargain using the actual-inductive style or axiomatic-deductive style of handling conflict than members of high-context cultures. Members of low-context cultures tend to approach conflicts from the mind, while members of high-context cultures tend to approach conflicts from the heart. Ting-Toomey (1985) and Chua and Gudykunt(1987) revealed that Chinese(a collectivistic, high-context culture) respondents are likely to advise an executive to meet with an insulter and the target of the insult respectively so that conflict between the two can be avoided. North Americans (an individualistic, low-context culture) are likely to advise a joint meeting so the problem between the insulter and the target could be resolved. Indeed, Chinese always emphasize a willingness to seek out and create shareable views. Their style and strategy of discourse reflect a keen awareness of others which usually appears prominently in Chinese humanistic values. Under most circumstances, Chinese resist foregrounding themselves. Instead, they try to elicit and show cooperation and conciliation, to spread responsibilities for communication and decision, and to nurture harmonious bonds between persons. They often try to avoid direct confrontation, try not to make other persons look bad. So, they often look for points on which there might be agreement or similarity. Due to the strict hierarchy and centralized authority in many Chinese work organizations, communication should be carried out with great sensibility of relationship between the participants. As for strategies of persuasion, it is essential to pay attention to non-face-threatening in the communication.

4.2.1.5 Different Meaning of “Face”

“Face” in high-context cultures is a psychological-affective construct that is tied closely with other concepts such as “honor”, “shame”, and “obligation”. But in low-context cultures “face” exists only in the immediate time space that involves the two conflicting parties. That’s why members of low-context cultures can manage conflict via face-to-face negotiation from an instrumental, solution-oriented perspective.

For Chinese, politeness rituals in formal terms involve much more than the norms and strategies of social interaction.  In Chinese terms, face goes beyond Brown and Levinson’s description of a “public self-image” that is satisfied, preserved, enhanced, or threatened in interactions: rather, face is social capital and can be either “thick ’’ or “thin”, borrowed, given, augmented, diminished and so on. Face goes deep to the core of a Chinese person’s identity and integrity.  And, since a Chinese person’s identity and integrity are entwined with others, face then becomes “collective property”. (King and Bond 1985) People in China are encouraged to avoid acts that stir up jealousy, affront authority or incur ill-will-things that can damage face.

4.2.1.6  Differences in Using Names

Chinese have a rather complex structure of names that depends upon situations and relationships. They have school names, intimate and family baby names, each of which is used just by the people with whom a person has a certain relationship. The increasingly popular

American practice of children calling their parents by first names would be quite unpleasantly surprising to most Chinese. This would be considered very impolite in China. A person’s Chinese given name is generally used only within in-group communication.  In fact, many people, East and West, have names or variants of their names which are used only within the intimate circle of their friends or family, and it is quite embarrassing when someone from outside of that group used that name. For example, Chinese given name always consists of two words.  One-word given name is only used between lovers or between husband and wife.  In Western countries, children often take their parents, or grandparents’ names, while in China, that is forbidden.  In the West, women should change their family names to their husband’s family names after getting married, such as “Mrs. Brown”, which means a woman who has married to Mr. Brown. While “Ms. Brown” means a woman whose family name is Brown. “Mrs. Brown” and “Ms. Brown” are definitely different, so the mistake on them will be considered as impolite. Similar to this kind of Western’s naming custom, in the feudal society of China, the woman had to place her husband’s family name before her own family name. While in China today, married women keep their own family names. 

4.2.2        Analysis of Cultural Variability and Miscommunication

We have examined the influence of cultural variability on social cognitive aspects of communication, especially the differences between Chinese culture and Western cultures, and the influences on communication.  The above examples show that culture interacts with language to influence mediating process that affect communication processes. The intra-personal and interpersonal processes affected by cultural variability include social cognitive processes such as information processing, persuasive strategy selection, conflict management styles, personality, social relations and self-perceptions, as well as affect (i.e. emotions and feelings) and habits.  Cultural variability also has a major effect upon the difficulties individuals have in communication with others, and the skills that facilitate effective communication. People in intercultural encounters seek attributional cues about others in ways that are consistent with their cultural HC/LC orientation and might experience miscommunication once they make a wrong attribution.

Yousef (1978) used the HC/LC scheme to analyze some cases of intercultural relationships that ended in frustration because of misattribution of motives based on HC/LC orientations in nonverbal expression.  In one case, the Lebanese didn’t open the gift sent by a U.S. couple during their visit. This attitude was regarded as irritating and rude by the American couple. The Lebanese couples were acting on an HC cultural norm of gift-giving in the guest-host relationship, and they were attempting to be tactful. On the other hand, the American applied an LC cultural norm of expecting behavior in such situations to be elaborately spelled out due to there are various subcultures.

Banks, Ge & Baker argue that the group-centeredness and in-group orientation of collectivistic cultures can lead members of individualistic cultures to misattribute group exclusivity to hostility; likewise, individualistic cultures tends to allocate culpability and praise to individuals, which might be considered by members of collectivistic cultures as efforts to embarrass or sabotage.

To sum up, studies of miscommunication and intercultural encounters have explored generic differences that categorized all cultures. Individual ‘cultures’ are seen as unified and homogeneous entities, and by extension, communicative difficulties are invariably explained in terms of cross-cultural differences. Furthermore studies of culture variability treat culture difference as pivotal influence determining the outcomes of communication attempts. In fact, ethnicity and different cultural background determine speakers’ discourse strategies and different discourse strategies and communicative styles can lie at the heart of interethnic misunderstanding.

4.3            To Analyze Communication from Social-linguistic and Pragmatic Perspectives

Unlike the cultural anthropological tradition that hypothesizes about potential problems on the basis of cultural differences, the interactional-socio-linguistic tradition locates communicative problems on the basis of linguistics. Traditionally, anthropologists speak of culture in terms of shared meaning or shared interpretive practice or shared cognitive structures. My discussion in this part points to the importance of shared typifications that enter into signaling and use of activity types In interaction, a s well as systems of contextualization conventions.

To analyze intercultural encounters and miscommunication from socio-linguistic and pragmatic perspectives, we should have a better understanding about pragmatics. Pragmatics covers a wide stretch of territory (Leech, 1983; Levinson, 1983); however, from the viewpoint of intercultural encounters, what is relevant to miscommunication is the link that pragmatics makes between the ways of communicative behavior and the ongoing understandings of people in interaction.

Miller (1974) points out that most of our misunderstandings of other people are not due to any inability to hear them or to parse their sentences or to understand their words.  A far more important source of difficulty in communication is that we so often fail to understand a speaker’s intention. Thomas has given the term ‘pragmatic failure’ to the inability to understand ‘ what is meant by what is said’.

Pragmatic failure is an area of intercultural communication breakdown. It contains two areas: pragma-linguistic failure and socio-pragmatic failure. Pragma-linguistic failure is basically a linguistic problem, caused by differences in the linguistic encoding of pragmatic force; socio-pragmatic failure stems from cross-culturally different perceptions of what constitutes appropriate linguistic behavior. The former is simply a question of highly conventionalized usage which can be taught straight forwardly as ‘ part of grammar’. As to the latter, it’s much more difficult to deal with, since it involves the speakers’ system of beliefs, desires, intentions as much as their knowledge of language. In fact, interaction between native and non-native speakers readily displays how the lack of shared linguistic systems can result in miscommunication. Regional, ethnic, political and class differences are undoubtedly reflected as much by a diversity of pragmatic norms as by linguistic variations. Therefore, Thomas (1983) suggests that mismatches in intercultural settings can be categorized as either “pragma-linguistic’ (the inappropriate transfer of speech act strategies from original to target language) or “socio-pragmatic” (cross-culturally different assessments of social parameters affecting linguistic choice).

Speaking or using language in general can be defined as the constant making of linguistic choices, consciously or unconsciously, for linguistic or extra-linguistic reasons. These choices follow a temporal pattern and may be situated at any level of linguistic structuring: phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical, semantic, etc. They may range over a variety of internal options, or they may involve regionally, socially, or functionally distributed types of variation. People listen to speech, form a hypothesis about what routine is being enacted, and then rely on social background knowledge and co-occurrence expectations to evaluate what is intended and what attitudes are conveyed.

From this point of view, a speaker’s linguistic competence would be made up of grammatical competence and pragmatic competence. This parallels Leech’s (1983) division of linguistics into ‘grammar’ and ‘pragmatics’. Limitations in socio-cultural knowledge can be apparent in both content and structure of discourse and the choices of communicative behavior can also be influenced by linguistic competence. The culturally unwarranted response is linked in part to low linguistic competence for creating explanations coupled with low socio-cultural knowledge. Differential knowledge of culturally appropriate ways of responding can lead to loss of face and a communication breakdown.

4.4          To Analyze Miscommunication as Problems of Identify

Recently, many scholars have explicitly identified social and psychological basis for miscommunication in inter-group interaction by proposing theoretical models of miscommunication. The thrust of this approach is to account for members’ communication behavior, including their choices of linguistic codes and interactional strategies, as aspects of individual and group identity maintenance. In Hewstone and Giles’ model, miscommunication is framed as the result of inaccurate negative stereotyping, and more usually as the result of the dissolution of group relationships. Instead of focusing on negative stereotyping, Gudykunst and Ting-Toomey pointed out that in any in-group situation, social categorizations determine perceived similarity that leads to perceptions of uncertainty, and inaccurate attributions or mistypifications will result in increase of uncertainty. If such episodes are repeated over time, communication breakdown is the most likely result.

Ronen (1979) says that one’s religion, mother tongue, culture, and also one’s education, class, sex, skin color, even one’s height, age and family situation are all potentially unified factors. Various unified factors, such as language, religion, and color of skin, seem “natural”. Yet, there are no objective criteria to set apart “natural groups”; their role in establishing group identity depends entirely on their historical and socio-cultural definition. That’s why it’s difficult to identify issues of intercultural and international communication. They are located at the level of interaction between members of such ever-shifting entities, of intermediate between humanity and individual human beings: communities, cultures, ethnic groups, and nations.

Groups’ identities tend to crystallize into recognizable patterns of communicative behavior. The symbolic exchange of ethnic groups is based on the recognizability of features of communicative behavior, and on the interpretation of these recognized features in terms of a culturally and socially determined framework. Very often, features of other’s communicative (behavior) styles are judged inappropriately. And, fundamental differences between people in listening and speaking behavior conventions lead to different perceptions of cooperation and, consequently, of success and failure in interaction. Because of this, the degree of imbalance between participants in interethnic counseling encounters is amazingly high; the risk of communicative failure is, despite good intentions on both sides, extraordinarily high, too.

4.4 To Analyze Miscommunication from other perspectives

4.4.1 Prejudice

Prejudice is the opinions existing in human mind that are usually rigid, incorrect and even, difficult to be changed. Since most of the people will fall into indolence now and then, once we lose enthusiasm about development of necessary ability to know about people from other cultural background, we will easily resort to prejudice in order to alleviate the worry and suffering. Here are some cases of prejudice.

- Many Chinese think that Westerners are very open in life. If an American praised a Chinese girl ‘you are so beautiful’, probably the Chinese girl would react, ‘what does he mean…?’. Actually, the American only meant a flatter to the girl without any evil intention.

- Japanese are thought to be rather hypocritical and affected. When they need something, they say ‘no’ instead of ‘yes’. However, not all of Japanese are of such characteristics in fact.

4.4.2 Ethnocentrism

Anthropologists believe that cultural attributes develop as a response to the environment and become a preferred way of behaving for a group of people because they help the people survive. It is not surprising, then, that cultural preferences are associated with right and correct ways of behaving. Consequently, different ways of behaving are seen as bad and incorrect. If ‘our way’ somehow contributed to our survival, it is hard to accept the fact that ‘their way’ can also be acceptable. This worldview is referred to as an ethnocentric view. Ethnocentrism means that the view of our own and other cultures are centered on our own, and the belief that our own culture is superior to others. Therefore, Ethnocentrism is an inclination of the members of a certain culture to interpret and judge, according to their own cultural values and standards, the behaviors of other cultural groups and the environments and communication of those groups. This kind of attitude on culture will cause the unequal relations in cross-cultural communication as well as influence the receiving of transmitted message. For example, if a Japanese says to an American, “Speaking of creativity, please see our Japanese …’, I believe, it will cause the American to think ‘ Does he mean we American are not creative?’ Miscommunication occurs in such way.

Chapter Five

How to Enhance the Effective Cross-Cultural Communications in Global Companies

5.1 Fundamental Principles

Based on above analysis, here comes the suggestion about how to enhance the effective cross-cultural communication in Global Companies. 

5.1.1 To Strengthen Global Corporate Culture

Global corporate culture is the internal driving force of enterprise development. It can restrain the staffs’ behavior. North-West Airline’s former CEO Herb has said ‘Your competitors can imitate everything of your enterprise except your corporate culture’. So, under no conditions should global companies abandon their core cultures. Since there are various cultures in global companies, global corporate culture must be strengthened so as to avoid the loss of core values under cross-cultural shock

5.1.2 To Recognize and Respect Cultural Difference

To Recognize Cultural Difference

Only when we recognize what is permitted and what is prohibited in different cultures, can miscommunication be avoided. In order to eliminate miscommunication, first we must learn about our own culture, through which we can increase the sensitivity and cognition about other cultures; then we also need to learn about the basic theory of cross-culture and other nations’ cultures, by which we can distinguish one culture from another.

To Respect Cultural Difference

Everyone with certain cultural background may think that the culture of his/her is the best, most civilized and most excellent while other cultures cannot be compared. Such attitude is named ‘ethnocentrism’. It is a better beginning to widen our eyeshot if we can foster the concept to accept and respect different cultures, and at the same time we can learn others’ expectation to us.   So we consider that the first step to studying cross-national communication is to establish the sensitivity about other cultures and to discard our own ethnocentrism.

5.1.3 To Reconcile Cultural Difference

On the basis of learning own culture fully and, through studying and mastering cross-culture theories, such as studying cultural styles of other countries, we can in this way recognize the cultural differences and respect other cultures when dealing with people with different cultural background. In cross-cultural communication, we should always behave in an appropriate manner and avoid the miscommunication and distrust resulted from cultural differences so as to establish a harmonious relationship of cross-culture in work place.

5.2 The Basic Tasks of the Management Team

5.2.1 Cross-Cultural Training

‘Cross-cultural Consciousness’ is very important to a member of Global Companies since it enables the member to be sensitive about the differences between different cultures. It usually can be gained systematically through Cross-Cultural training. Therefore managers of Global Companies should devote efforts to this training. According to the main factors that influence cross-cultural communication, cross-cultural training should comprise the training about different cultures, foreign language, amalgamation of different management styles, skills of communication and solution of cultural contrast.

5.2.2 Team Building Activities

It is not enough to teach the staff only the theory of cross-cultural communication. Every theory can be completely understood and mastered only when it is applied. Therefore, besides theoretical training, managers of Global Companies should also contribute to the team Building Activities including various parties, competitions etc.. These activities will provide more occasions for staff to communicate without pressure. As is proved, it is easier for people to behave open-mindedly and to eliminate estrangement and misunderstanding when they are out of work place.

5.2.3 Self-improvement

According to Global Companies’ characteristics- cross national and cross cultural, manager of Global Companies should have the following competences:

-         Adaptability to different cultures in and out of the work place

-         Cross-cultural communication

-         Leading, motivating and managing multicultural teams

Therefore he/she must improve his/her cross-cultural communication ability through self-learning, training and practice.

5.3 Skills for Eliminating the Barriers to Communication

u      We must learn about other’s culture, historic background, customs and habits, no matter whether he/she is a Chinese employee or foreign employee, and no matter whether he/she is superior or subordinate. In this way, we can have a better communication with each other. So we think that the basis of cross-cultural communication is to learn about each other.

u      We shall apply appropriate communication skills. When we communicate with others, we should pay more attention to the ways and methods of communication in order to reduce frictions. For example, when the employer is in bad mood, it is better not to argue with him. Instead, we can explain to him by E-mail later.

u      The corporations in Europe are highly personalized. The spare time and work time are separated clearly. No matter what happens in the company, even the sky has fallen down if someone is not on duty, his/her private life is not to be disturbed. If your employer is an European, then please do not disturb him for your work matters when he/she is off duty or at weekend; if your subordinate is an European, then do not assign any task to them either. Otherwise it seems that you are asking for a snub.

u      Americans also separates private and duty time, but they are quite different form Europeans.  An American will never tell his colleagues about his private life when he is on duty time or in the company. If you work with an American, then conceal your curiosity and do not detect their personal affairs, neither should you try to learn about their household affairs. Otherwise your kind concern will bring you troubles.  

u      Germans’ work style is rigorous. Under those circumstances, making joke or kidding is absolutely forbidden. The boss’s order should be obeyed absolutely.

u     In Japanese corporations, the depressing working atmosphere is heavier than that in German corporations. You must not make loud noise or laugher. Even the talk between two persons must be controlled within the range that should not influence other’s work.

Conclusion

Along with the development of economics globalization and internationalization, cross-cultural communication becomes a new trend of communication in the global company. Meanwhile, this new trend brings a new historical requirement for the managers- to hold and improve the ability of cross-cultural communication.

Based on the analysis of culture’s values and dimensions, and on the comparison of communication behavior according to cultural dimensions, we have found out the relation between culture and communication. In accordance with the analysis of miscommunication, we have found out more factors other than culture, which influence cross-cultural communication deeply.

Thus we conclude some solutions on cross-cultural communication including three fundamental principles, three basic tasks and six communication skills in the end of the paper. Hopefully, these ideas presented here could be of help for the staff, especially for the managers in Global Companies.

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