COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS IN

MULTICULTURAL COMPANIES

DIPLOMARBEIT / Diploma Thesis

zur Erlangung des Magistergrades
an der Geisteswissenschaftlichen Fakultät
der Universität Salzburg
am Institut für Anglistik/Amerikanistik

by

Herbert Reichl

Salzburg, Juli 2002

Contents:

Part One: Definitions And Basic Concepts
1) Introduction ... 1
2) Towards A Clear Definition Of The Terms "Intercultural" And "Multicultural" ... 3
3) Intercultural Encounters - Not A New Phenomenon ... 4
4) What Is Culture? ... 5
5) From Language To Intercultural Communication ... 9
6) Hofstede′s Dimensions Of Cultural Variability ... 16
7) The Relationship Between Culture And Language ... 19
8) Summary And Outlook On Part Two ... 21

Part Two: Practical Concepts In Use
9) Applying Hofstede′s Dimensions ... 22
10) Other Cultural Dimensions ... 25
11) Nonverbal Communication ... 26
12) Values, Norms And Rules ... 28
13) Generalizations And Stereotypes ... 34
14) Summary And Outlook On Part Three ... 39

Part Three: Intercultural Difficulties At Work
15) Mexico And The USA ... 40
16) A Comparative Study ... 45
17) Two More Letters ... 53
18) Denmark And Germany ... 55
19) Summary And Outlook On Part Four ... 58

Part Four: Prevention Of Intercultural Problems At Work
20) The Need For A Functioning Communication In MNOs ... 59
21) The Development Of Intercultural Competence ... 63
22) The Selection Of Suitable Employees ... 66
23) The Selection Of Employees At The Example Of Siemens ... 66
24) The Preparation Of Selected Candidates ... 70
25) The Preparation Of Employees At The Example Of Henkel ... 72
26) Preparation In Switzerland - ITES ... 75
27) Conclusion ... 77
28) References ... 78

Part One: Definitions And Basic Concepts

Greetings. I am pleased to see that we are different.
May we together become greater than the sum of both of us.

Vulcan Greeting (Star Trek)

1) Introduction

Although I have never been a regular viewer of `Star Trek′ and thus would not consider myself a "Trekkie", I have chosen this quotation as a starting point as it very well expresses the problem I will deal with in the following paper: being different in terms of culture, language, education, or social status.

I have also chosen the above quotation because of its second line as it suggests a productive way of dealing with the difficulty of being different. Be it in a thousand years or in the present time, we have to find solutions to the problems that arise when people coming from totally different cultural or social backgrounds meet and have to live together.

In the course of my studies at the University of Salzburg, I have come across a broad variety of topics related to the field of Linguistics. Among others, I dealt with the linguistic terminology at the beginning of our studies, some varieties of English, their main features, with Psycholinguistics, or with language acquisition but to name a few. However, one main topic of Linguistics that has always had a special attraction to me was the field of Sociolinguistics. It has been interesting to hear how speakers′ cultural or social background, age, gender, or education, have an influence on their register. Furthermore, it is also important that language always represents a certain status or the membership to a certain ethnic group and/or minority. Normally, people who speak a certain dialect are proud of that and it means more to them than just speaking it. It represents heritage, tradition, and sometimes nationalism for them. They simply want to be different in order to dissociate themselves from other ethnic groups with different dialects.

In the last decades, this phenomenon has not seldom been the reason for verbal disputes, fights or even wars. Unfortunately, there are many people nowadays who do not accept, out of some inexplicable reason, other peoples′ languages or varieties, religion or their lifestyle in general. Thousands of people are forced to flee their native countries, many of them leave their families at home and have to find work in other countries all over the world. One example one could mention in this respect was the situation in Afghanistan after September 11^th, where thousands of people who were not willing to be ruled by the Taliban regime and did not want to fight in the war against the United States and its allies had to leave their country to lead a better life.

More than anytime before in human history, the present workforce is extremely multicultural in many countries. Both in higher and lower positions there are people working together from all over the world, many of them with a different sociocultural background. Inevitably, this leads to many problems regarding their cooperation and their working climate. There are people who do not want to work with others just because there are difficulties in their communication or because they come from foreign countries and have other habits, languages or religions.

In my paper, I will discuss those problems and give some sociolinguistic explanations for them. Furthermore, I will give some suggestions for improvement at the end of the paper. I will not focus on any specific size or location of company because I think that it does not matter if it is small or large or where it is situated. Problems of this kind can emerge everywhere, independent from company size.

The aim of my paper will be twofold: on the one hand, it should be helpful for the managerial positions of companies in case they have problems with their employees. They can look up where the problems may have their roots from a sociolinguistic or cultural point of view and then act accordingly to improve the situation and thus the working climate. On the other hand, my paper should be helpful not only for the management but also for the employees themselves in case they encounter some problems in their cooperation and would like to know where the current problems may originate.

2) Towards A Clear Definition Of The Terms "Intercultural" And "Multicultural"

In order to prevent confusion or misunderstandings on the reader′s part, it seems useful to make a clear distinction between the two terms "intercultural" and "multicultural" as they will occur on many occasions in this paper. It is also important to mention that they should not be used synonymously.

We get a more detailed idea about the meanings of the terms if we take a look at the English meanings of the Latin words "inter" (between) and "multi" (many). Thus, one can say that the term "intercultural" refers to the vertical dimension of culture and the relationship between cultures, whereas "multicultural" refers to its horizontal dimension and its variety. Maletzke (1996: 37) states:

"Als interkulturell werden alle Beziehungen verstanden, in denen die Beteiligten nicht ausschließlich auf ihre eigenen Kodes, Konventionen, Einstellungen und Verhaltensformen zurückgreifen, sondern in denen andere Kodes, Konventionen , Einstellungen und Alltagsverhaltensweisen erfahren werden. Dabei werden diese als fremd erlebt und/oder definiert".

As we can see from this quotation, the term "intercultural" has a strong contrastive connotation. In an intercultural encounter, people coming from one culture get in contact with people coming from a different culture. They realize their cultural differences and should be able to deal with them in a positive and productive way.

As previously mentioned, the term "multicultural" does not refer to the relationship between cultures but deals with their varieties. We speak of a multicultural society if people coming from different parts of the world with different cultures live and work together in one country. Inevitably, the result of a multicultural society is a multitude of intercultural encounters.

3) Intercultural Encounters - Not A New Phenomenon

Intercultural encounters are anything but a new phenomenon. Over hundreds of years, people from one culture have met `strangers′ with a totally different cultural background. However, especially the rapid development concerning means of traffic and new developments in the field of communication over the last 200 years have had a big influence on the frequency of such encounters.

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