Intercultural Communication

Intercultural Communication

Øyvind Kalnes Held at the University of Wollongong 3. December 2007

Plan 1. Some words on communication 2. Culture and globalization 3. Challenges and opportunities for the organization 4. Intercultural competence and the dangers of “culturalism”

1. Some words on communication

Communication • Any behavior that is perceived by another person • Verbal (spoken, written), non-verbal or graphic • Dynamic and interactive process of encoding and sending a message, as well as receiving and decoding it • Feedback: Feedback The receiver responds by encoding and sending a message to the sender. The roles are reversed

Transmission model

How do you encode a message? Examples of channels and “noise”

A company using WWW as a channel

A speech … in a film..

Who is the sender? What is his message?

What is his channel? Who are the receivers?

Perception • The sender’s idea is not the same as what the receiver understands • Aspects of a message is selected (and others deselected), organized and interpretated, to find the meaning • Culture is regarded as a crucial in this process

2. Culture and globalization

What is culture? • Learned behaviour • A deposit of collective knowledge accumulated over generations • Collective programming of the mind (Hofstede) Does it matter? • •

Always, although we often take it for granted. But it is most visible under variation (fast changes and multiculturality)

Analytical approach to organisations (KISS!): • • •

As rational systems under stable and homogenous conditions As natural systems under unstable and/or heterogenous conditions As open systems considering internal characteristics, as well as environmental characteristics

Globalization • Migration leads to cultural diversity at home • Multinational companies operate in diverse cultures • Internationalization of trade makes for cultural diversity of overseas suppliers and customers • Traveling and media

Learning culture • Enculturation: Learning one’s own culture • Acculturation: Learning and adjusting to a “host culture” Culture as a condition for communication Intercultural communication - Between individuals belonging to different cultures Intracultural communication - Between individuals belonging to different cultures

Culture creates Imagined communites • A cultural group is an imagined community • You feel part of a group, even though you have never met – and never will meet – most of the other individuals in that group • You imagine ”others” that are not part of the group (Benedikt Anderson)

Perspectives on culture • Ethnocentrism: Ethnocentrism The belief in the superiority of one’s own culture. “The other” should learn and adjust. • Cultural relativism: relativism Each culture is as good as the other culture. I should learn from and adjust to “the other”. Take up the White Man’s burden— And reap his old reward: The blame of those ye better The hate of those ye guard— Rudyard Kipling The White Man's Burden 1899

3. Challenges and opportunities for the organization

Diversity in culture Hofstede’s cultural dimensions Power distance

Individualism > collectivism

Uncertainty avoidance

Masculine > Femi

Nordic

6

2

6

6

Germanic

5

4

3

1

Anglo

4

1

5

2

Latin Eur.

3

3

1

5

Latin Am.

2

6

2

3

Far East

1

5

4

4

Ronen and Shenkar’s Country Clusters using Hofstede’s Culture Dimensions. Numbers indicate country cluster’s rank

Migration 200 million international (first generation) migrants. Cultural diversity in workforce Multicultural competence

Tamils in a sea food factory in Northern Norway

Australia: 25% born overseas 140 different countries 85% of workplaces more than 4 nationalities

Acculturation, as learning and adjusting to host cultures  Chinese in Australia differs from Chinese in the USA, in Singapore, as well as China. What are the challenges and opportunities for the multicultural organization?

Chelsea FC:

7 Brits, 14 nationalities Owned by Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich

Transnational companies

30,000 local restaurants in more than 100 countries. •

Global branding and standards in products and organisation (“McDonaldization”, “McJob”)

Versus •

Adapting and adjusting to local culture in products and organisation

Glocalization: How can the global be local?

Global

Local

Universalisation of the particular

Particularisation of the universal

What were once the particular: • a product of “local” cultures (hamburgers, pizza, football, production norms, TV-soaps etc. Becomes universalised at the global level • But will still be adapted to local cultures or interpreted according to local culture.

4. Intercultural competence and the dangers of “culturalism”

Dangers of “culturalism” Stereotyping  Human beings are individuals with • A capacity to act on a basis of independent reasoning • Multiple and changing identities

Determinism  • Cultures develop and change through human interaction • Or it may be locked in through human interaction

Stereotyping “others”

Francis Fukuyama (1989): The End of History – (and Diversity?) The final victory of liberalism 1. Economy: The free market 2. Politics: Representative democracy .... and 

The triumph of the West …can be seen also in the ineluctable spread of consumerist Western culture … The end of history will be a very sad time …daring, courage, imagination, and idealism, will be replaced by economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems ..the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands.

Samuel Huntington: The Clash of Civilizations (1993) "We know only who we are when we know who we are not and often only when we know whom we are against ….. The velvet curtain of culture has replaced the iron curtain of ideology”

Intercultural competence Know your own culture, as well as the “other” culture • •

Culture specific: specific Facts and information Culture general: Awareness, flexibility, “other-orientation”

Sensitivity  Success and cooperation Insensitivity  Failure and conflict

The wrong codebook