»cross-cultural encounter«

The Expatriate Business
The expatriates in a construction company are of course working on their projects long before they get to go on the construction site. Additionally, everybody is working on several projects at the same time since normally it is not clear till the end which company will actually get the order to build. From 10 projects planned only two will get ordered. Thus projects normally are kicked off four to five years in advance. For the expatriate business this as several advantages. First of all every project is run by a small fixed team. Other people will join that group during the course of the project but the leading troop will remain together. Thus by the time an expatriate mission is becoming relevant all the parties concerned are already long acquainted to each other. And of course the company tries to install groups that already proved to work well together in order to not face any additional problems. The more tricky a project is the more important the personal binding turns out to be ("bei den Schlüsselfiguren achten wir auf eine feste Bindung").
The company further promotes personal bounds by organizing workshops or training programs in which employees from all over the world join together. ("Damit möglichst viele Menschen im Konzern ein Netzwerk haben.") Thus when expatriates go to work abroad they do not arrive at a completely unknown setting. ("Normalerweise kennt man schon Kollegen aus dem anderen Land; Berührungspunkte gibt es überall.")
This concept of personal bounds also helps to avoid problems of power structures which the host country nationals often face. While it is never easy to admit mistakes or to ask strangers for help, a company is dependent on sharing knowledge. But a Polish employee would never call for help in the head office in Germany even though he might knew that the company has 100 experts sitting there especially trained in solving problems just like his. This is eased up by introducing employees to each other. Then the Polish employee does not have to call some unknown boss but calls Hans or Karl and turns to them for help as a friend.
The company also tries to consider employees personal preferences. This means if somebody often goes on vacation in Greece, he will most likely be assigned to projects taking place in Greece. As an international company they are dependent on being enrooted in the environment. They kind of expect their employees to also deploy their personal contacts and to cultivate networks ("ein Apparat will gepflegt werden").

Networking is further institutionalized by the kind of projects the company is participating in: joint-ventures are the most successful projects where each participating company is responsible for their share. Sometimes this is the only way to get into big building projects. They are often initiated by public institutions and nowadays financed through public-private-partnerships. Consequently it is difficult to give projects such as airports which are of public and national interest to a foreign company.
These professional partnerships on the other hand minimize the risks and allow access to already existing networks in the foreign market. The German company would assign a team of engineers which then would be responsible for assigning appropriate companies. The Joint-Venture-Board itself would meet once a month. And financial matters from all running construction projects are reported to the German head office every monday. While daily communication among all people in charge is absolutely essential, somebody from the German head office will visit the construction site at least every three to four weeks.

While sometimes only one expatriate will be sent abroad, a number between five to 20 is quite usual for a project with a turnover of 170 million ? and 400 employees in peak times.

I finally finished the book + reviewing it. Yippieh!

About the author:
Edward T. Hall is an American anthropologist born in 1914. His cross-cultural theories offspring his own experiences: on the one hand he lived and worked with Navajo and Hopi in American reservation. On the other hand he trained foreign service officers preparing them mostly for Asia and Europe where he had done research as well.
He defined ideas as high- and low-context-cultures and discovered the culturally-bound concept of personal space.
(for quick reference check: wikipedia)

His book "Beyond Culture" is made up of an overview over different characteristics of cultures, the problem to overcome your own cultural heritage, and the call to engage in cross-cultural encounters.

Following up the review of the different chapters:

1. The Paradox of Culture
2. Man as Extension
3. Consistency and Life
4. Hidden Culture
5. Rhythm and Body Movement
6. Context and Meaning
7. Context, High and Low
8. Why Context?
9. Situation - Culture's Building Block
10. Action Chains + chapter 11: Covert Culture and Action Chains
11. jumping chapters 12 and 13
12. and concluding with chapters 14 and 15: Culture as an Irational Force and Culture as Identification

While these summaries are meant for me to understand what I actually read, I'll add some own thoughts later.

My interview partner's company does not especially prepare their expatriates for their mission. Since they preferably hire people coming from a multi-ethnic background or having lived in another culture, they accept them to cope well in any cross-cultural setting. Prior to their employee's departure they conduct a so-called exit-interview. In this they simulate the employee's financial situation before and after his expatriate-mission, they talk about social insurance, the company car, .... and hard facts like that. My interview partner was actually disappointed that I did not show any interest in these facts, while they make up 90% of the future expatriate's concerns. Only by the time that they are on their second or third mission, they will start asking about the soft facts concerning the foreign culture and foreign attitudes.
In the host country a start up team which is assigned by the division manager is renting housing and helps organizing the required documents. If no facilities are available and the projects are planned to take longer, the company puts up its own camp.
The expatriates themselves are expected to learn the apparent cultural gestures of their host country and as said before they are expected to cultivate networks. The company understands itself as guest in the foreign country and it wants to keep that status/reputation. ("Wir sind Gäste in dem Land. Wir wollen auch in fünf Jahren noch willkommen geheißen werden.")

Additionally, it has to be mentioned that working for a big constructing company expatriates are not going to a "Polish" construction site - big construction sites are international by matter of investors and experts joining in. On 80% of their sites English is spoken as common language.
It also has to be remembered that expatriates are not coming to an unknown setting - they have worked on that project already for at least four years and know the relevant people on the other side, plus the colleagues they met in common workshops or trainings before. In addition construction sites offer a huge pool of diverse people thus it should be possible for everyone to find somebody he gets along with well. And, too, my interview partner says that it is still business and not about finding buddies.

They have hardly any problems with the acceptance of expatriates in the host country: On the one hand the expatriates are committed to excellence in their job, they want to show their best talents and thus are dedicated to absolute professionalism. ("Ich hab hier eine Aufgabe und ich zeige euch, dass ich das auch kann.") On the other hand their higher payments are usually accepted by host country nationals if they prove to be experts. ("Nach dem Motto 'ah-ha, der kann was', dann wird das auch akzeptiert.")

Nevertheless, expatriates especially in Eastern Europe hardly ever have problems with socializing. This is due to what my interview partner called "double binding". While it is simply their mentality to be more cordial than Germans, they are also aware that these are high-ranked people who are sent to them and they meet them as welcomed guests. Apparently, the biggest problem for expatriates is how to return this affection. Most of them can easily go along but then experience frustration and disappointment as part of a reversed culture-shock coming back to Germany. Others though perceive the call for socializing as an obligation and have a hard time to escape from it without appearing solitary.

In all cases it is up to the expatriate's personality if he succeeds in diminishing power structures or not. My interview partner argues that they never had any problems. "We are not putting anyone in a role, he couldn't play."
Every now and then they might have to send somebody who does not necessarily suit the expatriate profile but is an expert in a certain technique. In these cases it might happen that expatriate and host country nationals do not find a way to work together at all. But since the company cannot abandon the expert, they send a second expatriate to pour oil on troubled water by involving people in personal conversations, outlining the problem and showing empathy for the difficult situation. ("Ein Mensch kann nicht alle Fähigkeiten haben - in bestimmten Fällen muss man Abstriche machen. Da schickt man dann notfalls einen Gutelaune-Clown hinterher.")

While I needed the summaries to understand what Hall was actually talking about, I summarize my own little reflections on it here:

Hall bases most of his findings on his experiences with the Navajo and Hopi. This sometimes makes it difficult to transfer his theories on expatriates encountering a new cultural environment. Nevertheless he provoked quite some thoughts.

1. language.
I had always thought of language to reflect the life of the respective culture. I had thought of the Inuit for example whose language offers them ten words for white while we have only one. Thus: since they experience a lot of different "whites" they need more words to articulate this experience. Vice-versa: since white is not important in our all-day life, we did not invent any words for it. Hall says that man's explanation of nature tells much more about man than about nature. It shows how he sees the world.
At the same time language, according to Hall, is limiting: while it reveals how man perceives the world, it also limits him in his perception. This becomes obvious when you learn a new language and there are simply no equivalent words to express yourself in just the same way as you would in your mother tongue. English for example is regarded as action-orientated and expressing thoughts in another language can provoke completely different images.
I actually get a little stuck in this concept because experience does not equal language. Language is just a model to structure and share experiences and thoughts.
This leads to another of Hall's ideas: we mistake the model, the symbolization of something as the thing itself. This means that we take poor expression for little intelligence. Thus poor English skills is often interpreted as incompetence. This becomes especially awkward regarding the fact that in most cross-cultural encounters English is not the mother tongue for either party. Culturally-learned concepts are transferred into the foreign language which already does not make sense and are then further translated/interpretated by yet another understanding of language. On official meetings this means that it might make sense to rely on professional translators.
This relates to another of Hall's concept: situational frames. People always approve to be addressed in their situational dialect (e.g. ordering something in a restaurant asks for a special style of talking, acting, ... just like any other situation consists of an appropriate catalogue of language, actions, behaviors). Using the situational dialect tags the speaker as insider and earns him recognition. But using the dialect wrong ultimately declares him as outsider.

2. situational frames and action chains
Hall defines all human interactions as situation which are culturally bound by situational frames and follow patterned action chains. While action chains are not explicitly expressed, they define which behavior is culturally appropriate. Not following the expected action chains is ultimately disrupting.
This shows in all aspects of life. While the question "How are you?" seems to be universal, the answers can be very different. Germans, I generalize at this point, like to hold a monologue on how bad everything is. North-Americans on the other hand regard this question only as an opener and are always fine. North-Americans are regarded to be superficial while Germans are just big whiners. Good start for a talk.
On a higher business level all organizational aspects are defined by action chains: who takes part in a meeting? Where does the meeting take place? Who is seated where? Who gets to talk? Who gets involved in conflict resolution?
On a political level this is worked out in the diplomatic etiquette (sag ich mal so!): which country is visited first? Which at all? Which officials are honored with a meeting?...

Strategic Global Human Resources Management in the Twenty-First Century
by Michael Harvey and Nancy K. Napier

[p.42] The authors start off that in a globalized economy the only advantage businesses have is "the uniqueness of their human resources and their system of managing human resources". They understand an effective global organization to be a "repository (Behälter, Fundgrube) of skills, competencies, routines, and dynamic capabilities that are managed by multicultural management teams in a manner difficult for global rivals to replicate". [p.43] Therefore global managers are needed who "possess a complex amalgamation (Vermischung) of technical, functional, cultural, social, and political skills to successfully navigate the intricacies (Feinheiten) of the new global manager responsibilities".

[p.44] Outlining how companies start doing business abroad, they define a little evolution.
[p.45] At first businesses simply check out their potential in the host country. In this phase they completely rely on their home-grown staff. Expatriates hold the key positions and all of the parent organization's structures and processes are transferred unmodified. The advantages of this "exportive or ethnocentric orientation" are obvious. The parent organization remains in full control and promising managers gain international experience.
When the host organization appears to bear enough potential, companies shift to a more "adaptive or polycentric orientation". Host country nationals are employed to manage the business abroad. Human resource management is based on local policies, philosophies, and personnel. All in all the branch office receives more responsibility. Harvey and Napier note that in many countries organizations will directly have to rely on host country nationals. Especially in developing countries this is a popular approach since there are simply not enough expatriates who would give up the comfort of their home.
While the reliance on local staff makes it difficult to implement the corporate culture, it allows the company to more deeply set roots in the foreign country. While at the same time it offers the host country to establish competencies of training and work.
[p.46] In the third step a "integrative or regiocentric orientation" is established. Ideally staff is exchanged mutually between the headquarter and the subsidiaries and staff is employed on both sides regardless of nationality (even third country nationals are being employed). In this system the best of both sides is used to the company's success.

[p.47] Thus there are different kinds of global managers: the expatriate, the local national, and the inpatriate managers.

The Expatriate
So far sending expatriates is the common business option for companies working abroad. They posses advanced technical as well as business skills, are experienced and hold a broad, informal knowledge in working within the parent organization. While it is their task to establish their company in the foreign country, they often fail to manage and to adjust to the given cultural setting. Even though this fact is well known it still remains difficult to select promising expatriates. [p.48] Research (as I already introduced) nowadays focuses on predictive character traits, mostly focusing on the Big Five (though introduced already, here a short-form):

1. extroversion: ability to assert oneself and to gain acceptance through social relationships.
2. agreeableness: ability to form reciprocal social alliances and thus to build social capital within the organization; acting as a team player
3. conscientiousness (Pflichtbewußtsein): being trustworthy, supportive, and diligent
4. emotional stability: ability to cope with stress on a professional as well as on a private level
5. openness and intellect: ability to complete an assignment as supposed and apply changes where needed

Though the authors do not support research on predicting expatriate success based on singling out certain character traits they introduce multiple screening devices. [p.49] The Ashridge Management Research Center, for example characterize expatriates by their
"(1) strategic awareness and support,
(2) adaptability in [p.50] new/novel environmental situations,
(3) sensitivity and openness to other cultures and social mores,
(4) language capabilities, and
(5) interpersonal communication skills."
Other sources call expatriates to posses the so-called soft skills such as "global awareness, international strategy, cultural empathy, international or cross-cultural team building, international negotiation skills, ethical understanding of conducting business in foreign countries, and self-efficacy."

Altogether they pin down expatriate's failure to be caused by problems to adjust to the organization and/or the culture and due to family-related issues. They warn of a lack of cross-cultural training and a lack of support by the organization itself to transfer and to adjust. The authors caution against damaging relationships and therefore business opportunities in the long run, and against damaging the expatriate's career.

Local Nationals
The advantages of hiring local nationals in emerging markets are obvious: They possess a "tacit knowledge of cultural, social, and economic characteristics". [p.51] Thus they have a lead on handling local institutions. They can rely on a professional and personal network - which expatriates would still have to establish. Different to expatriates who are only on short-term assignments they are also more likely to guarantee stability and do not need any adjustment time. In that regard they are also less expensive since the company does not need to pay extra for housing and incentives.
Additionally, the authors suggest that local nationals might be especially highly motivated because of extra benefits, compensation, and the prestige working for an international company. Presumingly receiving more acceptance throughout staff then foreigners, they could also function as a role model. Especially in developing countries the authors expect to find a larger pool of applicants in the host country than expatriates. They even suggest to find staff that is perfectly qualified but simply does not meet the local market needs - e.g. women. (But actually I think that that contradicts their assumptions of a higher acceptance of local nationals - it sure offers new chances to the affected potential employees but putting them in lead positions might need some extra effort to establish their role.)
As disadvantages Harvey and Napier name questionable loyalty. They also mention difficulties to first find and then retain qualified staff with experience. They assume potential qualified staff to be mostly integrated in family owned businesses or in the government. They also warn that different cultures might stick to different hierarchies: the most qualified might not necessarily be accepted in the designated role when normally, for example, the oldest person holds the lead position. It might also be difficult to impose Western business practices and policies on the subsidiary.
Altogether it seems as if multinational companies are afraid to take the challenges and even more important they are reluctant to give away control.

Inpatriate Managers
Inpatriate managers are host country nationals who are referred "back" to the headquarter. Harvey and Napier understand them to be "linking-pins". [p.52] As expatriated host nationals they possess a deep social knowledge about their home country, they have their existing networks, they know the culturally "right" way of handling staff and partners. Going abroad they are getting attached to the businesses corporate culture and thus gain credibility and trust. They broaden their skills by taking an external view on the local business, getting "a keen sense of the dynamics". Having grown up with a different education, different training and different work experiences they can enrich the company to a "pluralistic strategic orientation". Thus inpatriate managers can function as "boundary spanners between the domestic and foreign operations of a company".

Harvey and Napier see inpatriate managers to be the future of global business.


in: Gerald R. Ferris, M.Ronald Buckley, Donald B. Fedo.: Human Resources Management - Perspectives, Context, Functions, and Outcomes. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2002. 4th edition

Hall investigates further into the problem of matching up different systems. While we are superficially aware of the fact that we carry different identities, we hang on to the idea that we are all alike and that after all: we are all human beings, aren't we? The simple-be-yourself-formula, as Hall puts it, only works in superficial social situations. Working together is not a superficial encounter.
While we in general know about the existence of the different systems we live with their manifested outputs as if they were malleable. Once learned they become subconscious. "The hidden controls are usually experienced as though they were innate simply because they are not only ubiquitous but habitual as well." (p.42) We only become aware of our cultural identity by negative feedback, when our view on things or our behavior all the sudden shows to be different, when all the sudden we don't fit anymore. This moment can be quite unsettling because our guidelines become invalid and thus we lose our social competence.
"[O]ne is completely unaware of the fact that there is a system of controls as long as the programme is followed. Ironically, this means that the majority of mankind are denied knowledge of important parts of the self by virtue of the way the control system works. This is most frequent in intercultural encounters. Therefore, the great gift that the members of the human race have for each other is not exotic experiences but an opportunity to achieve awareness of the structure of their own system, which can be accomplished only by interacting with others who do not share that system - members of the opposite sex, different age groups, different ethnic groups, and different cultures - all suffice." (p.44)

Hall adds as well that even if we become aware of the opponent cultural system we can hardly believe that the people actually feel comfortable with their set of beliefs, values, ... He gives the example of New Mexican Spanish who apparently lose their social recognition if they work for success and thus try to be something better. While we might understand how this comes about, we still consider it, well, stupid.

back to the table of content
further to chapter four

Altogether, my interview partner summarizes, are German companies appreciated for their accuracy and precision in planning and construction. They often believe that only a German company will put the project through in the limited time given. He claimed that in some towns even some streets are named after his company. This appraisal keeps them from delegating expatriates among subsidiaries. A client assigns a German company because he expects German experts.

At the same time Germans are seen to be smart asses that know everything better and know how to do everything better. They live on their procedures and check-lists and they cannot talk about anything else than business. They are the small talk losers because after two minutes they get serious and talk business again.



And of course you are invited to comment on other things typical for Germans, especially regarding the work aspect...

Marie was asking if I thought the difference between Poland and Germany to be big enough to make a cross-cultural training necessary. (It needs to be added that she defined this as a provocative question and did not at all aim at generally doubting my plans.)

Yes!

It reminded me of the fact that Eastern Germany was actually the hardest place for me to adapt to. I remember to have always had to explain everything I said and thought. I just seemed to trip into one misunderstanding after the other. They just pop up and it was impossible to really see the differences coming. While I will still cite this later, I need to include a quote from Bhawuk, Podsiadlowski, Graf, and Triandis:
"[P]eople from cultures with smaller cultural distance may also be confronted with major communication problems, as they do not expect each other to have different basic assumptions and they may be even less aware of their own and the others' cultural backgrounds."