»personal experience«

France from a German perspective: difficult. I have a loose notion about France but nothing tangible. Taking numbers, concepts, systems, structure, ... Germany and France seem to be so much alike but still ... they are different.

Janet tried to establish a deeper understanding asking around in her French community.

Cadre labels a social group of very different professions (but office jobs in general). In order to become a member of cadre you should have attended one of the Grands Ecoles. At the same time Julien with his Bac +5 (having graduated and then studied for 5 years) and now working on his PhD is also considered cadre. Even though he did not study at one of the Grands Ecoles.
To attend one of these Grands Ecoles you have to follow a two year preparatory program which is said to have the highest suicidal rate among students.

(the article Kay quoted allows a glance on the importance of the Grands Ecole)

The bac is differentiated into different fields: science, language, art, social science,... With 15, 16 students decide into which direction they will move and hardly ever change afterwards.

Non-cadre are normally technicians and workers but there are also middle-class-cadres. Thus the sections cannot be separated so clearly anymore.

The non-cadres are tightly organized in unions which like to push their claims with strikes. Which supports Hofstede's statement that each group carries its own pride even though it does not explain the come-abouts.

All in all groups seem to stick to their group members: designers among themselves, programmers among themselves, sociologists among themselves (and Janet among all those groups). I actually think that that is due to the fact that you know most people from your studies. In Germany it often shows to be much the same. (Maybe a Western-European style?) Nevertheless, I found it quite striking that people actually apply terms like bac +5, or cadre and non-cadre. This very much supports Hofstede who said that the individuals are aware of their position in the hierarchy. In Germany I do not necessarily find that to be true. We have terms like the Bildungsbürgertum (I'll write on that later...) but I do not see such fixed groups. But obviously I need to investigate into that.

While I tried to get an overview over different countries, Christof earned smart points by telling me about Korea. Having studied half a year in Seoul I considered him to be quite an expert. Nevertheless I had asked him about his impressions thus the following should be granted the benefits of subjectivity.

Just like China he sees Korea to be much influenced by the ideas of confucianism. This is not all too surprising considering the geographical neighborhood and the fact that Korea was quite frequently occupied by China.

Most obvious confucianism becomes in terms of education. Universities select their students by a centrally-organized entrance examination. For this occasion even air planes are taken off schedule so that the students are not disturbed. Depending on the score you are qualified to enter different schools. To really enter into a career it is indispensable to visit one of the big universities. There, networks and life-long friendships are being established. If entrance to these universities is refused, students might actually take a whole year off just to study for the qualifying examination.
For parents it is very important that their children obtain an excellent education. This includes learning English at an extremely young age and the expectation to only come home with the best marks.

The Korean society appears to be very hierarchical.
When first meeting somebody new the first question will be which occupation the other one holds? About the marital status and at which university the other one studied. This ceremony is often accompanied by handing over visit cards. In that case it is very important to take the card with both hands and look at it for quite some while. This shows interest and respect. This also helps to figure out how to address the other person. Depending on the status of the other person different forms of address are applicable, in which case verbs are formed differently (honorifics).
In general the younger one owes respect to the older one (which came in quite handy for Christof who never needed to tidy up the volleyball court) while on the other hand the older one is responsible for the younger one.
Traditionally, it is the one holding the higher status who is paying the expenses when going out. Nowadays this is not necessarily true among young people anymore and hardly ever when there are Western people in the group (so Christof was not lucky in this point :-(

In public it is very important to never lose 'face'. Nobody is showing emotions in public and hardly ever is critic articulated openly. Tasks seem to be performed obediently. Christof suggests that that might lead to quite some frustration which is then tackled in evening activities.

A usual Korean evening would start off in a restaurant, then move to a bar and later end with karaoke in a singing-room (noraebang). Drinking is a big part of this happening and usually it is not allowed to turn down drinks offered by some older person.

Back to business: the Korean economy is traditionally run by conglomerates (such as Samsung, Hyundai,....) so-called chaebols, family-controlled corporate groups, which are deeply interlinked with the state.
Professional life is characterized by extremely long working hours. It sometimes seems as if employees are competing in after-hours to demonstrate their loyalty and solidarity with the organization. Meeting in study groups with Koreans it was important to first socialize: eat together and talk. Only when you knew who the other person was, the working process was initialized and then often interrupted by further socializing. While the work still needed to be done, the Koreans effortlessly cut down on sleep. Work is often understood as working out tasks rather than working independently on own projects.

So far.... merci Christof.

While I can mostly understand what foreigners stumble about in German culture, I could never put it in words for myself. Thus I'm very happy to have a professor who came from Canada to Germany ten years ago.

He was telling how much he was still astonished by the German rivalry among colleagues. While in other countries at least the staff might stick together under claim "everybody hates the dean", Germans like to fight at their work place. What a silly competition when there are enough enemies out there.

(Maybe that's why I have such a hard time believing in the calls for team work.)

I had two nice interviews this week.
I'll throw you right into the second one. The text is quite long but I think it's worth reading ;-) And it was a long interview: 1.5 hours. (I add some German quotes I scribbled along since I was not allowed to record the interview. Hope they don't bother the English readers too much but I might want to use them.)

For my second interview I met a guy from the human resource management of a German constructing company. Thus he is one of the big important guys - scary. Lucky me that I did not know that before. Among other things he is responsible for the 380 expatriates his company is sending on mission abroad. He did not tell me so much about Poland in specific but drew a very interesting picture on the expatriate business.

His company first went to Poland in 1990, thus veryvery early. Mostly when they move onto new markets they follow their clients. Let's say they have done constructing for e.g. Volkswagen in Germany. Then Volkswagen decides to put up a factory in Poland - my interview partner's constructing company will for sure accompany them. In Poland they were first cooperating with a Polish company to master a huge construction project. But their expansion plans based on former clients. He said the Eastern European market to be especially interesting because the population is keen on consuming, on investing their money.

While the Polish part of his company is an independently running association, expatriates are send for several reasons:

• they are experts in their field of the construction process.
• for means of human resource development. The mission abroad is often taken as a step up in the business's hierarchy. ("Wenn der demnächst ne ganze Truppe leiten soll, soll der vorher auch mal sehen, wie der Laden im Ausland läuft.")
• they act as guarding dogs in all areas (which my interview partner described as organs, the vital parts of an organization: "Organe der Gesellschaft") but especially when it comes to financing; in this function the expat is responsible to do or see through the processes of planning, calculating, thus watch that everything is running smoothly and that the right numbers are reported, since everything will flow into the overall big balance.
• Every now and then expatriates are also installed in the Board of Executives, sometimes as guarding dogs and sometimes to profit from their experience when it comes to installing a whole new division for example.

They try to run a regular cycle with their expatriates ranging from two till four years. Every now and then they might send somebody on a half-year mission but that only happens in special cases where experts are needed. They normally do not stay longer to prevent fraternization.

Their biggest problem is actually to find enough people who are willing to go on an expatriate mission. ("Es ist nicht viel Auswahl. Wir freuen uns, wenn wir für eine Position drei Kandidaten haben, meistens sind es nur zwei.") They try to meet this problem already in their hiring practice where they especially look for people with international experience or for people with a multi-ethnic background. ("Wir suchen nach Menschen mit zwei Seelen in der Brust; Menschen mit zwei, drei Mentalitäten.") Thus they normal advertise their jobs already in English since on 80% of the construction sites English is the main language. They look for people who are mobile, adroit, open-minded and who already studied or worked in foreign countries. They have to show a certain ambitiousness and joy at other people and other cultures; they have to show a gipsy-mentality.

At the same time they try to work on the Polish side by means of ongoing training. This has several advantages. In the long-term they hope to reduce the need for expatriates. For the moment further training is simply necessary to work with qualified staff and then to draw employees close to the company. My interview partner described Poland as one of the hot markets where it is relatively easy to make a career if you are keen on that. ("Osteuropa - das sind heiße Märkte, da bewegt sich unheimlich viel.") Nobody has the patience to run through a solid three-year apprenticeship while you can make the big bucks so much faster.
In general companies are faced with a much higher fluctuation than in Germany. Qualified staff is rare and competitors are willing to pay higher salaries if they do not have to invest into education. But there is a natural limit to paying employees for staying. My interview partner's company tries to bind people by offering them a future, by cultivating personal relations, and by giving them the outlook to work for a successful, well-positioned company, thus employ their reputation. A profound job marketing and close connections to the universities leads to 30.000-40.000 job applications annually. ("Jung finden und selbst backen." - Find young and bake yourself.) Nevertheless, this procedure implies that only in 10-15 years you will have the staff that you are looking for.

Thus: back to expatriates.
(I split the summary so you'll have to check out the next article linked aboved.)

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.")

Just like in Japan there are non-permanent work-groups of unskilled workers. When one of the chaebols first had to put off workers due to economical problems, it was quite a shock to Korean society.

Since there is no official social system unskilled workers are left to sell things on the street or to collect garbage. Since the streets in Seoul are rather narrow, there is no organised garbage collection. Every house has a garbage room instead to which poor people come and take what they are "collecting" thus earning their living.

Altogether beggars, homeless and disabled people are often left to themselves.

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.