»power structures«

After all: what is the spirit of Panopa?

Mr. Vieth and Dr. Hucht characterize Panopa's corporate culture as quite open in terms of communication. Critique is usually addressed openly and directly at the person concerned. While in other companies it appears to be quite usual to talk bad behind other people's back, Mr. Vieth and Dr. Hucht claim that they never really experienced any sneaky games at Panopa. They say that their company is simply too small and that positions do not change that fast that it would make sense to play power games. At the same time they believe this open atmosphere to originate from the cultural background of the staff of which most grew up in the Ruhrgebiet. Here communication can often be rather rude but that does not imply that anybody should take it personal. Once things are said and discussed, they are over and done with - no hard feelings. And on the other hand things that are left unspoken, are not to be worried about. And while Mr. Vieth and Dr. Hucht claim this atmosphere to be culturally influenced, they believe it to have been transferred to their Polish stations as well.

("Die Kommunikation hier ist sehr offen. Also, es gibt schon so etwas wie eine Unternehmenskultur, was hebt das Unternehmen von anderen ab. Wobei ich jetzt nicht behaupten möchte, andere machen das nicht so, aber hier wird ein sehr direkter Ton gepflegt. Hier wird auch offen Kritik geübt. Es werden Themen angesprochen, die werden auch zu Ende besprochen, und man guckt sich hinterher auch wieder in die Augen. So Dinge, so hinterum, mit Ellenbogen, Linke rein, Mobbing, das ist hier überhaupt nicht angezeigt. Ich sag's mal ganz platt: hier sagt man sich auch mal auf Augenhöhe mal 'Arschloch', aber hinterher gibt man sich wieder die Hand und sagt: 'Komm. War jetzt auch mal gut, dass wir jetzt mal darüber gesprochen haben, das ist vielleicht auch mal ein bißchen gewittert hat, aber jetzt geht's auch vernünftig wieder weiter.' Und das ist auch so die Mentalität, die da vor Ort aufgebaut wurde. Also, ne offene Kommunikation, die Türen hier sind immer auf, man äußert Kritik, man spricht darüber, vielleicht eher mal ein direktes Wort, aber hinterher arbeitet man auch vernünftig wieder zusammen. Das ist schon auch so ne Besonderheit. Wir sagen auch mal hier und da, das ist so Ruhrgebietsmentalität: sehr direkt und sehr gradlinieg." Dr. Hucht, 2nd 15.53 min.)

("Wir sind hier sehr dezentral organisiert. Die einzelnen Standorte sind weitestgehend autark. [...] Wir sind hier eine Zentralverwaltung für das gesamte Unternehmen, wir haben hier vielleicht 50, 60 Mitarbeiter. [...] Wir sind noch in dem Sinne kein Konzern, wo vielleicht auch eher so Spielchen aufkommen, Machtspielchen und Leutet gegeneinander auszuspielen. Dafür ist die Gruppe hier zu klein. Dafür wird hier dann auch im Kollegenkreis zu viel geredet als dass das einer nicht mitbekommen würde, wenn ein anderer versucht, gegen ihn zu intrigieren." Dr. Hucht, 2nd 17.53 min.)

("Das heißt ja nicht, dass es kein Konkurrenzdenken gibt, aber ich sag mal: es wird wenn dann offen ausgetragen und nicht durch Spielchen und versteckte Nickelichkeiten." Dr. Hucht, 2nd 20:22 min.)
("Wenn man jetzt aus einer anderen Region in Deutschland kommt, ... nicht jeder kommt damit klar ... man muss auch kritikfähig sein. Auch als Vorgesetzter sich der Kritik der Mitarbeiter zu stellen, ist ja nicht einfach. Kann man sicherlich auch nicht jeden Tag gleich gut. Sich überhaupt Kritik zu stellen, ich meine, jeder hört lieber Lob als das ein anderer erzählt, was nicht geklappt hat. Das ist auch nicht einfach. Man muss das vorher wissen, worauf man sich einlässt. Also nicht jeder kommt damit klar." Dr. Hucht, 2nd 20.53 min.)

I finally go to the part of the book where they talk about my concerns: "Intercultural Training for Expatriates - Reconsidering Power and Politics" by H.-C. Chang and G.R.Holt. Giving a neutral and very objective summary: I didn't like it. Well, I liked some of their ideas but I think they could have shortened the whole text by, let's say: a lot. And I didn't like that they declared to analyse intercultural training programs and then they stayed very abstract and theoretical. My feelings against this text only got smoothend by the following two texts which were written in correspondance to that article (because the authors shared some of my feelings and I always feel much better when I get proven to have been right ;-) So I put a major filter on the following summaries and just put what is left after the 4 experts having talked it over in written form.

Chang and Holt stated some nice things which sound quite self-evident now but serve as some nice keywords:
The authors suggest that training programs should consider to investigate further into the system of power involved in intercultural encounters. They claim that an equal exchange between the expat and the host culture is absolutely fictious since both parties are assigned differences in status at various levels:
· role differentiation (e.g., manager vs subordinate)
· status of companies ("headquarters" vs. "branch office")
· different economic and political power of respective home countries ("the developed country" vs. "the underdeveloped country")
· and how the countries are bound together by their past sociohistorical backgrounds
(compare p.219)
Social position, gender, ethnic group membership, language choice and so on just add up on this power system.

Their second concern is on trainings to see culture as something static which can be embraced in distinctive culture values as if culture could be nailed down and published as a list of "do's and don'ts". "Culture does not exist in abstract terms, but is realized through the engament of the interactant" (p.230). The authors call for a training focused on teaching structures and - quoting Fontaine (1986, p. 376): process skills which enable the trainee "to be his or her own trainer" who would acquire culture specific knowledge and skills while actually immersed in the host culture (p.218).

The follow-up text by W.Leeds-Hurwitz features (well, besides her critique on Chang and Holt) the idea of social rules: "Specific behavior cannot be predetermined, but principles governing that behavior can be and are established in a larger context than the immediate interaction. This is precisely what social rules are about." (p.233).

And my head is just too empty to give an example.

The other point I really liked in her text (yes, for me this is all about liking something or not liking it - very scientific approach, I know) was that as an expatriate you are really out of any hierarchy because you simply don't match, because no rules apply to you, you are just not part of the system. But there is no need to cry about that because ... well, she doesn't exactly say why being out of it is so great but hey, I like optimistic attitudes.

Foeman as well comments on Chang and Holt and explores further into the concept of power and intercultural training.
First of all companies are foremost interested in "moving their employees as expeditiously as possible into specific roles that benefit the company" (p.238). Expeditiously does not include a long-term training covering all possible aspects of intercultural encounters.
Secondly, people don't like to see themselves bound to power structures. Naturally, nobody likes to be blamed as oppressor and "People defined as less powerful may resent their portrayal as categorical victims. Particularly, in cases of upcoming nations, recapitulation of their complex histories may be frustrating." (p.239)

to be continued... they kick me out of the libary.

...back to content coming from books written by smart people.

Foeman had been talking about power structures and the difficulty to adress them. Somehow we like to think that we are all equal and do everything to neglect the fact that we are bound to structures, especially power structures originating from many sources, such as gender, age, skin color, body types, wealth, job position, etc.pp. Foeman suggests to discuss power less prominent and less analytic but to enable trainees to "discover how to best operate within or redefine the parameters of any interpersonal situation" (p.241). It is basically about becoming aware of which charateristics are attributed to you, in which way they take influence and how to use it.
(Ha! Just have to think about Kill Bill where Lucy Liu chops off this guy's head because he adresses her japanese-american-chinese background to be a problem and to dis-legitimate her from being boss. Oh, what a bad example talking about conflict resolution :-)

Quote of the day:
"[...] many participants have no idea that there are options for conflict resolution. Many define conflict resolution as only one particular and very narrow behavior (often confrontation or avoidance)" (p.242).

I mean this is not particular true to expatriates-to-be but in intercultural encounters conflicts are less easy to hide and they have worse consequences.

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.