Effective Business Communication in Cross-Cultural Context

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Company Background
Objectives of the Review
Literature Review
Findings and Analysis
Conclusion
Bibliography

Introduction

Business communication is one of the main tools which help managers to create a positive culture and morale, motivate and encourage employees, increase productivity and ensure effective performance. Even though the cultural diversity of the population has increased in the last few decades, communication between people from different cultures and/or ethnic groups is still relatively rare. Most people have little contact with members of other cultures/ethnicities in their daily lives that is not role-related.

Some people avoid interacting with members of other cultures/ethnicities and/or view them as “undesirable” people. When others perceive that they are seen as undesirable and/or believe they are being treated in a morally exclusive fashion, they may respond with frustration or aggression. Aims/Objectives: The aim of the paper is to describe and analyze the main communication tools used in cross cultural communication.

Company Background

“Le Lion” S A , Belgium’s second-largest food retailing group. Founded in 1867 by Jules Delhaize, Edouard Delhaize, and Jules Vieujant, the company marked its 125th anniversary in 1992. Baron de Cooman d’Herlinckhove (grandson of Jules Vieujant) opened the first store with the supermarket format on December 18, 1957, and led the chain in its expansion through 1973. The Loi Cadenas, a “Padlock Law” that makes it virtually impossible to open new supermarkets, was enacted in 1975 to protect small shopkeepers and to reach the government’s objective of one food store per one thousand people (Delhaize to Control Greek Chain 1992).

This law, in addition to government restriction of operating hours (8 A.M. through 8 P.M. Monday through Saturday), gave Delhaize no choice but to look abroad if it wanted to expand its operations. In 1974 Delhaize purchased controlling interest in Food Town (in the southeastern section of the United States) and changed its name to Food Lion (both because there is a lion in the Delhaize logo and the money-saving change of only two letters in the name).

Despite the restrictive law, Delhaize “Le Lion” opened two new stores in Belgium in 1992. Historically, Delhaize has established itself strongly in the wine business and has preserved this position with an emphasis on quality, wide selection, and low price (Food Lion: Still Stalking 1990). Delhaize has been investing capital in this product area for a long time and maintains its own bottling facility at the head office site in Brussels. As part of the aging process, wine must stay in the warehouse for approximately six years before it can be sold. Delhaize must allow time for wine to develop and is therefore making a long-term investment in its reputation.

Reputation is more valuable than short-term returns. Delhaize is aggressive in developing its own ultra-high quality private labels and now offers approximately one thousand private label products in its stores. The private labels account for approximately 20% of grocery business and an overall 10% of total sales. There are two brands. Delhaize is the stronger and more important brand. Since this brand is an important part of the group strategy to improve profit margins, all development goes into this range of products, which project a strong quality image (Le Lion Home Page 2008).

Objectives of the Review

The aim of the research is to investigate and analyze the main strategies used by Le Lion’s employees in cross-cultural communication. The attitudes employees hold create expectations for how they should speak to other people. The speed with which they talk or the accent they use may be varied in order to generate different feelings of distance for the strangers with whom employees communicate (i.e., to make the distance seem smaller or greater). The research will anxiety and uncertainty issues in cross cultural communication. “Ethnocentric speech” is reflected in three communicative distances:

the distance of indifference,
the distance of avoidance, and
the distance of disparagement.

Lukens associates each of the three distances with a different level of ethnocentrism.

Literature Review

There are several theoretical assumptions implicit in the perspective used in the study. Knapp and Vangelisti(2004) argue that there are at least three metatheoretical issues about which any theorist must make assumptions: ontology (e.g., what is the nature of reality), epistemology (e.g., how do people gain knowledge), and human nature (e.g., what is the basis of human behavior). Because of socialization into a culture and ethnic group, employees share a large portion of intersubjective realities with other people in the culture or ethnic group. The shared intersubjective realities are sufficiently stable that employees consider the shared portion as an “objective” reality (Mattock, 2003).

The perspective used assumes that the basic process of communication is the same across cultures. This assumption is consistent with Thomas and Inkson (2004) argument that humans are endowed with innate logical structures, but cultures create unique meanings out of this innate knowledge. It is assumed that interpretations of the communication and external observations of the communication provide useful data for generating and testing theories, and more generally, understanding the world in which we live.

On their works, Wood (2003) and Warren (2005) pay a special attention to interpersonal relations and cultural variations. These authors recognize that explanations will never be perfect because subjective realities are different. With respect to human nature, the perspective presented in the research assumes that communication is influenced by the culture and group memberships, as well as structural, situational, and environmental factors.

Warren (2005) defines adaptation as a “consequence of an ongoing process in which a system strives to adjust and readjust itself to challenges, changes, and irritants in [the] environment” (Warren p. 137). Adaptation implies an adjustment to incoming stimuli. The core of adaptation is change. Adaptive behavior, therefore, occurs when people change behavior or perceptions in light of the perceived strangeness in another person or group (Thomas and Inkson 2004).

To understand effective communication and/or adaptation that occur in intergroup contexts (defined later), it is necessary to recognize that one of the participants is a “stranger.” Strangers are physically present and participating in situations (e.g., encountering someone in a foreign culture), but at the same time, are outside the situation because they are from a different place.

Findings and Analysis

“Le Lion” S A is faced with cultural diversity issues based on the increasing number of immigrants and temporary workers coming to this country. The research shows that “Le Lion” S A understanding involves obtaining information, knowing, comprehending, and interpreting. For Le Lion, three levels of understanding can be differentiated: description, prediction, and explanation. Description involves specifying what is observed in terms of its physical attributes (i.e., drawing a picture in words). Prediction involves projecting what will happen in a particular situation, and explanation involves stating why something occurred.

People make predictions and create explanations all of the time when we communicate. Employees rarely describe others’ behavior, however. When Le Lion employees communicate with others, they typically decode messages by attaching meaning to or interpreting them. They interpret messages as they decode them. The problem is that they base their interpretations on life experiences, culture, or ethnic group memberships. Since life experiences differ from other people’s, interpretations of their behavior may be incorrect. This often leads to misunderstandings (Le Lion Home Page 2008).

For Le Lion, stereotypes provide the content of social categories and create expectations for others’ behavior. Employees have social categories in which they place people and it is stereotype that tells us what people in that category are like. Sales managers draw at least four generalizations about the stereotyping process. First, stereotyping is the result of the tendency to overestimate the degree of association between group membership and psychological attributes.

Although there may be some association between group membership and psychological characteristics of members, it is much smaller than people assume when they communicate on automatic pilot. Second, stereotypes influence the way employees process information. Research indicates that employees remember more favorable information about ingroups and more unfavorable information about outgroups.

This, in turn, affects the way they interpret incoming messages from members of ingroups and outgroups. Third, stereotypes create expectations regarding how members of other groups will behave. Stereotypes are activated automatically when they have contact with strangers. Unconsciously, sales managers assume that expectations are correct and sales managers behave as though they are.

We, therefore, try to confirm expectations when sales managers communicate with members of other groups. Sales managers control the effects of automatic processing. This occurs especially in conditions where sales managers want to present a “nonprejudiced” identity. Fourth, stereotypes constrain others’ patterns of communication and engender stereotype-confirming communication. Stated differently, stereotypes create self-fulfilling prophecies. Sales managers tend to see behavior that confirms expectations, even when it is absent. Sales managers ignore disconfirming evidence when communicating on automatic pilot.

If sales managers assume someone else is not competent and communicate with them based on this assumption, they will appear incompetent (even if they are actually competent). Stereotypes, in and of themselves, do not lead to miscommunication and/or communication breakdown. If, however, stereotypes are held rigidly, they lead to inaccurate predictions of others’ behavior and misunderstandings. Simple stereotypes of other groups also can lead to misunderstandings. In order to increase effectiveness in communicating with strangers, sales managers need to increase the complexity of stereotypes and question unconscious assumption that most members of a group fit a single stereotype (Le Lion Home Page 2008).

It is found that well-defined expectations (e.g., complex stereotypes) help us reduce uncertainty. The more well defined their expectations are, the more confident sales managers will be regarding predicting strangers’ behavior. Sales managers can have either well-defined positive or negative expectations. Well-defined expectations alone, however, do not necessarily increase explanatory certainty. To reduce explanatory uncertainty, sales managers need to have accurate information regarding the stranger’s culture, group memberships, and the individual stranger with whom sales managers are communicating. The difficulties experienced are, at least in part, a function of predictive uncertainty.

If they perceive that the strangers’ groups are similar to their own ingroup, sales managers are able to reduce predictive uncertainty. Perceived similarity, however, influences only predictive uncertainty because sales managers may perceive similarities when sales managers are actually different or perceive differences when sales managers are actually similar. Knowledge of the actual similarities or dissimilarities between the group and the strangers’ groups is necessary to reduce explanatory uncertainty (Le Lion Home Page 2008).

Sales managers’ cultural and linguistic knowledge of the strangers’ cultures also influences their ability to reduce uncertainty. The more sales managers understand and can speak the strangers’ language and the more knowledge sales managers have of their culture, the more their uncertainty will be reduced. Research indicates that second language competence increases the ability to cope with uncertainty, thus second language competence influences individuals’ ability to reduce uncertainty in a new culture.

Another factor is personality factors. Sales managers focus here on one personality factor, self-monitoring. Research indicates that in comparison to low self-monitors, high self-monitors are better able to discover appropriate behavior in new situations, have more control over their emotional reactions, and create the impressions they wish. High self-monitors also make more confident and extreme attributions than low self-monitors.

Given this research, it can be argued that the more sales managers self-monitor, the more sales managers reduce predictive uncertainty. Because high self-monitors make more extreme attributions than low self-monitors, sales managers would not expect self-monitoring to be related to reducing explanatory uncertainty. High self-monitors, however, may not be more accurate than low self-monitors in explaining strangers’ behavior.

Conclusion

The research allows to say that Le Lion’s sales managers apply different cross cultural communication strategies in order to maintain positive relations with other team members and customers. Effective intergroup communication requires cognitive, affective, and behavioral (including linguistic) adaptations by one or both interactants in an intergroup encounter. The perspective presented in the research suggests that it is the responsibility as participants in a social system to behave in a moral inclusive manner and to try to communicate effectively with members of other groups, adapting behavior when necessary.

To accomplish these goals, sales managers must be mindful of the process of their communication with strangers. Even though individuals may be mindful and motivated to communicate effectively with strangers, institutional support is necessary to improve intergroup relations in society.

Bibliography

Knapp, M.L. Vangelisti, A. 2004, Interpersonal Communication and Human Relationships. Allyn & Bacon; 5 edn.

Le Lion Home Page. Web.

Delhaize to Control Greek Chain. 1992. Supermarket News, 50.

Food Lion: Still Stalking in Tough Times. 1992. Business Week, 70.

Mattock, J. 2003, Cross-Cultural Communication: The Essential Guide to International Business. Kogan Page; 3rd edition.

Thomas, D.C., Inkson, D.C. 2004, Cultural Intelligence: People Skills for Global Business. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Wood, J.T. 2003, Interpersonal Communications. Wadsworth Publishing.

Warren, Th. 2005, Cross-cultural Communication: Perspectives in Theory And Practice. Baywood Publishing Company, Inc.

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