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Strengths and weaknesses of the Global People Competency Framework in terms of conceptualising the effective management of intercultural relations

Introduction

For about 5 decades the rapid process of globalization has been discussed as a cause of change in the society, corporate culture and communication (Brett, 2006; Charnovits, 2005; Guirdham, 1999; Thomas, 2008). The change itself is accompanied with international trade flows, investment, tourism, educational and cultural exchange as well as development of global telecommunications, including the Internet (Charnovits, 2005; Magala, 2005; Maurer et. al., 2010; Osland, 2003). Furthermore, it leads to the increasing number of employees moving across countries or applying for multinational corporations (Adler, 2008; Mountain & Davidson, 2011; Thomas, 2008). As a matter of fact, an employer’s demands have been shifted significantly towards such skills as multicultural team management, negotiation and decision-making, mobility and flexibility (Adler & Gundersen, 2008; Archer & Cameron, 2012; Brett, 2006; Higgs, 1996; Katzenbach & Smith, 2005; Miller et al., 2000; Thompson, 2000; Thomas, 2008; Tozer, 1997). Deep knowledge of a foreign language is still considered as a competitive advantage but it may hardly play a crucial role at the recruitment process without demonstrating intercultural skills and ability to communicate effectively across cultures (…). With this in mind, this essay will discuss what is meant by intercultural competence in academic and business circuit and how a particular framework, in this case Global People Competency, may be used while analyzing intercultural critical incidents.

Debates towards the term ‘intercultural competency’

Today scholars seem not to have reached a consensus how to define the term ‘intercultural competency’. Generally, it may be described as a complex concept without any unique identification of common dimensions or, simply, a way to reflect positively on challenges caused by cultural differences and avoid conflicts and misunderstandings (…). Most of the studies stress particular importance of knowledge, language proficiency, interpersonal and communication skills, sometimes comparative thinking skills, and point out the role of motivation while becoming interculturally competent (…).

No agreement is thought to be reached on whether to consider intercultural competency universal/culture-general (global competency) or culture-specific (bicultural competency or behavioral competency in similar cultures) (…). Some scholars, like Taylor (1994), consider such competency mostly generalized because it is said to require universal adaptation and communication skills regardless the context and to be developed during the time. Others, like Rathje (2008), argue that there are no skills that may be used in the same way in different cultural settings, so that it is more appropriate to take into consideration various factors influencing the competency.

Nevertheless, despite variations in terminology and approaches intercultural competency is agreed to be an inevitable part of personal skills while working in a multicultural setting: the usage of ‘a lingua franca’ often does not prevent multicultural team members from internal misunderstandings due to not only differences in communication styles, but also in listening, interpreting ideas and understanding of goal, motivation and politeness (… Barry, 1991; Higgs, 1996; Holmes, 2012; Kim et al., 1996; Steers et al., 2011; Stivers et al., 2009; Thomas, 2008; Tietze, 2008). Keeping in mind cultural differences at modern work place as well as key skills that global employers are looking for, the next chapters fill focus on strengths and weaknesses of one of the intercultural competency frameworks and see how its particular elements might be used in the discussion of students’ intercultural competency in a multicultural learning settings.

Advantages and disadvantages of the Global People Competency Framework

The Global People Competency Framework was introduced in 2009 by Spencer-Oatey and Stadler. The key message of the framework is to explain what main competencies are needed to interact effectively across cultures. This goal goes along with general trend in intercultural studies on important skills, both professional and personal, necessary for successful work and communication across cultures (…). In comparison to many concepts that list the most important or introduce only top competences, the GPC framework presents an innovative approach towards understanding the competences and divides them into 4 clusters: knowledge and ideas, communication, relationships, personal qualities and dispositions (…). Clusters consist of certain elements and are said to be ‘interrelated’ (Spencer-Oatey & Stadler, 2009, p.4). One may say that the GPC framework lacks development/process elements, however, since the model may be classified as compositional (Spitzberg & Changnon, 2009) it does not aim at showing or studying competency growth.

Although the idea of clustering is found to be new in intercultural studies, it seems to have some limitations and room for development. First, the clusters are supported by real examples but these are examples of a particular bicultural project (between the UK and China) and due to limitations of nations involved it is difficult to say if the same clustering strategy might work for multicultural settings with more than 2 cultures involved. Second, some elements/dimensions may be easily shifted from one cluster to another. Third, some elements do not seem to reflect nature of a cluster.

For example, the first cluster (‘Knowledge and ideas’) does not give a clear explanation what is meant by intercultural knowledge: if it is knowledge gained before going to unfamiliar environment or knowledge developed while staying in a foreign country or working with foreigners or both. Information gathering is thought to be provided as a tool ‘to learn about and discover unfamiliar cultural values, practices and contextual information’ (Spencer-Oatey & Stadler, 2009, p.7). However, it does not give any time-specific advice when is the right time to start collecting information. Moreover, collected information does not necessarily mean well-reflected information – any gathered data or experience without appropriate reflection may hardly turn into knowledge. All these may indicate the room for further development of the cluster, in particular, taking into consideration time perspective, correlating it, for example with Taylor’s (1994) vision of intercultural competence as a time-involved knowledge gaining process.

‘New thinking’ dimension of Cluster 1 seems to be strongly interconnected with the dimension ‘Flexibility’ in Cluster 4 focused on personal qualities. That is why, open-mindness associated with new thinking may be discussed as a synonym of flexibility. And it gives the right to say that willingness to learn new behavioral and communication patterns is in the same line with challenging new ideas and may be clustered together as a personal characteristic. The dimension ‘Building of shared knowledge and mutual trust’ of Cluster 2 (Communication) seems to be interconnected with and probably more suitable for Cluster 1, on the one hand, or for Cluster 3 (Relationships), on the other. It may deal with both knowledge and relationship development being either a way of information gathering or rapport building.

Surprisingly, in comparison to Spencer-Oatey & Stadler (2009), many authors does not pay much attention to the role of humor as an element of intercultural competency (…). However, humor might be a very useful means to relieve tensions both internal and external. It is believed that the wise way of using humor might prove the high level of intercultural competency because it demonstrates not only excellent knowledge of a foreign language but also deep understanding of culture and context (Avolio et al., 1999; Calabrese, 2000; Hatch, 1997; Kangasharju & Nikko, 2009; Schnurr, 2009).

The concept of face, not noticed in a number of studies, may be discussed as another advantage of the framework (…). Although the idea of face is not new, a good understanding of what may threat own face and make others feel having positive or negative face may be considered as an important competence that may have both interpersonal and intercultural background (…). In a multicultural setting the common understanding of means to make a person loose face or give him or her face may play a crucial role in building interpersonal relations and preventing miscommunication.

Along with, the practical implementation of the framework, in a whole, and some elements, in particular, will be analyzed in the next chapter basing on 2 critical incidents from the researcher’s and her friend’s Intercultural Learning Journals (See Appendices).

Discussion and conclusion

Both cases, presented in the Appendices, might be discussed in the light of narrators’ intercultural competency. The first case deals with the problem of reflection on a compliment in a multicultural context while the second case is devoted to the problem of written communication in a multicultural team. Cases include participants from Europe and East Asia. One is written by the researcher, another – by the researcher’s friend.

In the framework of ‘Knowledge and ideas’ cluster, the narrators’ reflection on the critical incidents may be considered as a first step towards gathering information about rules of interaction in an intercultural setting. Since both girls experienced frustration due to unexpected cross-cultural misunderstanding and, even after discussing the issue with a buddy, found the whole situation ‘weird’, one can say that their demonstrated personal qualities, in particular self-awareness, acceptance and flexibility, have a room for improvement. Furthermore, despite showing quite good relationships competency, including attempts to welcome strangers and build rapports, the girls seem to have different understanding of interpersonal attentiveness with their dialogue partners. That is why, trying to be friendly they unconsciously threatened faces of the partners: either through making inappropriate from partners’ point of view compliments or using impolite written communication style. Interestingly, both stories cover rather negative experience and demonstrate important learning outcomes through self-reflection and discussion issues with buddies.

It might be hard to judge, if the girls might be regarded as globally competent people according to the GPC framework. The reason of the difficulty may lay in (1) setting, (2) cultural background, (3) subjectivity factor. As for context, including both setting and culture, the girls acted in an unfamiliar unofficial environment with people from drastically different cultural background. And it might have an impact on their choice of behavior and communication style: highly likely they would act differently in more official settings doing advance research on potential partners’ cultural differences. In addition, if girls did not seem to interact effectively in those particular bilateral cases (Germany-China, Russia-China), it does not mean that they can not interact well with representatives of other cultures. Furthermore, their frustration might not indicate unwillingness to be open to new thinking, but, in contrary, may demonstrate the potential to develop their person skills through coping with unusual interaction performance.

All in all, the discussed above critical incidents show that there might be no universal way of being interculturally competent across all circumstances while any dimension alone is not enough to ensure competency. That is why, an intercultural competency framework, like the GPC, may need to take into consideration a context factor and focus more on the meaning and importance of the knowledge factor. In addition, the politeness factor, including communication, face and humour dimensions, seems to be worth developing in future studies. Along with, the discussed above Global People Competency Framework maybe practically applied not only for social science studies, but also for HR and management providing both employers and employees with a mindmap of skills useful for effective performance in a multicultural team.

References

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Busch, D. (2009). What kind of intercultural competence will contribute to students’ future job employability? Intercultural Education, 20(5), 429–438;

Chang, S., & Tharenou, P. (2004). Competencies needed for managing a multicultural workgroup. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 42(1), 57–74;

Deardorff, D. (2009). Implementing intercultural competence assessment. In D. K. Deardorff (Ed.), Sage Handbook of Intercultural Competence (pp. 477–491). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage;

DiStefano, J., & Maznevski, M. (2000). Creating value with diverse teams in global management. Organizational Dynamics, 29(1), 45-63;

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Hajek, C., & Giles, H. (2003). New directions in intercultural communication competence: The process model. In J. O. Greene & B. R. Burleson (Eds.), Handbook of Communication and Social Interaction Skills (pp. 935–937). London: Routledge;

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Rathje, S. (2007). Intercultural competence: the status and future of a controversial concept. Language and Intercultural Communication, 7(4), 254–266;

Spencer-Oatey, H. (Ed.) (2008a) Culturally Speaking. Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory. (2nd edition) London: Continuum;

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Appendix 1. Intercultural Learning Journal (ILJ) – case 1

I. Report

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i. The Setting

The Terrace Bar during a welcoming session for postgraduate students

Late afternoon/beginning of the evening

ii. Who was involved?

My German friend with two course mates and a girl she hadn´t met before from China (later the story is provided by may friend)

iii. What happened?

The girl came over to introduce herself and talk to us. She was friendly, outgoing and nice to talk to. After we shared a couple of sentences we started to introduce ourselves. I was the last one in the round and after saying my name the girl interrupted me saying: “You are from Germany aren´t you? You have such a beautiful skin colour!” I was taken aback, because I didn´t know how to respond at all…so after a few seconds I said something like:

“Wow that’s correct! But what about my skin colour? Your skin colour is really pretty yourself… I mean you are really pretty!” I couldn´t understand why she had made that compliment, especially because she was really, really pretty herself (much more than me). My confusion or shock grew when I got the answer: “What? But I am Asian!”