1) According to the Hofstede model, what issues may arise in the following cases? Discuss them in class.

2. A Swedish company sets up a subsidiary in Brazil under a Swedish general manager who wishes to import Scandinavian decision-making styles.

3. A US-trained manager attempts to implement a new performance management system, with a bonus for achievements of individual objectives, in Thailand.

4. A Dutch HR manager of a US subsidiary in the Netherlands is instructed to implement downsizing measures.

5. The newly appointed Spanish R&D (Research and Development) manager of a UK firm asks to see the Rules and Procedures Manual for the R&D department.

2) Think of analogous situations, business related or not (intercultural marriage or friendship, immigration, historical examples, etc.), to which the Hofstede model can be applied. Present them in class.

3) Look up the Hofstede model of cultural differences on the Internet and find information about Russia. Make a presentation.

The communication model

♫ Listening (5)

You are going to listen to people giving advice on good intercultural communication.

PRE-LISTENING

9. What communication problems can occur between speakers form different cultures?

10. How comfortable do you feel about interrupting others or being interrupted yourself?

LISTENING COMPREHENSION

Note down the key point each person makes. Compare your notes with a partner, and discuss which you think is the best advice.

Speaker 1: Professor Hiro Tanaka, Professor of International Studies at Meisei University and Senior Consultant at Transnational Management.	Key point:
Speaker 2:Nikki King, MD of Isuzu Trucks UK.	Key point:
Speaker 3: Charlie Peppiatt, Vice President of Global Operations, Laird PLC.	Key point:

FOLLOW-UP

(1) Look at the following cross-cultural problems, and select the advice you heard in the Listening (5) that would address each problem.

a) You are having a meeting with your new partner from Saudi Arabia, but you are not sure of his level of English.

b) You are going to be transferred to Ethiopia for three years to manage a new office there. You know nothing about the country and have never been there before.

c) You are visiting Thailand, and are surprised by how much people smile in public and when they meet strangers (this is unusual in your culture). How should you respond and how could you find our more about this custom/behaviour.

In pairs, role play situations a and b.

(2) Read about Edward Hall’s communication model.

Culture and communication are mutually dependent. Culture is by definition a shared, consensus-based way of life, which is made possible only by communication: conversely, communication is facilitated by shared cultural norms.

Edward Hall, an American anthropologist and cross-cultural researcher, suggested that one dimension of cultural difference is the extent to which the content and understanding of communication is influenced by its context, in terms of non-verbal aspects, underlying implications, interpersonal dynamics and so on.

Low-contextpeople take the content of a communication at its face value (words say what they mean). They therefore prefer clear, explicit, written forms of communication.

High-contextpeople exchange and interpret messages at a more complex level. They tend to divulge less information officially in written form, but are better at developing informal networks for information exchange face-to-face of by oral means. They are also better at giving and interpreting non-verbal signals, unspoken implications, emotional undertones and so on.

Research has placed various cultures on the high-low context continuum as follows.

Low High

context context

4________3________2________1________0________1________2________3________4

Germany Scandinavia Belgium France UK Asia Japan

Switzerland N America Netherlands Africa

Denmark S Europe

Latin America

► GROUP discussioN

1. Is your national culture of origin high- or low-context?

2. Think of individuals with whom you regularly interact who come form a culture that is on the other side of the continuum from yours. Describe any of their communication behaviours that strike you as different from your own. How far does the high-/low-context model account for these? What other factors might account for them?

3. What might be some of the problems of a person from a low-context culture working in a high-context culture?

• LANGUAGE FOCUS: Revise pronunciation of foreign words in English.

Many English words have their origins in other languages. Some of these words are no longer thought of as ‘foreign’; for example, bungalow (Hindi origin), caravan (Persian origin), tomato (Spanish origin). Others, however, are still associated with the language they are borrowed from, either because they are recent borrowings or because they keep the appearance of a foreign word.

Some of these words are said with a pronunciation that makes them sound like English words; others may also be said in a way that is close to their pronunciation in the original language.