Intercultural Communication In The Workplace Paper

Intercultural Communication in the Workplace Paper

University of Phoenix

Cultural Diversity / SOC 315

Mary Hamilton

July 27, 2006

Week Three

Intercultural Communication in the Workplace

Elaine Winters, a noted subject matter expert on Cultural differences and awareness says, "Few people seem to feel the need to truly face the underlying issues that cloud even the simplest of delicate, and frequently confusing, cross-cultural interactions." There is no doubt as to the many cultural groups around the world with different patterns of behavior, values, and rules. In the workplace, not establishing intercultural communication can be a very expensive mistake. This paper will review a scenario in which intercultural communication is an issue. In the process, we will diagnose the situation and provide strategies to help facilitate intercultural competence and avoid intercultural misunderstandings.

The Scenario

XYZ simplistic incorporated located in San Francisco California, has just transferred, and promoted a new Director of Operations from their International office in India. Although his full name is Rajamid Sodhi, he goes by the name Roger in hopes to better fit in within the American culture. Reporting to Roger is a young American woman named Jill Scott. Jill is originally from California and has only been with XYZ for three months and is eager to prove her self worth and value. Upon meeting Roger for the first time, she had a sense of a passiveness and studiousness. She immediately assumed Roger was a type "B" personality, smart, friendly, reserved, polite, and deeply religious. She also assumed Roger was married and not interested in romance. Roger and Jill talk for a little while about politics in America and interesting things to do in San Francisco and the Bay area. Being ambitious and seeing this as a potential networking opportunity, Jill takes the initiative and offers to show Roger around the city. She feels this will be a way to pick his brain and create a sense of camaraderie.

Women from California are often more aggressive and straightforward than other women around the world. Men and women here in America often do things together, like going to lunch, social gatherings, movies and so forth just as friends. There is no implied "date" under such circumstances.

Roger, on the other hand, thinks, "Ah! This American woman is interested in me and wants to date and perhaps is conspiring to marry me." In Roger's culture, men and women do not see each other casually. Women do not go with a man unescorted and are not aggressive in their behavior. If men and women meet together, and especially if a woman offers to meet a man, then the goal of such a meeting is romantic, with implications that the two are committed to each other. Roger had developed the notion, from watching American movies and TV shows in his own country, that American women are eager to become physically involved with anyone and have what people in his country consider "loose morals." He sees this as an opportunity to have a potential sexual relationship with Jill. He thinks all American women are like that, and since Jane is an American woman, he assumes that is true about her, too.

In fact, as soon as Jill began to talk to Roger, he began to notice her friendliness, smiles, and attention toward him. Although Jill did not mention a husband, she wears a ring on her left hand, but Roger did not notice it, or if he did, he did not pay much attention to it. After all, Jill was "coming on" to him. He was especially attuned to such behavior because he was lonely, had not been around a woman for a while, and was hoping for a date with someone.

During the drive to lunch, Jill is shocked at Roger's "forward" behavior. He puts his hand on her leg. Given her appalled reaction, she has no idea why he is doing that. She pushes him away causing him to swerve. Roger is at first convinced that she is only teasing him, but then when she confronts him and explains that she is not interested, that she has a husband, he realizes that she isn't interested in him after all and is frustrated and confused. Jill is angry and concerned that this will effect her position at work.

The Diagnosis

In this scenario intercultural conflict has occurred. Roger and Jill are both guilty of stereotyping, assuming, and being ignorant of each other's true cultures. They have conveyed through both verbal and body language an interest and both were misunderstood. According to Knapp (1998) Intercultural conflict is defined as "the perceived or actual incompatibility of values, norms, processes, or goals between a minimum of two cultural parties over content, identity, relational, and procedural issues." Neither person communicated effectively. Nor was the message being conveyed received as the communicator intended, creating a sense of vulnerability and frustration. Knapp-Pothoff (1997) has explained that sense of vulnerability and frustration experienced by both parties in a passage from the book titled Cultural, Organizational, or Linguistic Causes of Intercultural Conflicts. A Case Study.

"To operate effectively and successfully in the global marketplace, business managers increasingly require tools and skills which help them to be "interculturally professional," to amalgamate divergent cultural attitudes, beliefs and behavior, and, eventually, to forge a powerful, effective international team.

Stereotyping due to overgeneralization is a common occurrence, especially among those who only interact with another culture infrequently. When we are faced with uncertainty, the human mind naturally seeks to create some order or system from what we observe. This is especially true when we may feel vulnerable due to uncertainty. So the mind creates its own set of rules or generalizations - which may be based on some surface realities and patterns - but which fail to account for real experience and individual variation. What's more, since we may feel threatened, the human mind can presume negative motives or draw negative inferences from the generalizations we create/observe, which forms then forms the basis of prejudice."

This being said, there are other elements in this situation that have relevance such as Maslow's