Storytelling and cultural learning-An expatriate manager's narratives of collaboration challenges in a multicultural business setting Learning, Culture and Social Interaction (original) (raw)
Related papers
2019
This paper focuses on cultural learning processes in an international business context. The empirical material is an in-depth narrative interview with a European expatriate manager who emplots challenging cultural encounters in an Asian subsidiary of a Western European multinational company. We seek turning points and discoveries in her stories to show how and what she learned from her critical incidents. We found that the new business and cultural context posed a huge challenge during the early stages of her assignment and that prior (explicit) knowledge and international experience did not ensure smooth collaborations. Successful collaborations required creating new context-specific (tacit) knowledge embedded in organizational culture and locals’ behaviors. We found that extrapolating from social interactions led to cultural misinterpretations and inhibited cross-cultural interactions and learning, but continued interactions led to better understandings of cultural others’ behaviors as their attributions could be renegotiated. Moreover, we found transformative potential of storytelling for expatriate post-experiential learning. We contribute methodologically to the narrative approach in cross-cultural research. We found that collecting stories by the interviewer who shares a nationality, language, and culture with the interviewee may impose an ethnocentric lens on the experiences related and limit the interviewee’s reflection on cross-cultural communication and collaboration.
Journal of International Business Studies, 2011
The objective of this article is to show how narrative methods provide useful tools for international business research. We do this by presenting a study of stories told about the collaboration between a Danish expatriate manager and his Chinese CEO in the Shanghai subsidiary of an MNE. First, we explain and exemplify how narrative interviews are designed and conducted. In this connection, we consider the interviewers' interaction with the interviewees, and clarify our reasons for focusing on the two selected interviews. Second, we demonstrate how narrative concepts and models are able to elucidate intercultural collaboration processes by analyzing how each member of a dyad of interacting managers narrates the same chain of events. We show how the narratological concepts of peripeteia and anagnorisis are well suited to identifying focal points in their stories: situations where change follows their recognizing new dimensions of their conflicts, eventually furthering their collaboration. We explain how Greimas's actantial model is valuable when mapping differences between and changes in the narrators' projects, alliances and oppositions in the course of their interaction. Thus, we make it clear how they overcome most of their differences and establish common ground through mutual learning.
Baltic Journal of Managenemt, Volume 12, Issue 2, ISSN 1746-5265, ss. 214 - 239, Wydawnictwo Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2017
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show how individuals perceive the quality of intercultural interactions at work in multinational subsidiaries and to address the question of what actually prevails in their accounts, i.e., “the dark side” or “the bright side.” Design/methodology/approach – The authors report the findings from five subsidiaries located in Poland and interviews with 68 employees of these companies. Findings – The “bright side” dominated the interviewees'accounts. The phenomenon of high social identity complexity or common in-group identity can help explain the findings. The results also shed some new light on the associations between the context of subsidiaries and the perception of the quality of intercultural interactions. Research limitations/implications - The paper contributes to the literature on cultural diversity and intercultural interactions in multinational subsidiaries. As the “bright side” of interactions was emphasized in the interviews, it particularly supports positive cross-cultural scholarship studies. Yet the explorative research does not allow for a broader generalization of the results. Practical implications – Managers of multinational corporations (MNCs) should do the following: shape the context of MNCs to influence the dynamics of intercultural interactions and the way they are seen by their employees; emphasize common in-group identity to help their employees to adopt more favorable attitudes toward intercultural interactions; look for individuals with multicultural identity who display more positive approaches to intercultural contacts; place emphasis on recruiting individuals fluent in the MNC’s functional language; offer language training for the staff; and recruit employees with significant needs for development who will perceive more opportunities in intercultural contacts. Social implications – The research demonstrates that the multicultural workplace of MNCs may be recognized by employees as activating the positive potential of the individuals and organizations that make up a society. Originality/value – The accounts of intercultural interactions are analyzed to illuminate some significant foundations of how individuals perceive such interactions. The study provides a qualitative lens and highlights the positive approach to intercultural interactions. It may redress the imbalance in prior research and satisfy the need for positive cross-cultural scholarship. Keywords: Cross-cultural management, Qualitative research, Cultural barriers, Multinational subsidiaries, Positive cross-cultural scholarship research
Multilingua, 2018
This study investigates Polish expatriates’ stories of encounters with local personnel in a Chinese subsidiary of a Western multinational company. A narrative analysis of the stories produced important insights into Polish-Chinese communication in an intra-subsidiary context. Low proficiency in the host language was a serious obstacle to expatriate socialization and a source of expatriates’ exclusion and social isolation in the workplace, which often led to stress, frustration, and negative attitudes toward collaboration with local personnel. Language-related issues prevented the expatriates from acquiring information from Chinese superiors, learning about problems within a team, and participating in decision-making. The findings of this case study relate to communication challenges in the Chinese subsidiary, expatriates’ accounts of how they overcame communication difficulties, and their reflections on what fostered and hampered intercultural communication.
Local Stories as a Driving Force for Intercultural, Corporate Development
Proceedings of Appreciating Local Knowledge Conference, 2013
Intercultural theory supported by empirical studies and consequent analysis by Schwartz, Hofstede or the Globe Study provided a valuable language to describe cultural differences and commonalities across cultures. Last year, Monaghan, Goodman & Robinson, in “A Cultural Approach to Interpersonal Communication“ pointed out that interpersonal communication practices are culturally variable and there is no ’right’ way to communicate. In turn, it will be difficult to extract guidelines for a context dependent and broad field like interpersonal, intercultural communication in a corporate context. The paper at hand is concerned with local stories and narratives as a driving force for intercultural communication and presents a prototype for their geographic and semantic visualisation. Rather than focussing on developing guidelines, it tries to present the variety of experience as a kind of digital storytelling approach. Grounded on theories from psychology and interpersonal neurobiology, it will show how narrative approaches could facilitate intercultural, corporate development and learning. Besides the analysis of narratives in intercultural, interpersonal and corporate research, the paper will also present a first prototype for visualisation and first semi-automatic semantic analysis of intercultural stories. The paper demonstrates how such a visualisation can enhance the understanding of “the other” and how organisations can utilise stories for enhancing their local, regional and global knowledge by learning from each other.
INTERCULTURAL INTERACTIONS AT MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS' WORKPLACE: GROUNDED THEORY
Purpose: Due to globalization and the global mobility of workforce, working in multicultural environments is a new challenge for employees and managers. The aim of the paper is to analyze the social interactions in multicultural environments of multinational corporations (MNCs) as well as to propose a model of intercultural social interactions in MNCs' specifi c context. Design/methodology/approach: The grounded theory approach was applied to create a model of intercultural interactions in MNCs. The data was obtained during the qualitative research based on comparative case studies collected in 5 MNCs' subsidiaries. Findings: The proposed model refers to the following concepts: 1) Lazarus's transactional stress theory states that job demands may be assessed as hindrances or challenges. The specific job demands that affect intercultural interactions are multilingualism, cultural diversity, cross-cultural adjustment and team work. 2) Positive psychological capital and an individual's acquired resources are in relation with intercultural interactions. 3) According to Bandura's agentic perspective, individuals take an active role in shaping social interactions and work environment. 4) Being an agent relates to Spreitzer's thriving concept that can serve as a mechanism of relations between the interactions undertaken due to MNCs' specific job demands and their outcomes. Research limitations/implications: The qualitative methodology applied to the research does not allow for a broader generalization of the results. The outcomes of intercultural interactions depend mainly on how individuals assess their job demands in MNCs. Practical implications: Since the workplace in MNCs is abundant in learning opportunities, the managers of MNCs need to hire employees who exhibit needs for growth and development to boost thriving in their organizations. Additionally, these managers should search for employees with experience of multicultural settings and a significant capacity of positive psychological capital, 4 thanks to which they are likely to benefit more from intercultural social interactions. More concern should be put on training the employees' language skills since it may build their self-efficacy in intercultural interactions. Originality/value: The proposed model focuses on social interactions in MNCs' unique context. The empirical findings were interpreted with regard to psychological and sociological theories and the Positive Organizational Scholarship lens.
Communication and collaboration in subsidiaries in China-Chinese and expatriate accounts
European Journal of Cross-Cultural …, 2011
The purpose of this article is to explore how Chinese and expatriate managers, working in subsidiaries of five MNCs, communicate and collaborate, what kind of cultural encounters they talk about and give prominence to in their accounts of critical incidents, how they reflect upon them/explain them, and how they cope with perceived similarities and differences to improve cross-cultural communication and collaboration within a global organisation. Using an inductive qualitative methodology and thematic analysis, the study draws on in-depth narrative interviews with 29 expatriate and 39 Chinese managers and experts. The specific value of this paper is that it explores a hitherto under-researched issue and provides insight into well-educated expatriate and Chinese managers' accounts of how they perceive themselves and others in a multicultural work context. In both groups, we find widely travelled, flexible and open-minded people, who are ready and have the capabilities to conduct cross-cultural leadership.
Journal of Positive Management, Volume 7, Number 1/2016, ISSN 2083-103X, pp. 3-31, Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2016
Due to globalization and the global mobility of workforce, working in multicultural environments is a new challenge for employees and managers. The aim of the paper is to analyze the social interactions in multicultural environments of multinational corporations (MNCs) as well as to propose a model of intercultural social interactions in MNCs' specifi c context. Design/methodology/approach: The grounded theory approach was applied to create a model of intercultural interactions in MNCs. The data was obtained during the qualitative research based on comparative case studies collected in 5 MNCs' subsidiaries. Findings: The proposed model refers to the following concepts: 1) Lazarus's transactional stress theory states that job demands may be assessed as hindrances or challenges. The specifi c job demands that aff ect intercultural interactions are multilingualism, cultural diversity, cross-cultural adjustment and team work. 2) Positive psychological capital and an individual's acquired resources are in relation with intercultural interactions. 3) According to Bandura's agentic perspective, individuals take an active role in shaping social interactions and work environment. 4) Being an agent relates to Spreitzer's thriving concept that can serve as a mechanism of relations between the interactions undertaken due to MNCs' specifi c job demands and their outcomes. Research limitations/implications: The qualitative methodology applied to the research does not allow for a broader generalization of the results. The outcomes of intercultural interactions depend mainly on how individuals assess their job demands in MNCs. Practical implications: Since the workplace in MNCs is abundant in learning opportunities, the managers of MNCs need to hire employees who exhibit needs for growth and development to boost thriving in their organizations. Additionally, these managers should search for employees with experience of multicultural settings and a signifi cant capacity of positive psychological capital, 4 thanks to which they are likely to benefi t more from intercultural social interactions. More concern should be put on training the employees' language skills since it may build their self-eff icacy in intercultural interactions. Originality/value: The proposed model focuses on social interactions in MNCs' unique context. The empirical fi ndings were interpreted with regard to psychological and sociological theories and the Positive Organizational Scholarship lens.
Preparing for a Global Encounter: from Internationalization en route towards Globalization
Proceeding of the 2009 international workshop …, 2009
This short piece outlines some of the problems with the concept of cultural intelligence conceived of as a tool to grasp both the structural and individual angels of crosscultural encounters in a business context. We sketch some possible research areas, which could lead to a reinterpretation of the interwoven proxies on which the concept is based. Our suggestions are all linked to experience as a central perspective. We see experience as a central component of both the understanding of and the research in how people deal with cultural border passing encounters.