Intercultural Business Communication: Making Students Aware of Cultural Values

1. Making students aware of their own cultural values and preparing them for intercultural business communication Marinel Gerritsen (Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands) 4TH ENIEDA CONFERENCE Vrsac, 29 September–1 October 2011

2. Course Intercultural Communication • First year Bachelor Business Communication Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen • Lectures for more than 200 students • 7 weeks, 4 hours a week • Students are expected to spend a total of 140 hours on the course (5 ECTS points) • The lecturer was allotted 90 hours

3. Course Objectives A. To give our students an insight into 1. The differences between cultures in values and the possible consequences of these differences for international Business Communication 2. Their own values 3. Their intercultural competence Teaching tool:assignments that measure values and intercultural competence of the students in digital learning environment (Blackboard) B. To allow our students to 1. Experience cultural differences 2. Talk about cultural differences 3. Learn to cooperate with someone from a different culture Teaching tool:Intercultural emailproject

4. Six basic values (Kluckhohn & Strodtbeck) 1. Human nature 2. Human Relations Collectivism-Individualism + Context Power distance Particularism-Universalism Neutral-Affective Achievement 3. Activity Uncertainty Avoidance Masculinity-Feminity 4. Time Past, present, future Polychrony-monochrony Confucian Dynamism 5. Space Personal space Private-Public Specific-Diffuse 6. Person-Nature

5. Assignment 3 I feel most comfortable where People sympathise with the 1 2 3 4 5 People admire the top-dog underdog and tend to be and blame the unsuccessful jealous of the success of others At work, people are 1 2 3 4 5 At work, people are motivated motivated by a pleasant work by clear-cut targets and strict environment, warmth and accountability to demonstrate “cosiness” their level of achievement People try to reach consensus 1 2 3 4 5 People see confrontations as at work and colleagues are positive and fruitful; one should not supposed to compete compete or die against one another Both men and women can be 1 2 3 4 5 Men are supposed to be assertive modest, tender and concerned and focused at material success, with quality of life issues and women are supposed to be more modest and concerned with quality of life issues Lovers look for intimacy 1 2 3 4 5 Lovers look for emotional support Press to submit

6. Your answers Your answer to assignment 3 is: 37

8. Intercultural Communication 2010-2011 Results assignment 3: Masculinity (N=209)

9. Results assignment 3: Masculinity (N=209) • 0=feminine, 100=masculine • Mean of the whole group 35.4 (last year 34,4) • Range 5-66 (last year 0-60) • Standard deviation 10.65 (last year 10.77) • Hofstede (2001) for the Netherlands: 14 Don’t forget your own score!!

10. Example of an examination question designed to test the students’ familiarity with their own scores and the consequences of those scores Imagine that you have to write an annual report for your company together with a person from Hungary who has the values given below. Describe the problems you would expect to encounter on the basis of the differences between his or her values and yours. Refer to your own values resulting from the Blackboard assignments you completed during the course. . Communication style: high Individualism: 80 Power distance: 46 Affective Masculinity: 88 Uncertainty avoidance: 82 Diffuse Monochrone Confucian dynamism: 50 Past oriented Small personal space

11. These assignments related to values give the student insight into • Their own values • Individual variation within a country • Consistency over time for a given value and changes in values • Methodological problems of previous surveys

12. Intercultural Competence: A validated test developed by Karin van der Zee and Jan Pieter van Oudenhoven (2000) • Cultural empathy • Open-mindedness • Social initiative • Emotional stability • Flexibility

13. Advantages and Disadvantages of Using a digital learning environment • Advantages • An individual approach is possible • Whether 20 or 1000 students are involved the work load for the lecturer is the same • Once the assignments are installed they can be used as often as necessary • The project results in an extensive data base • Disadvantages • Analyzing the data for the whole group is sometimes time consuming • It requires a great deal of work to integrate the tool in a digital learning environment

14. What our students “ wrote” in their evaluations about the assignments “I like the fact that I know now on which aspects of my intercultural competence I still have to work”. “It was a nice enjoyable way to find out about myself”. “It was very interesting to gain an insight into my own values. I asked my boyfriend to do the test too and when we compared the results we both realized why we sometimes have problems with each other”.

15. Course Objectives A. To give our students an insight into 1. The differences between cultures in values and the possible consequences of these differences for international Business Communication 2. Their own values 3. Their intercultural competence Teaching tool:assignments that measure values and intercultural competence of the students in digital learning environment (Blackboard) B. To allow our students to 1. Experience cultural differences 2. Talk about cultural differences 3. Learn to cooperate with someone from a different culture Teaching tool:Intercultural emailproject

16. The Netherlands and Belgium in the world

17. The Netherlands and Belgium in more detail

18. The Netherlands and Dutch speaking Belgium:One language but two very different cultures “In fact, no two countries (...) with a common border and a common language are so far culturally apart (…) as (Dutch) Belgium and the Netherlands” (Geert Hofstede 2001).

19. The Netherlands-Dutch speaking Belgium An excellent opportunity for our intercultural project because: a. There are two different cultures b. Both cultures have the same first language (Dutch)

20. Project description for the student 1. Complete a questionnaire on your own

21. 19 questions/ cases with topics such as: Symbols Clothing in a number of situations The meaning of words Rituals (National) holidays Birth/ birthday/ burial traditions Values Measuring values Communicating with “superiors”

22. Examples of questions-1 • Symbols, clothing Imagine that you applied for the job of communication manager at a large bank and you have been invited for an interview. a. Describe in detail what you would wear b. Describe in detail what you believe someone of the opposite sex should wear • Rituals, holidays Give all the official holidays in your country in 2011. Start with January 1st and end with December 31st. Give the date for each holiday day and its name and then give the following information: a. what is being celebrated; b. how you would celebrate this in your family; c. how this is celebrated in public.

23. Examples of questions -2 • Values This is a list with eight things that you could require from a job. Label what you think is most important as “1”, the next most important as “2”, and so on. Label the least important requirement as “8”. Have possibilities to promotion Have responsibilities Be able to show creativity Know exactly what tasks you have to fulfill Have an unlimited contract Have flexible working hours Have a cosy work room Have good relationships with boss and colleagues

24. Project description for the student 1. Complete a questionnaire on your own 2. Send the completed questionnaire to the Dutch and the Belgian members of your group

25. Example of first contact message: Dutch student mails Flemish student Hi! --- here’s my questionnaire! I hope to receive yours (informal form) soon too. Byebye xxx Esmee

26. Example of first contact message: Flemish student mails Dutch student Good morning! Here is my questionnaire too. I have looked at your (formal form) questionnaire and it was good. I’ll start comparing our answers referring to the frame. Regards Joris

27. Project description for the student 1. Complete a questionnaire on your own 2. Send the completed questionnaire to the Dutch and the Belgian members of your group 3. Look for differences within a nationality and between nationalities 4. Tell each other (by e-mail, msn) about the similarities and differences you find 5. Write a report (joint venture) on the similarities and differences and try to explain these referring to the theories you have been presented with during your course

30. Organisational problems for teachers • Time allocation • Evaluation system

31. Advantages for students • Experiential nature of the project: actually finding out about cultural differences between … and yet so near to each other • A practical addition to “theoretical” knowledge about … • Recognition of the limitation of stereotyping

32. What our students “ wrote” in their evaluations about the intercultural email project At first sight, the differences didn’t seem that big, but when we discussed things they seemed very big. We learned how to cooperate with people from a different culture. You have to adapt and look for compromises. We learned a lot about cultural differences by jointly writing the report, but also by discussing things. The project should stay. It is good to learn to cooperate and adapt in situations like this.

33. Last email contact: Dutch student mailed Flemish student Subject: Saying goodbye, weep, weep Hi Stijn! You’re a nice fellow to work with! (…) I think we worked together well, and that our project was a fine piece of work (…) Thanks very much for the final changes! (…) You’re crazy, but fun to work with with (…) Let’s keep in touch to see what grade we get. Because that will be the real goodbye moment … when we are in (di)stress about our final result then we can mail each other … It’ll turn out all right.

34. In short: hope to have convinced you of the added value of • Assignments that measure the values and the intercultural competence of the students via a digital learning environment • Intercultural email project for teaching intercultural communication

35. Thank you for your attention Questions?