Enhancing Intercultural Communication in Organizations

Insights from Project Advisers

Roos Beerkens, Emmanuelle Le Pichon-Vorstman, Roselinde Supheert, Jan Ten Thije

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000069006
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Communication
• Index: Business

This book provides a qualitative analysis of the process of consultancy, to prove how intercultural communication can solve issues rising from multiculturalism in organizations and policymaking.

Experts in intercultural consultancy examine 12 different cases from real situations, focusing on interviews with clients and the way advice is presented and discussed with them, and on collected data and the process by which it is gathered. The book proves how the mechanisms of intercultural communication can be used to foster respectful relationships between people of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds and contribute to the success of the project or organization in question.

This book will be a key resource for scholars and students involved in intercultural communication, management, and consultancy, as well as professionals that are confronted in their work with diversity and would like to know more about intercultural consultancy.

Additional questions for discussion and readings are available as e-resources on the Routledge Website.

1 Introduction

Roos Beerkens, Emmanuelle Le Pichon-Vorstman, Roselinde Supheert, and Jan D. ten Thije

The increasing mobility of people implies that interactions between individuals of different cultural backgrounds are commonplace at all levels of society. In the context of globalization and internationalization, multicultural groups have become the rule, rather than the exception. In their slipstream intercultural communication has become an important element in many fields of academic study, of which intercultural consultancy is among the most socially relevant, gaining attention over the past years. In our view, intercultural consultancy is concerned with analysis and advice with respect to intercultural encounters from a situated view on culture. This means that research and interventions that aim to facilitate intercultural practices need to take into account the social, cultural, historical and economic contexts to which the participants in the exchange belong. In other words, in our view there is a need to analyse each case on a micro level. This view on culture and intercultural communication is increasingly supported by academic literature; multicultural teams are in essence fruitful in most settings, as long as the members know how to get the most out of their diversity. In this book, we look at the way in which experts in intercultural communication can contribute concretely to intercultural understanding within the confines of an organization. Most agencies that offer intercultural consultancy as a paid service are reluctant to share their experiences. Perhaps they wish to maintain a certain illusion that they possess the magic formulas to solve the issues related to “a problem in intercultural communication.”

What This Book Has to Offer

In this book, the authors share the experience they have acquired in the domain of intercultural consultancy over the past 20 years. They discuss a number of illustrative cases and use these real-life examples to show that it is a misrepresentation to designate multiculturality as a problem. The reader will discover that in reality multiculturality, when approached through intercultural communication, is not a problem but a solution. This book is not a collection of recipes for intercultural consultancy. The authors believe that there are millions of individuals dealing with millions of different situations involving intercultural communication, each of which is also highly dynamic. The danger of an “intercultural cookbook” would be to adopt an essentialist approach, which would reduce people to cultural affiliation. The approach of this book is qualitative, situated and based on an analysis of the process of consultancy in 12 different cases in different settings. Each case offers a systematic description of the way in which academic knowledge can be applied to solve practical challenges. The book has been written by researchers working in the field of intercultural communication, all involved in consultancy processes. The editors of the book decided to join forces as they are convinced that in many universities the added value of academic advice on intercultural communication is underestimated.

In this book, we use the terms consultant and consultancy in a broad sense. In case studies 1, 5, 6, 9 and 11, the emphasis is on a more traditional meaning of the consultant: an external organization has an issue they would like insight on; this organization commissions consultants to carry out research on the issue; the parties negotiate the work that needs to be done, bearing in mind costs and practicalities; the work is planned and then carried out maintaining ongoing contact and the outcome is evaluated. However, in academia, we are often positioned to do research when an information gap is noticed. Research is then carried out, and the findings are reported to those who are interested. Case studies 4 and 7 align with this form of consultancy. The purpose and the stakes of these forms of consultancy differ: in the first case, the consultation is commercial and negotiated, and in the other it is offered without having been requested. However, in both cases, the ultimate success of the consultation may be measured by the adoption or rejection of the advice.

The most difficult part of the consultancy process may be to truly understand what the client wishes to achieve. To be able to help an organization, a consultant must meet several requirements and understand the question of the organization, understand who plays a role in the advisory process, what is needed to conduct research, and present the results in a convincing way.

A consultant in intercultural communication, however, must meet additional requirements, which this book will address as well. Doing so, the following questions will be answered:

• What are the roles of intercultural consultants in achieving smooth and respectful communication between people with different cultural and language backgrounds?
• Given our extensive knowledge about the mechanisms of intercultural communication, how can we use this knowledge to contribute to the success of the organization in question?

Each example in this book is based on a real case in different international organization practices. For each case, the following stages are reviewed while adopting a variety of approaches to communication:

• We explore and try to understand a specific intercultural (communication) situation;
• We learn how the client’s questions have been translated into a research question;
• We learn how the data have been collected to answer the research question;
• We learn how the research results have been translated to answer the client’s question;
• We learn how the consultants have translated an intercultural problem into an intercultural opportunity;
• We reflect critically on the case, on the results that have been achieved, and on the factors that have influenced the adoption or rejection of the advice by the organization.

Even though languages and their collaterals (variety of languages, accents) are often seemingly the most prominent manifestations of multiculturality, the reader will discover that many other factors of social, historical, cultural and economic relevance also play a role in the situations that are described. Our goal, then, following Canagarajah (2013, p. 222), is to look beyond language to explore “the intercultural negotiation of agency,” through the lens of enrichment in multiculturality. This means that we wish to move away from multiculturality as a problem to multiculturality as a resource.

How the Book Is Organized

The core of this book is formed by a detailed discussion of 12 different cases, each by a different author or team of authors. Many of the authors teach at university and/or work as consultants themselves. Each chapter covers the complete process of consultancy, from the first meeting with the client to the final stage of the process. In this way, for each case, the six points outlined earlier are reviewed. These real-life examples take the reader on a journey through Europe, Canada, the Antilles, Suriname and Saudi Arabia. We have tried to be as diverse as possible in the choice of the cases and to include all kinds of consultancy activities in different settings: educational and political settings, the business world, the academic world and non-governmental organizations.

Central questions guide the reader to the core challenges presented in each case. Additional questions for discussion and suggested readings are available as e-resources on the Routledge website. Also on the website is a Case Study for Discussion for Part II – Case Study for Discussion: Educational Exchanges Between Dutch and Chinese Secondary Schools by Rosanne Severs and Roos Beerkens. These resources are provided to encourage readers to apply their new insights to the consultancy process, to explore additional documentation about the case, and to review additional literature. An index of keywords and authors, compiled by Emmy Gulikers, makes it possible to discover all kinds of links between the case studies.

Reference

Canagarajah, S. (2013). Agency and power in intercultural communication: Negotiating English in translocal spaces. Language and Intercultural Communication, 13(2), 202–224. doi:10.1080/14708477.2013.770867

2 Key Concepts

Roos Beerkens and Emmanuelle Le Pichon-Vorstman

Increasing internationalization as well as digitalization have not only spurred encounters between people living in different parts of the world, but also the speed at which communication processes between these parties take place. Delegations of diplomats are a case in point. These are sent from one country to another with the mission to negotiate treaties and contracts. Typically, in earlier times, such missions could take months, and they can still take days to weeks at present. Initial exchanges of presents to break the ice, followed by culinary festivities, gradually usher in actual negotiations about the issue at hand. Nowadays, however, these elaborate, archetypal negotiations occur less frequently than before. Time pressure as well changes in communicative means have altered our conception of space and time in such a way that the chance to get to know each other prior to the actual negotiation is limited. There are different reasons for this evolution of which the two most important are:

1. Modern and digital tools that have not only greatly facilitated but also sped up the exchanges.
2. The individual groups of teams that have transitioned from homogeneous (sharing provenance, language and cultural background) to relatively heterogeneous. This implies that each team involved in an exchange is nowadays more likely to include individuals with a variety of cultural and knowledge backgrounds than was previously the case. Consequently, present-day teams are more likely to bring different and sometimes divergent funds of knowledge to the table.

These societal changes are likely at the root of a steep increase in the demand for intercultural communication consultants, which has, in fact, never been higher. There is, more than ever, a great need for consultancy in the context of intercultural communication.

Against this background, the first concept to investigate in this book is communication. Communication involves people in interaction, within a particular relationship, and within a particular context. Each exchange is influenced by local and global contexts, but also by the perception of reality by each participant. These perceptions may be fundamentally different, depending on cultural and knowledge backgrounds of the participants. When engaged in an interaction, in order to achieve smooth communication all participants need to negotiate their own perceptions to reach an understanding of the situation as perceived by others also engaged in the exchange. This negotiation of the communication process can be understood as a continuum, going from the ideal situation, where the understood purpose of the interaction is shared by the participants involved in the process, to a situation of communication breakdown when people do not understand each other (cf. Le Pichon-Vorstman, de Swart, Ceginskas, & van den Bergh, 2009). The more knowledge is shared between different parties in the exchange, the smoother the communication process.

The second concept that is key to this book is a compound of inter and cultural. If we are to investigate the process and outcomes of intercultural communication, we need to explain what we understand by both. We will start with the concept of culture, a concept that has been at the root of, and continues to incite, intense debates. On a side note, these debates are, in fact, themselves strongly influenced by some of the concepts that are at the core of this book. The objective of this book is not to reiterate such discussions. Rather, we wish to reposition this debate in its context to point out the differences between at least three of the movements and the vision supported within this book. Broadly speaking, these schools of thought have adopted a theoretical stand on culture which still influences the work of many consultants and the strategies they propose for intercultural communication. These ideas range from a static to an inherently dynamic view on culture:

1. The essentialist view, also called national view, considers culture as mainly static. In this view, individuals are grouped into a national identity that is both generalized and more or less fixed in the sense that it is supposed to be shared by the individuals who see themselves as members of this particular culture. One of the proponents of this view is Adler (1975). Adler defined the concept of culture as a perceptual frame of reference that a group may share, and which is influenced by members’ orientation and worldview. Along the same lines, Hofstede (1983) defined cultures on the basis of dimensions that are deeply rooted in every culture and that can therefore be measured in each culture. Holliday, Hyde, and Kullman (2010) have described this definition of culture as homogeneous. National borders form the divide b...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Images
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Key Concepts
• Part I Policymakers
• Part II Commercial Organizations
• Part III Education
• Part IV Non-Profit Organizations
• Subject Index
• Name Index