Artikelen
Exploring cross-cultural skills for expatriate managers from Chinese
Multinationals
Wang, Fan, Freeman & Zhu
Abstract
Dit artikel onderzoekt welke interculturele vaardigheden (cross-cultural skills) belangrijk zijn voor
Chinese managers die werken in verschillende andere landen. Daarnaast kijkt dit artikel naar de
eigen en buitenlandse contextuele factoren die een rol spelen in het beperken van de e ectieve
implementatie van die interculturele vaardigheden.
Het is tijdens deze studie gebleken dat Chinese, in het buitenland wonende, managers in het
Midden-Oosten en Afrika veel zelfonderhoud vaardigheden (self-maintenance skills) nodig
hebben om om te gaan met de negatieve invloed van de zware locale werkcondities. In Europa
en Australië zijn de interpersoonlijk (interpersonal) en communicatievaardigheden
(communication skills) belangrijker om om te gaan met de verschillende sociale verwachtingen.
Daarnaast is het gebleken dat de in China ontwikkelde interpersonal and communication skills
niet van toepassing waren in Europa en Australië. Dit komt door de percepties over de work-life
balance hier en een meer gelijke relatie tussen leider en werknemers (vergeleken met de
Chinese waarden).
Despite the signi cant increase of Chinese expatriates, it is evident that Chinese FDI (Foreign
Direct Investment) has encountered considerable setbacks in overseas markets, due to
substantial cultural and managerial di erences between China and many foreign markets.
Expatriate literature identi es a range of skills being essential for cross- cultural adjustment,
including self-maintenance, perceptual, interpersonal, and communication skills, based on social
learning theory.
Literature review
A learning perspective of cross-cultural skills
In the context of expatriate assignment, social
learning theory is used to explain the
acquisition and adaptation of personal skills in
a foreign culture that leads to successful
adjustment.Based on the learning
mechanisms, a person-culture congruence
model is developed as a framework to explain
the relationships between home/host
contexts, cross-cultural skills, and
adjustment.This model suggests that
adjustment is determined by person-culture
congruence, which is whether the skills
possessed by an individual t into the social
and cultural requirements of a particular
context. In other words, expatriates need to
acquire and develop new skills in order to ful l
social expectations of the host society, as managing within a foreign culture requires certain skills
that transcend those being e ective at home.
Cross-cultural skills
International management (IM) literature identi es four universal sets of cross-cultural skills which
are:
• Self-maintenance skills: skills associated with stress reduction and self-con dence. Self-
maintenance skills are essential in coping with emotional negativity (i.e., frustration and anxiety)
and strengthen the psychological well-being on overseas assignments.
• Perceptual skills: skills associate with expatriates’ cognitive processing of unfamiliar situations
as well as human behaviors in a foreign culture.
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, • Interpersonal skills: encompasses skills that enhance expatriates’ abilities to interact e ectively
with host country nationals.
• Communication skills: capture the features of language ability, the initiatives as well as
appropriate skills to communicate e ectively with HCNs so as to obtain requisite information,
solve problems, and maintain relationships.
A contextual perspective of cross-cultural skills
Contextual factors, cultural perspective
From a cultural perspective, Shin, Morgeson and Campion identi ed collectivism-individualism
and power-distance as the main cultural factors that in uence expatriate work behavior. Their
empirical evidence suggests that expatriates working in countries high in collectivism will need to
perform more relationship-oriented behavior than those in countries high in individualism, and
expatriates working in countries high in power-distance will need to demonstrate more
administrative behavior than those working in countries low in power-distance.
Other contextual factors
Apart from the cultural perspective, Child and Marinova (2014) recently conceptualized political
stability and institutional maturity as two primary contextual factors that could signi cantly a ect
Chinese MNEs’ overseas operations. Political stability captures the nature of the government in
terms of their continuity and perceived legitimacy which provides certainty and favorable
environment for foreign investment (World Bank, 2013). Institutional maturity refers to a situation
where a country’s institutions (i.e., legal system) function in a transparent manner, adhering to
clear rules that are Exploring cross-cultural skills for expatriate managers.
Although a handful of contextual factors have been identi ed to be in uential on MNEs and
expatriate work behavior, prior research failed to incorporate these factors into the social learning
model of expatriate skills.
Findings
Self-maintenance skills
The ability to manage stress as an important self-maintenance skill on international assignments
is emphasized by the group of Chinese expatriate managers. Stress is a state of mental or
emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances. Expatriation as a
life-changing event may trigger high level of stress for expatriates due to relocation, isolation,
local pressure, and family pressures. For those managers working in the Middle East and Africa,
the especially harsh environmental conditions were emphasized as the main reasons that require
greater stress-management skills from expatriate managers.
Expatriates indicated that they had very few or no local friends due to language and culture
barriers, which led to their shallow social embeddedness.
Interpersonal skills
Interpersonal skills in cross-cultural contexts are perceived as essential by all three groups of
interviewees. Such comments from foreign colleagues coincided with Chinese expatriates’
viewpoints in that they valued hard-working and success, and also revealed that although
relationship skills are valued in China, high power-distance rooted in the Chinese culture may
negatively a ect their expatriates’ relationship building in low power distant countries. Expatriate
managers working in Africa did not mention relationship building as a problem within host
contexts, and suggested that their relational skills developed from China can be applied well to
deal with host governments, institutional agents, and local workers.
Perceptual skills
Perceptual skills were mainly raised to cope with di erent expectations and behaviors of local
colleagues. Both Chinese expatriates and the local employees indicated that the authoritarian
leadership style used by Chinese managers were the main causes of cross- cultural work
con icts. This problem was especially notable for those expatriates working in Western countries.
Chinese expatriates suggested that in China, authorities were obeyed and instructions from
supervisors were followed very well, which was not the case in many Western countries.
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, Communication skills
Besides the language capabilities, informants suggested that cultural sensitivity and knowledge
were the major reasons which contributed to misunderstandings and breakdowns in
communication. Chinese managers generally indicated that they needed to exert more e ort into
communication as compared to working in China. A more respectful tone is expected when
talking with local employees than giving simple orders. This is particularly true in developed
countries, where Chinese managers suggested that they had to satisfy and pervade local
colleagues to do the work assigned to them.
Another aspect of di erences in communication styles relates to the direct and Indirect ways of
communication. Over half of the PRC expatriates indicated that they were used to an indirect way
of communicating (i.e., avoiding frank, open statements, especially when they contain negative
meanings) which caused a mismatch with
foreign colleagues’ expectations.
Discussion and conclusion
As unveiled from the interview data, Chinese
expatriates may not always need to develop
equally each of the four sets of cross-cultural
skills (stress-management skills, interpersonal
skills, perceptual skills, and communication
skills) to be e ective in certain countries,
which deviates from some claims identi ed in
the IM literature.
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