Adjustments in inter-cultural communication of expatriate and host national in local operation

Adjustments in inter-cultural communication of expatriate and host national in local operation by Hanna Lee Dr. Robert Woods, Committee Chair Associate Professor of Hotel Management William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration University of Nevada, Las Vegas Due to the global expansion of international hotel chains into culturally isolated countries, such as China, many hotels are in need of qualified staffs in local operation where a strong culture exists. When expatriate managers are sent abroad for overseas assignments, they are often confronted with the conflicts that are caused by inter-cultural differences between expatriates and host nationals. This paper examines several aspects of cultural and interpersonal issues involved in the conflicts, and seeks to determine any necessary adjustment from the information gathered by telephone interviews with the current expatriate managers in Beijing, China. Furthermore, the study discusses essential skills needed for expatriate and local managers to accomplish their objectives better. INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION ADJUSTMENTS 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT..........................................................................................2 TABLE OF CONTENTS...........................................................................3 LIST OF FIGURES.................................................................................5 LIST OF TABLES..................................................................................6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS..........................................................................7 PART ONE............................................................................................8 Purpose.......................................................................................8 Statement of problems......................................................................9 Statement of objectives.....................................................................9 Justification....................................................................................9 Constraints...................................................................................9 PART TWO...........................................................................................10 Literature Review............................................................................11 Cultural Chinese history.....................................................................11 Face............................................................................................12 Culture differences............................................................................12 Confucianism..................................................................................13 Individualism vs. Collectivism.............................................................13 Power distance................................................................................14 The western culture...........................................................................15 Conflicts........................................................................................15 Feature of Chinese culture..................................................................16 Expatriates’ culture shock..................................................................17 Selecting expatriates.........................................................................18 The necessity of managerial development in China.....................................19 Inter-cultural training program for foreign managers...................................19 Conclusion....................................................................................20 PART THREE........................................................................................21 Telephone interview.......................................................................22 Tell a story..................................................................................23 Inter-personal and cultural question.....................................................23 Results.......................................................................................24 Host nationals...............................................................................25 Expatriates...................................................................................26 Discussion....................................................................................27 Current cross-cultural training programs.................................................29 Training expatriates.........................................................................30 Training locals................................................................................31 INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION ADJUSTMENTS 4 Conclusions and recommendations for future research................................31 References....................................................................................33 INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION ADJUSTMENTS 5 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Eight steps of selection expatriates..................................................41 INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION ADJUSTMENTS 6 LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Problem of local managers..........................................................35 Table 2 Problem of expatriate managers....................................................37 Table 3 Skills needed by expatriate managers..............................................39 Table 4 Skills needed by local managers....................................................40 INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION ADJUSTMENTS 7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express the deepest appreciation to my committee chair, Professor Robert Woods and the course instructor, Professor Gail Sammons. I want to acknowledge the support and valuable advice Dr. Woods gave me. With all difficulty, Dr. Woods showed me different ways to approach research problems and encouraged me to accomplish my goals. I wish to thank Dr. Gail Sammons for being patient with me throughout the writing process. I am indebted to my former colleagues, who accepted telephone interview in Great Wall Sheraton Beijing and Grand Hyatt Beijing in China. They were very much cooperative and responsive every time I needed to contact them even though there was huge time difference. Very special thanks to my faith families in South Korea for giving me life in the first place, for educating and supporting me for many years with unconditional love. I share the credit of my work with Mr. Edward W, my editor of the paper who is always by my side with warm and great friendship through the duration of the project. Last but not the least, I thank Almighty God of reasons too numerous to mention. “Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever” (Psalm 23:6). INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION ADJUSTMENTS 8 Adjustments in inter-cultural communication of expatriate and host national in local operation PART ONE When China opened to the West in the late 1970s, an overwhelming number of international tourists visiting China created a huge demand for the expansion of China’s thenvastly underdeveloped hospitality industry. Especially with China lifting much of its restrictions on the industry, the business potential of the field exponentially increased, drawing countless local and foreign investors into China. Now, with 54.7 million people visiting China annually (UNWTO, 2008), the growth of the Chinese hospitality industry seems to continue, if not distend to a greater extent. And with the need to build facilities for hosting inbound tourists, much of the investment towards the field has been spent on hotel construction and renovation for the past twelve years (as cited in Tsang & Qu, 2000). However, following the establishment of new hotels, it generates the need for the installment of proper management. In the case of China, the short supply of sufficientlytrained local management personnel has encouraged many international hospitality corporates to utilize their current staffs by sending them abroad to China for various training/management purposes (Treven, 2006). Unfortunately, the choice of utilizing foreign human resources (addressed as “expatriates” onward) has caused many cross-cultural and interpersonal conflicts between expatriates and locally-hired employees. This observation, thus, asks for a thorough examination of such conflicts in order to establish better and morerewarding management transition between expatriates and local staffs. By conducting qualitative interviews via telephone with two current expatriate managers who were subject to the aforementioned conflicts in China, the personal communication experiences seek to investigate feasible causes and to discover any managing adjustment necessary to the current system for expatriates to better fulfill their oversea tasks.