Ulla Ladau-Harjulin

Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration

Arkadiankatu 22, 00100 Helsinki, Finland

PROPOSAL FOR SIETAR 2005, FRANCE

Title of Presentation:

DISCOVERING CULTURAL DIFFERENCES – ESTABLISHING RAPPORT OVER CULTURAL BORDERS

ABSTRACT

This workshop/dvd presentation illustrates an example of the theme of the conference:”Your Culture, My Culture, Our Opportunity “ in emphasizing cooperation between University Cultures, Business Cultures, Political Decision-Making Cultures, Friendship Association Cultures and National Cultures:

The SwedishSchool of Economics, HANKEN, Helsinki and the University of Westminster, London, in cooperation with the friendship association Association Monaco-Finlande, initiated an official visit by the Finnish Minister of Foreign Trade in Charge of European Matters accompanied by a Finnish Trade Delegation to Monaco and Sophia Antipolis (South of France).

AIMS

FOR THE UNIVERSITIES:

To video record authentic face-to-face interactions between high-level representatives from differing cultural backgrounds in order to gather material for research and teaching purposes (authentic material of this kind is not normally easily obtainable for universities)

FOR THE FRIENDSHIP ASSOCIATION:

To promote high-level contacts and to improve the representatives’ knowledge of each other’s countries and cultures

FOR THE MINISTER AND HIS DELEGATION:

To develop relationships between the countries and to explore possibilities for cooperation in the fields of trade and commerce and industry

FOR VIEWERS/STUDENTS AIMING AT INTERNATIONAL ASSIGNMENTS:

To learn to recognize and understand culturally relevant differences and different communication styles and to establish and maintain Rapport and Credibility in communication over cultural borders.

The video/dvd presentation offers a theoretical framework with which to examine, analyze and process various areas of intercultural communication. Particular emphasis is placed on cultural awareness, intercultural communication effectiveness and cross-cultural adjustment.

The video/dvd is used as a tool to highlight intercultural theories and their impact on intercultural interactions.

Presenter information:

!. Ulla Ladau-Harjulin

2. SwedishSchool of Economics and Business Administration (HANKEN), Helsinki, Finland

3. email address

5.work tel. +358 9 431 331; GSM +358 40 574 60 62

6.mailing address: Arkadiankatu 22, 00100 Helsinki, Finland

7.SIETAR membership: ex-member; at the moment:no

8. Previous SIETAR presentations : in the 90’s on Finnish/British differences

Session length and format

A 90-minute interactive dvd session

(lenght of the video: 59 minutes; dvd (if shown entirely with accompanying trainers’ notes:1h15 min)

‘

5 A biographical note about the presenter:

BIBLIOGRAPHIE – SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

I work as a full-time lecturer ( with tenure) in the Department of Language and Communication at the SwedishSchool of Economics and Business Administration, Helsinki, Finland. Since early 90’s I’ve been specialising in Intercultural Communication and have been invited to a large number of conferences in Europe and the USA to present papers and to conduct seminars related to cross-cultural matters.

During the last few years I’ve also had the opportunity to work as a Visiting Professor at universities and Business Schools abroad, most recently at the International University of Monaco, MBA courses, in 03 and 04; at the University of Westminster, London, in January 05 and at the École Supérieur de Commerce de Toulouse, in April, 05.

Outside the world of academia, I am also very interested in developing international exchanges and cooperation: as President of the Finno-Monegasque Association and as a member of the Helsinki International Rotary Club, I hope to be able to continue gaining further practical experience of the field.

Target audience:

Anyone interested (fluent understanding of English as a lingua franca needed -with Finnish and French accents etc.)

Areas of professional interest:

Higher education

Training

Research

Business/corporate

Non-profit/NGO

Global diversity

Cultural transitions

Culture

Communication etc.

7 Equipment & audio visual requirements:

Overhead projector

Flip chart

TV/VCR

2 Screens (simultaneously)

Other: DVD player

8. Room size & set-up

Classroom style/Theater Style

9. Session description

(For this section I’ll include the unedited beginning of our WORKING DRAFT, 2004, a publication that will accompany the video/dvd ‘Recognizing Cultural Differences – Establishing Rapport over cultural borders”

Recognizing Cultural Differences and

Establishing Rapport over Cultural Borders

highlighted by the video ‘Bridging Cultures: North and South’.

MANUAL

INTRODUCTION

During the past few decades the new academic field of intercultural communication has quickly gained ground in the USA, Northern Europe, Holland, Germany, France, the UK, and is now gradually spreading to university curricula around the world.

HANKEN (The SwedishSchool of Economics and Business Administration, Helsinki, Finland) was among the pioneers in Europe in the field of intercultural studies to focus on face-to-face interactions using English as a lingua franca, integrating video as an elementary tool into the course syllabus.

HANKEN and the UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER, London, have been working together at various research projects for a long time: consequently, this accompanying video/dvd Bridging Cultures: North andSouth could be realized as a ‘joint venture’ under the auspices of The Finno-Monegasque Association, l’Association Monaco-Finlande, Helsinki.

As intercultural communication is a very multi-dimensional concept, the interdisciplinary approach used in this book involves the knowledge of various underlying theories derived from anthropology, sociology, psychology, management and organizational studies in addition to the more linguistically weighted cross-

cultural (intercultural) and communication theory studies. Our aim is to present briefly some of the main concepts by leading authors such as Edward Hall, Geert Hofstede, Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner, Janet and Milton Bennett, Richard D. Lewis, Richard Hill, Gilles Ausselin and Ruth Mastron, and

Claus Faerch, among others. We will then apply some of their concepts and theories to our video material and show how they can be highlighted and made ‘concrete’ by the video, facilitating the process of gaining insight into this discipline.

As there is no intercultural theory per se, but some of its basic theoretical and conceptual ideas are constantly being completed, revamped and developed further depending on the focus of the scientists in question representing differing academic inklings, we would like to offer a model of our own, based on the pragmatic needs of our students of international business, with the view of establishing and maintaining Rapport and Credibility in intercultural interactions. Our approach has been tested over a period of several years and it has met with the approval of both Finnish and international students at several universities.

Our approach will indicate the students a guideline, a ‘path’, into the vast field of intercultural interactions by offering them a model consisting of a combination of some theories by the researchers mentioned above. These theories provide the students with some basic ‘tools’ for a logical analysis of a foreign culture as well as of their own, helping them to understand and categorise the multidimensional aspects

of intercultural interactions and to avoid miscommunication due to the different cultural backgrounds of the people interacting. This guidebook highlighted with video examples focusing on a Northern-European culture ( Finnish) meeting a Southern-European culture (Southern-French/Monegasque), can also be used as a basis for an analysis of encounters between representatives of any differing cultures, facilitating the establishment of Rapport and Credibility in intercultural interactions.

The Role of the Video/DVD

The role of the video/dvd is to highlight some of the theories by introducing the “real-world dimension” of the world of international business into the training situation;

Additionally, the events on the screen can be studied and analysed over and over again from widely differing aspects focused on. With the video we can show ‘how’ we differ; we can analyse ‘why’ we differ; it can also induce us to discuss what we can do to avoid unintentional clashes in interactions with our foreign partners.

The theoretical parameters, highlighted with the real-life video, will help the students gain a pragmatic, ‘controllable’, feel of a field which often seems very vague, intangible and anecdotal. The video thus helps the students to gain a shortcut to the kind of understanding of intercultural interactions that they normally achieve through experience only - often over a long-time stay in the target culture- while increasing their motivation towards further explorations and observations applicable to their own reality.

The accompanying video/dvd “Bridging Cultures: North-South” consists of authentic recordings during a two-day official visit of a Finnish Trade Delegation to Monaco and Sophia Antipolis, South of France, headed by the Finnish Minister for Foreign Trade in Charge of European Affairs, encountering their Monegasque/ Southern French counterparts, ministers, high-level officials and business leaders.

The video also includes a highly appreciated meeting with H.S.H. Prince Albert of Monaco.

The Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, Helsinki, and the University of Westminster, London, would like to express their gratitude to all of the

participants in this official visit who, by consenting to their encounters being recorded in all their authenticity, have made a unique contribution to the training programmes addressed to students of international business and intercultural communication or to business people and diplomats aiming at international assignments.

( the words intercultural and cross-cultural are used as synonyms)

Some underlying THEMES

At the present time, there are two words that echo throughout the world at an ever increasing pace: Internationalisation and Globalisation. These concepts are very much part of our students’ reality, too, preoccupying their minds and thoughts.

Dean Barnlund (1998) poses a highly evocative philosophical question in wondering “whether the erosion of cultural boundaries through technology will bring the realization of a dream or a nightmare. Will a global village be a mere collection of people or a true community? Will its residents be neighbours capable of respecting and utilizing their differences or clusters of strangers living in ghettos and united only in their antipathies for others? “

At the same time, other cross-cultural experts, such as Richard Lewis, (2002) are providing answers to the debate whether we are quickly losing our cultural identities and being swallowed by some leading multinationals spreading out their standardization techniques in accounting, reporting, production, etc., in the world of international business; by the media trumpeting their trends, dress codes, music, sports, food, etc. that especially the younger generation quickly adapts everywhere in the world; by organizations, such as the European Union with its supranational laws, borders, taxes, committees, etc.

While agreeing to those ‘microlevel’ convergences, Lewis strongly points out how the divergences on the ‘macrolevel’ of international business are still much bigger, covering areas, such as core values, taboos, religion, philosophy, ethics, morals, concept of truth, personnel policies, concept of time, sales, marketing, ethnic drive, advertising, etc., making the learning and training of intercultural communication skills more important than ever before. (See picture from Lewis’ Cultural Imperative, 2002).

Gert Jan Hofstede et al.(2002) maintain as well that the world will not have become one village in fifty years (from now), neither at the level of symbols and rituals nor at the deeper level of values, and that national culture continually recreates itself in social interaction. They claim that culture only manifests itself through social action that always takes place in a changing context. For instance, political events or technological advances can drastically change the context in which people live. A change in context does not, however, in itself constitute a change in culture, though it puts pressure on culture.

Hence, as many international business tycoons confess, success in International Business very much depends on the mastery of Intercultural Communication Skills

Milton Bennett defines Intercultural Competence as follows:

“The ability to communicate effectively and appropriately in a variety of cultural contexts. It requires culturally sensitive knowledge, a motivated mindset, and a skillset”.

One of the key questions in international business is: Can I trust you?

The ability to establish and maintain Rapport and Credibility over cultural borders is seen as “laying the cornerstones of any long-lasting successful business relationship”.

(Stewart and Bennett).

Building Rapport refers to the classical concept of rhetoric, Ethos; building a good relationship between the speaker and the audience. In today’s world of business, it can equal the concept of Impression management; it can also be referred to concepts such as ‘attractiveness’, ‘flair’, ‘charisma’, ‘the halo effect’, ‘personal chemistry’, etc., which are intangible ingredients in the development of personal relationships. And especially together with the word ‘credibility’, it can refer to ‘competence’, sometimes even ‘authority’, providing the impression that somebody ‘knows his business’, that somebody can be trusted as a would-be partner.

Additionally, in intercultural interactions, where Rapport mostly emerges from face-to-face interactions, linguistic skills, behavioural skills; intercultural skills; social and psychological adaptability and an empathetic mindset contribute to the success of this process. And these can be trained.

Our approach attempts to prepare students for future foreign encounters by focusing on the negotiation of differences in intercultural interactions, accepting them mentally and adapting to them socially while moving from the stage of ethno-centrism towards ethno-relativism.

Ethnocentric after Bennett is defined as using one’s own set of standards and customs to judge all people, often unconsciously. Ethnorelative means the opposite; it refers to being comfortable with many standards and customs and to having an ability to adapt behaviour and judgements to a variety of interpersonal settings.

Stewart and Bennett write: “The biggest problem in cross-cultural communication is a failure to recognize culturally relevant differences”.

This is why in our package, we are more interested in focusing on differences rather than on similarities between the people from the North of Europe and from the South: The intercultural communication-approach is difference-based.

While focusing on differences, the students start understanding more and more about their own perception of the world, their own beliefs, assumptions and values, their own language use and behaviour, and the cultural relativism of it all.

As Edward Hall, the founding father of Cross-Cultural Communication writes:”Culture hides more than it reveals, and strangely enough, what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants…the ultimate purpose of the study of culture is not so much the understanding of foreign cultures as much as the light that study sheds on our own.” (51, The Silent Language).

Geert Hofstede (2002) defines the Culture Shock as “the process of initial adjustment to an unfamiliar culture:”

Janet Bennett (98) remarks: “Perhaps the greatest degree of shock in the cultural transition experience can be related to the recognition of our own values and beliefs in the light of the new environment.”

It has been shown in foreign language studies that it is easier to learn other languages if you master well your mother tongue. It is also essential in cross-cultural studies to gain as thorough an understanding of one’s own culture as possible.

This will facilitate the understanding of other cultures and their ways of communicating while focusing on rapport-building in intercultural encounters.

English as a lingua franca.

English is the main language, a non-native language for both Finns and Monegasques in their intercultural interactions. The spoken English level of the students most benefiting from our package should range from the upper immediate to advanced levels, so that the students are fluent enough to focus on the culture-bound features of intercultural interactions, especially in the area of socio-pragmatics (such as language use, nonverbal features, communication styles) rather than practising their basic linguistic competence (such as vocabulary, grammar, structures).

Native speakers of English interacting with non-native speakers, as well as the role of an occasional interpreter will add some extra variables to the analysis of Rapport-building over cultural borders.

With our video/dvd we want to show to the students how some of the real-life business encounters in today’s ‘globalised and internationalised’ business arena may contain quite a lot of differences even between representatives of some relatively closely related Western cultures, such as between Europeans from the North and from the South. As can be seen on the screen, even though most of the participants in this North-South video are widely travelled top representatives of their own fields of business, politics and the academia, they can confess that a hypothetical knowledge of cultural differences does not automatically equal competence in intercultural interactions.

Consequently, becoming truly intercultural, is a continuous process during which people with an empathetic mindset can constantly make new discoveries in terms of cultural difference and learn to apply them appropriately in order to enhance their understanding of ‘the others’ while aiming at building rapport and credibility.

10 presenter biography or CV

(I refer to the 250 word bibliographical note of the presenter and add some further information from my CV):

Professional Experience

1999-Principal (Senior)Lecturer at the Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration (HANKEN), Helsinki, Finland

Lecturer (with tenure) at the Swedish School of Economics and

Business Administration (HANKEN), Helsinki, Finland

1996- Lecturer at the Open University, HANKEN, Helsinki, Finland

1994 Visiting Scholar at the Univerisity of Westminster, London

(autumn term)

1981-85 Head of the Audiovisual Department,HANKEN, Helsinki, Finland

Professional Experience as President of an Independent Association;

Public Relations Officer;Conference Secretary; Translator

Spring 1993-President of L’Association Monaco-Finlande, Helsinki, Finland

Autumn 1990Conference Secretary, Ministry for Foreign Affairs,