Case Studies in Cross Cultural Miscommunication

CASE STUDIES IN CROSS CULTURAL MISCOMMUNICATION When a company starts to do business in a foreign country, there are often many business practices that are different and difficult to understand. As a result, many companies experience cross cultural miscommunication that can inhibit business and break the trust between corporate headquarters and the foreign office. In this paper, we look at some real examples of communication problems between offices in two locations. This occurs both between vendors and their customers as well as internally in the same company between different sites. The problem with communication problems is that the cost can be very high. It can result in reduced productivity, lost opportunities and failure to execute on projects. However, the payoff can be very big if issues are addressed quickly and thoroughly.

CASE 1: TWO SETS OF BOOKS An American company opened up a branch office in Japan to provide local access to the market. This office had access to the company’s intranet and used the same management software tools. The company has invested a significant amount of money in accounting software that provided a real-time access to accounting information at either location. During a visit to the branch office in Japan, an American manager noticed that when his Japanese counterparts accessed the accounting software, they also made entries into a paper copy. In fact, the paper system appeared to completely replicate the financials of the accounting software. When the manager returned to the United States and raised this issue, there was a lot of concern amongst the executives at the headquarters. Why did the branch office keep two sets of books? Were they stealing from the company? The executives decided that there was too much potential for fraud. They decided to launch an investigation. A team of accountants traveled from the United States to Japan to look into the problem. In the course of their investigation, the discovered that there was a rational reason for the remote office to keep two sets of books. Computer support was provided from a technical team in the United States. When the Japanese office experienced technical difficulties, the software support group was shut down for the day. This resulted in a 24 hour delay until a problem could be resolved. So the Japanese office would have to continue their business without access to the accounting software. They implemented a paper system to record transactions which allowed them to have access to financial information even when the accounting software was unavailable. When the computer system was back online, they would update the entries to capture every transaction that happened in the mean time. The accounting team returned to corporate headquarters in the United States and reported their findings. They explained to the executives that the computer downtime was very embarrassing to the managers of the Japan office. They sought to resolve the situation without exposing the problem to headquarters. Since they were able to adequately work around the problem, they considered the issue resolved. The company’s CIO moved quickly to provide a more optimum solution to the branch office’s computer support problems. He located a computer maintenance company in Australian which could provide real time support during the Japan office’s business hours. Subsequently, the branch office had immediate resolution to the

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computer issues that had been plaguing the network. They were able to cease their use of the paper bookkeeping and improve their efficiency at the same time. The lesson of this case is that we cannot always know the motives behind actions. The company in this example feared that the branch office was committing fraud. However, they found that there was a logical explanation and a simple remedy to the problem.

CASE 2: SILENCE ON THE LINE A large telecommunications equipment supplier had set up an engineering branch in Shanghai China. The branch was tasked with developing hardware and software to support larger systems. It was staffed with very competent engineers with experience in their field. As the design center matured, the management at the headquarters often found that they did not have detailed status on projects. Clearly, the team in Shanghai was working on projects and tasks that were not visible to the business decision makers abroad. During a visit to Shanghai, one manager was working closely with the engineering team on a problem. During the course of the visit, there was a conference call to update management at headquarters. He was surprised when he observed silence from engineers when he was certain that they knew the answer. After the conference call, he started to investigate why the engineers seemed reluctant to speak up. After spending some time in discussion with many of the Chinese engineers, he concluded that there were several factors contributing to this phenomenon. First, even though the engineers were excellent English speakers, they had difficulty listening and understanding due to sound quality of the speakerphone and conferencing. Second, humility and modesty are deeply rooted in Chinese culture. The manager surmised that the engineers felt that responding to certain questions showed a lack of humility when they were forced to recognize their contributions. When the manager returned to the corporate headquarters, he discussed the situation with others there. They came up with a list of guidelines for employees to implement when communicating with the Shanghai group. These recommendations included a reminder for employees to speak slowly and clearly on conference calls. It also included suggestions for ways to phrase questions so that they would not embarrass the Chinese engineers.

CONCLUSION There are always cultural differences between people in two countries. These differences can cause actions that are not well understood by one party or another. If these general issues are not well understood, they can lead to communication issues and general suspicion and ill will. In a worst case scenario, these issues will prevent business from being conducted at all. But in most cases, it merely prevents companies from reaching their full potential. The biggest challenge is that if the culture is not understood, then the problems are never understood and therefore they are never resolved. Careful attention should be placed on cultural differences and communication. It is necessary to work swiftly but judge slowly as appearances are not always what they seem. The two cases in this paper illustrate some of the challenges in maintaining relationships and communication. It also illustrates that these situations can be managed with careful attention and effort.

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