3,861 research outputs found
Culture and rapport promotion in service encounters: protecting the ties that bind
The present study aimed at investigating possible cultural effects on the perceived importance of interactional concerns in service encounters. Individual values were examined to establish an explanatory framework for any effects that might emerge. Hong Kong Chinese and Filipinos participated in the present study by rating the importance of 12 interactional concerns in five hypothetical scenarios involving service provision. “Rapport promotion” was the only consistent factor of interactional concerns to emerge from the five scenarios in each of the two cultural groups. The dimensions of individual values, labeled “Conservation” and “Self-Transcendence” by Schwartz (1992), significantly predicted a respondent’s level of rapport promotion across all scenarios, with self-transcendence partially unpackaging the cultural difference that emerged in one of the service scenarios. We use these results to support a model of communication in service provision that predicts communication concerns as arising from cultural socialization for personal characteristics and situational features of the encounter, leading to the petitioner’s being more dependent on the good will of the service provider
Intercultural Challenges in Networked Learning
This paper gives an account of themes that emerged from a preliminary analysis of a large corpus of electronic communications in an online, mediated course for intercultural learners. The goals were to test assumptions that electronic communication is internationally standardized, to identify any problematic aspects of such communications, and to construct a framework for the analysis of electronic communications using constructs from intercultural communications theory. We found that cyberspace itself has a culture(s), and is not culture-free. Cultural gaps can exist between individuals, as well as between individuals and the dominant cyberculture, increasing the chances of miscommunication. The lack of elements inherent in face-to-face communication further problematizes intercultural communications online by limiting opportunities to give and save face, and to intuit meaning from non-verbal cues. We conclude that electronic communication across cultures presents distinctive challenges, as well as opportunities to course planners
Managing Cultural Diversity in the Multinational Corporate Workplace: Solution or Symptom?
The aim of this paper is to show the critical relevance of post-structuralist political theory to cross-cultural management studies. By emphasizing the key role that questions of identity, difference, and struggle play in the multinational corporate context, we argue for a shift in our understandings away from essentialist conceptions of culture to an explicitly critical and political understanding of the way culture and cultural difference is invoked. Of crucial importance in understanding the nature of the shift of perspective we advocate is the affirmation of a negative ontology for which the radical contingency of social relations is axiomatic
Not That Button but the Other: Misunderstanding and Non-understanding in Helpdesk Encounters Involving Nonnative English Speakers
Purpose: The internationalization of “technical help over the phone“ is tied to the increasing usage of a lingua franca facilitating the interaction between a call center agent and a caller who are both linguistically different. Researchers have noted that interactions between two parties who are nonnative users of the language employed for the encounter are peppered with understanding problems. This study looks into the causes of understanding problems in helpdesk encounters between nonnative speakers of English and the techniques those interacting parties used to resolve or prevent flaws in the conversation. Method: Conversation analysis was used to analyze 25 recorded phone calls, amounting to 750 minutes of data, made in a commercial call center and in the helpdesk of an international academic institute in Enschede, the Netherlands. Results: Analysis of the phone calls reveals that causes of understanding problems between an agent and a caller who are nonnative users of English go beyond asymmetries in their proficiency with the language. Factors such as incomplete information or erroneous inference from the utterance of the partner in the interaction are important triggers for the occurrence of understanding problems. Consequently, call center agents and callers use varied repair and preventative techniques to ensure that understanding problems will not impede the attainment of the primary goal of the encounter -to resolve the product-related problem of the caller. Conclusion: While understanding problems are inevitable in helpdesk encounters, especially those that involved nonnative users of the language employed for the interaction, such problems are hardly attributable to the linguistic differences characterizing interacting parties. It is apparent that helpdesk agents and callers are equipped with varied techniques to resolve understanding problems or to prevent their inceptio
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Telecollaboration in multimodal environments: the impact on task design and learner interaction
With the development of new digital technologies and their gradual introduction into the language classroom, the Internet enables students to reach out beyond the confines of traditional teaching and learning settings, allowing previously non-existent access to foreign languages and cultures. On the one hand, the web allows learners to find authentic information and expand their knowledge; on the other, computer-mediated communication tools enable students to establish contact with target language learners and native speakers by engaging in telecollaborative exchanges. The tools at students' disposal are becoming increasingly more powerful, often combining different modes of communication in one single environment.
In 2005, students of French at Carnegie Mellon University, US and French learners at the Open University, UK worked synchronously and asynchronously in online environments with native francophone students enrolled on a masters' programme in distance education at the Universit de Franche Comt, France. Completing a set of three collaborative tasks, synchronous meetings took place over 10 weeks in the Open University's online audio-graphic tuition environment Lyceum, which provides multiple synchronous audio channels as well as synchronous text chat and several shared graphical interfaces. In addition to the output produced in this medium (oral, written and graphic) in the target languages (French and English), the project output, a shared reflection on cultural similarities and differences, took the form of several collaborative, asynchronous blogs.
This contribution draws on data from pre- and post- treatment questionnaires, recordings of the online interactions, work published by the students in the blogs and discussions among learner and tutor participants exploring aspects of online partnership learning such as learning environment-specific affordances and their impact on task design as well as student and tutor perceptions of connectivity and interactivity
Exploring the ethical dilemmas of afro-centric social media use through agent-based modeling: A review
Social media (SM) has become indispensable for individuals and workplaces/organizations in Africa and beyond. Therein, ethical concerns are posed due to the inability to create virtual boundaries (VM), the intractability of guidelines for managers and other unintended risks/consequences. Operations research was used for modeling ethical concerns but have been defeated due to reasons of several ethical values and various assessment criteria for stakeholders. Consequently, this review paper initially x-rays the import of ethical dilemmas in older studies so as to conceive a strategy characterized by engaging stakeholders that utilize SM via Agent-Based Modeling (ABM), in such a manner that ethics can be evaluated. Additionally, it presented the rudiments of social media ABM explorations and the peculiarities of Africa. Finally, the review provided a suitable methodology and sheds light on the possible challenges of ABM implementation. Besides the benefit of increased patronage, the agent technology may also constitute a pedagogical tool for learning ethical behavior. Moreover, it is our hope that with the involvement of experts of related disciplines in Africa, attendant theories are formalized and used for building agent models that allows ethical decision making, weighing of pros and cons, analyzing differences and dimensions inherent in VM creation
“They are not mixing with others” : Finnish lecturers’ perspectives on international students’ (mis-)encounters in higher education
Purpose: Meeting ‘others’, especially so-called ‘local’ students, is usually seen as a sign of success for intercultural learning and integration in research on study abroad and internationalization of higher education. Previous studies have focused on how international students themselves describe their (mis-)encounters. Design/Approach/Methods: In this paper, the authors consider lecturers’ voices about this phenomenon. Using a thematic analysis and Social Network Analysis, and a critical perspective towards the dichotomy of ‘local’ vs. ‘international’ students, the paper identifies privileges, limits and (missed) opportunities of encounters, as shared by the lecturers in Focus Group Discussions. Findings: What is more the creation of hierarchies of encounters by the lecturers is revealed while some signs of pluralizing both local and international students are shared by some lecturers. Originality/Value: The article ends with recommendations for institutions regarding the lecturers’ problematic role of gatekeepers in student encounters and the limiting categories used in institutions of higher education to refer to students. A university in the Nordic country of Finland – a popular destination thanks to its positive image in global education – serves as a case study.Peer reviewe
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