Learning cultures on the fly - towards a global mindset

Recent technological advancements have pushed both the pace and complexity of globalization to new heights, making it possible to collaborate—or compete—globally from anywhere in the world, regardless of one's country of origin or cultural background. This presents important challenges to managers which must deal effectively with a wide variety of cultures. Traditional prescriptions based on adaptation are no longer sufficient given the speed in which new intercultural interactions take place. Newer prescriptions based on developing a global mindset are time consuming and do not address immediate issues facing managers. This paper addresses this conundrum by suggesting global managers must learn to learn cultures in action, that is, “learn cultures on the fly”. Implications are discussed

Valuing Virtual Worlds: The Role of Categorization in Technology Assessment

Virtual worlds offer great potential for supporting the collaborative work of geographically distributed teams. However, reports indicate the existence of substantial barriers to the acceptance and use of virtual worlds in business settings. In this paper, we explore how individuals' interpretations of virtual worlds influence their judgments of the value of the technology. We conducted a qualitative analysis set in the context of a large computer and software company that was in the process of adopting virtual worlds for distributed collaboration. We identified interpretations of virtual worlds that suggest three mental categories: virtual worlds as a medium, virtual worlds as a place, and virtual worlds as an extension of reality. We associated these mental categories with different criteria for assessing the value of virtual worlds in a business setting. This study contributes particularly to the acceptance of virtual worlds but also more generally to the understanding of technology acceptance by demonstrating that the relative importance of the criteria for assessing a technology varies with potential users' interpretations and mental categorizations

Making Sense of Immigrant Work Integration

This open access book explores the wicked problem of immigrant work integration, with specific examples from Canada. Bringing together a variety of disciplinary perspectives, it discusses immigrant work integration as a process of sensemaking, involving multiple actors (immigrants, organizations, communities, and governments) and multiple scales (individual, interactional, organizational, and institutional). The authors identify key players, issues, practices of support, and avenues for future research. This work contributes to enhancing the social impact of academic research by providing a comprehensive overview of the field of immigrant work integration for researchers in global mobility and organizational studies, as well as practitioners

Making Sense of Immigrant Work Integration

This open access book explores the wicked problem of immigrant work integration, with specific examples from Canada. Bringing together a variety of disciplinary perspectives, it discusses immigrant work integration as a process of sensemaking, involving multiple actors (immigrants, organizations, communities, and governments) and multiple scales (individual, interactional, organizational, and institutional). The authors identify key players, issues, practices of support, and avenues for future research. This work contributes to enhancing the social impact of academic research by providing a comprehensive overview of the field of immigrant work integration for researchers in global mobility and organizational studies, as well as practitioners

Language, Culture, and Cognition in Cross-cultural Communication

It is well documented that communication styles and patterns vary across cultures. However, less is known about the process underlying these differences. Understanding why communication patterns vary is just as important as understanding how they vary because communication is by nature a dynamic and interactive process. Despite the importance of the transmission of meaning for successful communication, and the role that cognition plays in the assignment of meaning, little has been done to draw on cognitive theories to advance the field of cross-cultural communication. In this paper we draw on the attention-interpretation-message (AIM) framework of cross-cultural communication and on extant cross-cultural communication literature to elaborate on the role of linguistic structures and culture logic in influencing the cognitive processes associated with communication. We conclude with the identification of avenues for future research

An exploratory study of cultural differences and perceptions of relational risk

This working paper is part of a research project examining the role of culture and culture differences in foreign partnerships. We build on prior research on culture distance to explore the influence of perceptions of cultural differences on perceived relational risk. Perceived relational risk is defined here as the degree of satisfaction of being involved in business activities with nationals of a given country. Contrary to expectations, preliminary analysis suggests that cultural differences are sometimes perceived as a desirable characteristic and may be associated with lower relational risk. We speculate that culture distance is an asymmetric construct in which the perception of a cultural difference may be interpreted as positive or negative depending on the perspective from which the reading is made and the nature of the task in which the perception is formed. Plans for future research are discussed

Online Discussion Forum And Pre-migration Information Seeking: An Affordance Perspective

Potential immigrants increasingly rely on online technologies to access needed information as they have limited access to offline sources of information at the pre-arrival stage. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of online discussion forums in facilitating potential immigrants’ access to relevant information about the host country labor market. This paper draws on extant literature on computer-mediated communication and a qualitative content analysis of 363 forum discussions to explore the phenomenon of increased use of online forums by prospective immigrants to Canada to access relevant labor market information. We draw on existing concepts of technology affordances and knowledge exchanges in online discussion forums and contextualize them to the dynamics of immigrants’ labor market integration. We found that online forums have the potential to facilitate immigrants’ labor market integration by enabling the continuous access to and exchange of needed information across time and space. For potential immigrants, online discussion forums afforded them the ability to seek employment advice, share migration experiences, establish connections with similar others, communicate with individuals in the receiving country, and exchange information about the host country labor market. The relevant information gained in online forums can help potential immigrants calibrate their expectations about the host country, make migration decisions, and plan for migration. More adjusted expectations and better preparation pre-migration can in turn facilitate better adjustment and employment integration post-migration. Overall, this paper highlights the importance of online discussion forums in facilitating information sharing and co-creation of new information resources between prospective immigrants and immigrants in the host country. We uncovered several unique discussion forum affordances enacted by potential immigrants. The findings inform policy makers of the role of online discussion forum technology in providing potential immigrants with low-cost pre-arrival information and training available across time and space that can assist with adjustment and labor market integration post migration

The Role of Emotional Expression in Accessing Social Networks: The Case of Newcomers\u27 Blogs

Research has established the critical role of social networks in facilitating adjustment to foreign environments. Increasingly, social interactions are happening through computer mediated technology. This paper explores the role of emotional expression in newcomers’ blogs in developing and interacting with social networks in a new country. This research uses a dictionary-based text analytics approach to detect emotional expression in newcomers’ blog posts and their associated discussions. Blog posts with more emotional expression had more associated responses; discussions tended to be more positive than posts; and the relative amount of negative emotion in the discussions increases as posts become more negative. Results suggest that expression of emotion in blogs can facilitate access to social networks and increase engagement in online communities by increasing the amount of responses and triggering congruent emotional response from blog readers, which is a precursor to affiliation and understanding. The findings in this paper highlight the role of emotional expression in blog posts and discussions, and its connection to developing social networks and engaging in online communities which has the potential to facilitate access to social support