Managing rapport in intercultural business interactions: a comparison of two Chinese-British welcome meetings

This paper explores the management of rapport in intercultural business interactions. It compares two Chinese-British business welcome meetings that were held by the same British company. Despite many similarities between the two meetings, both the British and the Chinese were very satisfied with the first meeting, while the Chinese were very annoyed by the second. This paper describes the similarities and differences between the two meetings, and explores why they were evaluated so differently. It argues that research into the management of relations in intercultural communication needs to use a broader analytic framework than is typical of intercultural discourse research, and that it needs to gather a wider range of data types

Multidisciplinary perspectives on intercultural conflict: the ‘Bermuda Triangle’ of conflict, culture and communication.

A few decades ago, managers spent more than 20% of their time trying to resolve conflicts (Thomas and Schmidt 1976). Nowadays, conflicts are probably even more complex and time consuming to resolve, because technological advances, the world‟s exponential growth rate, and globalization have led to increased contact between culturally diverse people. Different norms, values, and language can make negotiating more stressful and less satisfactory (Brett and Okumura 1998), and conflict cannot be managed effectively without simultaneously considering both culture and communication. In fact, the three concepts of conflict, culture and communication are like a Bermuda Triangle – hazardous conditions will emerge unless the three are simultaneously handled appropriately. Conflict processes are studied by researchers in a range of disciplines, including organizational behaviour, management studies, (intercultural) communication studies, peace studies, and applied linguistics. Unfortunately, research in these various disciplines tends to exist in parallel fields, with infrequent passages across theoretical and empirical divides. In this chapter we provide an overview of key theoretical frameworks, explore some of the main views as to the impact of culture, and consider the interrelationships between conflict, culture and communication. We call for more interdisciplinary research, so that boundaries can be broken down and illuminating new insights can emerge

Establishing Professional Intercultural Relations: Chinese Perceptions of Behavioural Success in a Sino-American Exchange Visit

This article examines the ways in which professionals from different countries handle first encounters when they wish to initiate and establish business/professional relations. The majority of research on business relations in intercultural contexts has so far focused on misunderstandings, face threats, and conflict. There has been comparatively little research into the initiation and establishment of relations from a positive perspective. This article addresses this lacuna by analysing how Chinese delegates built positive relations with American counterparts on a visit to the USA. Drawing on insights from the analysis, it proposes a conceptual framework for future research in this area

Unequal relationships in high and low power distance societies: a comparative study of tutor - student role relations in Britain and China

This study investigated people's conceptions of an unequal role relationship in two different types of society: a high power distance society and a low power distance society. The study focuses on the role relationship of tutor and student. British and Chinese tutors and postgraduate students completed a questionnaire that probed their conceptions of degrees of power differential and social distance/closeness in this role relationship. ANOVA results yielded a significant nationality effect for both aspects. Chinese respondents judged the relationship to be closer and to have a greater power differential than did British respondents. Written comments on the questionnaire and interviews with 9 Chinese academics who had experienced both British and Chinese academic environments supported the statistical findings and indicated that there are fundamental ideological differences associated with the differing conceptions. The results are discussed in relation to Western and Asian concepts of leadership and differing perspectives on the compatibility/incompatibility of power and distance/closeness

Second Order Perturbations in the Randall-Sundrum Infinite Brane-World Model

We discuss the non-linear gravitational interactions in the Randall-Sundrum single brane model. If we naively write down the 4-dimensional effective action integrating over the fifth dimension with the aid of the decomposition with respect to eigen modes of 4-dimensional d'Alembertian, the Kaluza-Klein mode coupling seems to be ill-defined. We carefully analyze second order perturbations of the gravitational field induced on the 3-brane under the assumption of the static and axial-symmetric 5-dimensional metric. It is shown that there remains no pathological feature in the Kaluza-Klein mode coupling after the summation over all different mass modes. Furthermore, the leading Kaluza-Klein corrections are shown to be sufficiently suppressed in comparison with the leading order term which is obtained by the zero mode truncation. We confirm that the 4-dimensional Einstein gravity is approximately recovered on the 3-brane up to second order perturbations.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figures, comment and reference added, typos correcte

‘I can’t … I won’t?’ International students at the threshold of social interaction

This mixed-method study tracked social interaction and adaptation among 20 international postgraduates on a 1-year programme in the UK, examining assumptions that language proficiency and interactional engagement directly underpin sociocultural adaptation. Participants remained frustrated by a perceived ‘threshold’ barring successful interaction with English speakers, while reporting reluctance to take up available opportunities, independent of language proficiency and sociocultural adaptation. We challenge linear models of adaptation and call for assistance to international students in crossing the threshold to successful interaction

Thinking globally, working locally: employability and internationalization at home

As an approach to the internationalization of higher education, Internationalization at Home (IaH) looks beyond the mobility of a minority of students, emphasizing instead the delivery to all students of an internationally focused curriculum and the embedding of intercultural communication. This can be expanded to include extracurricular activities and building relationships with local cultural and ethnic community groups. The MA in international development at Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom, has implemented this approach, looking beyond both mobility and curriculum to apply IaH directly to student employability, embracing intercultural competence as a key professional skill. This article explores the efficacy of this combination in the MA’s professional development pathway, which requires students to complete a placement, which demonstrates international and intercultural engagement, usually undertaken “at home,” and to critically reflect not just on their professional skills, but on their ability to engage in the ethical practice, which is a key element of IaH