A Scenario on Intercultural Communication

The following scenario illustrated how ineffective intercultural communication leads a failure in business.

Several years ago, a German company found a profitable project that provided by a Chinese company and wanted to invest in the project. The German company then sent his men over China to explore the possibility of the investment. The Chinese company, which is a big state-owned one, also wanted to do the business with the Germans. After knowing that the German company was sending people around, the Chinese company did a lot of preparation in order to make the deal. On the first day German people arrived, the Chinese company held a very big welcome dinner, after which they bring the Germans to watch a famous traditional Chinese play. On the second day, the Chinese company arranged a one-day tour in the city for the Germans, including bringing them to visit some historical sites. The day was ended up with another big dinner with some local government officials attended. On the third day, the Chinese company showed the Germans their project and indeed they did very well in their presentations and made their project impressive. However, at the end of the third day, the German people gave up the plan of investing in the project. They Germans thought that the Chinese company cost too much on the irrelevant activities of the project, such as hosting the big dinners and arranging the one-day tour. They thought the Chinese company merely wanted to get the investment fund from German side and did not care about the project itself. Therefore, they chose to terminate the business. The Chinese company was shocked when they know the Germans left with no deal. They actually did want to develop the project with the Germans. And they did not see any problems in their reception activities.

What can we learn from this story? In my understanding, the failure of the business was actually caused by ineffective intercultural communication. As we known, Chinese people always regard relationships among people as one of the most important aspect in their communication. Often they treat people more important than the business. In business, the extent they care about the business people can reflect how much they want to do the business with the person. However, this is quite different from the German’s opinion. The German people tend to take the business very seriously and are always much focused when dealing with business. In the example, when the Germans found the Chinese people do too much on building the relationship, they misinterpreted that the Chinese people did not care about the project at all. However, it was because the Chinese people cared about the project that they came up with such nice receptions.

(Similar examples, due to its well illustration on the importance of understanding intercultural custom, were collected as the classical examples in the MBA course in China. The insight is that: when doing business with people from western countries, focus more on the business will be better appreciated by them.)

Research Proposal

ES2007S, with its title “Professional Communication: Principles and Practice”, is a module open to all the NUS undergraduates. The aim of this course is to teach the students how to become an effective communicator in various social settings, most especially in the workplace. It satisfies students’ demand of the knowledge of communication skills and thus course is welcomed by the students. However, it is observed that some students who are interested in the topics do not take this course. They hesitate because they worry about their performances in the course and scare of receiving low grades. These groups of people, however, are usually those who really want to improve their communication skills through the course. Therefore, the objective of my research is to inform the coordinator of ES2007S of the worries on the course performances from these students and their worries indeed set barriers to the promotion of the course among students. Another objective is to convince the coordinator that if a free S/U option is given to students who take this module, the course will be better promoted.

In this research, a survey is necessary. Firstly, students’ worries on the course performances need to be verified. By conducting the survey, the researchers can find out the true reasons of students’ hesitations. Whether the worry on the course performance is the main reason that keeps them away from the course will be proved. Secondly, whether a free S/U option works is unknown. Through the survey, the researchers will be aware of the attitudes of the students towards this special promotion. Whether the promotion is appreciated, and to what extent the students appreciate it will be answered by the data from the survey.