Expectancy violation and intercultural consulting effectiveness: A test of an anxiety/uncertainty management model in consultant-client communication

This study tested a revised version of Gudykunst's (1993) Anxiety/Uncertainty Management (AUM) model of interpersonal and intergroup communication in an intercultural organizational context, and in an African country, Ghana. The study investigated the relationship between (1) uncertainty and anxiety and prior intercultural experience, contextual and situational expectancy violations, and communicator characteristics, and (2) effective intercultural communication and prior intercultural experience, anxiety and uncertainty.; Management personnel of state-owned enterprises, government agencies and ministries in Ghana ({dollar}N = 132{dollar}) which had engaged the services of foreign consultants in the past ten years completed a questionnaire which measured their perceptions of different dimensions of their relationship with foreign consultants. Multiple scales measuring uncertainty, anxiety, prior intercultural experience, indicators of contextual and situational expectancy violations, communicator characteristics, and intercultural communication effectiveness were used to collect the data for this study. The questionnaire also consisted of an open-ended section to gather the opinions of client managers on their experiences with foreign consultants and of intercultural consulting in general. The data gathered was submitted to correlational and linear regression analyses.; Results of the statistical analyses revealed significant relationships between (1) prior intercultural experience and anxiety; (2) culture and work-related issues and anxiety and uncertainty; (3) communicator characteristics and uncertainty, and (4) uncertainty and effective intercultural communication. Some themes like culture, status, cooperation, and work-related issues emerged from the qualitative data, collaborating the results of the statistical analysis. The results of this study hold theoretical and practical implications for the global consulting enterprise through the extension of the existing work in multinational organizational communication and intercultural communication to a neglected area, the intercultural consulting arena, and to a neglected region of the world, Africa.