Analysis On The Changing Features Of American Employee Communication In The Context Of American Multinational Localization In China

Since the 1990s, especially after China's entry into the World Trade Organization, multinational companies have sped up the process of "localization" in China as they attach greater importance to the potential market and economic benefits in China. Meanwhile, they realize that success on cross-cultural communication in business environment is becoming even more demanding. In recent years, many multinationals develop various researches on communication patterns aiming to identify cultural differences, reduce misunderstandings among employees and make the whole company more integrated.This thesis attempts to examine differences in communication patterns between Chinese and American employees in American multinationals in China, especially the changing features of American communication characteristics in the context of American multinational localization during these years. After reviewing general theories on cultural dimensions and cross-cultural communication, such as Hofstede's and Fons Trompenaar's theories on cultural dimensions, Hall's theory on high context vs low context and theories related to intercultural communication, this thesis proposes 5 hypotheses on the above referred changes from the perspective of several determining cultural dimensions, namely Low and High Uncertainty Avoidance, High and Low Context, Particular vs. Universal, Collectivism vs. Individualism, Culture Shock and Acculturation. Questionnaires are distributed and collected among Motorola, GE, Oracle and P&G, the leading American multinationals in China respectively in the industries of telecommunication, energy, IT technology and daily consumables, so as to testify the hypotheses and get some findings. The thesis finally points out limitations of the study and presents some suggestions for future studies and cross-cultural communications among multinational companies. The analyses of questionnaire results show that the five hypotheses are highly or moderately justified. Due to the influences of localization and cultural assimilation, some changing features take place in American employee communication patterns. Americans who work in China pay more attention to "relationship", "context", "non-verbal communication" and "indirect expression". Simultaneously, they stick to several principles deeply rooted in their core value system such as "simple communication", "rule sense" and "freedom worship".The author only selects four American multinationals as the study subjects and three or four questions under each hypothesis. The inadequacy in research scale and questionnaire design hopefully will be remedied in future studies.