Communicating In A Culturally Diverse Workplace

Along with the globalization and the launching of Reform and Opening up policy, China has more and more economic opportunities interacting with the outside world. Foreign invested companies have not only brought great amounts of capital, modern technology and management skills, but also created a great local labor market. Operating in a totally different cultural environment, the questions of how to overcome cultural barriers and effectively manage the local employees become rather crucial to these companies and their expatriate managers. As to the local employees in foreign companies, they are also facing with one big question: how to communicate and cooperate efficiently with their colleagues from other cultural backgrounds?This thesis selects the most direct and basic component of the interactions between the foreign capital with Chinese culture: the intercultural communication between Chinese and foreign employees in workplace as the main case to study. It takes the example of the communication between American and Chinese employees to analyze how to achieve an effective communication in culturally diverse workplaces. The main design of this thesis is like this: based on Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory, this thesis shall first study the deep cultural differences between American culture and Chinese culture, and the influence these differences have on communication. Then, the thesis shall go on to propose corresponding strategies: to establish a third culture of understanding and mutual goals as a platform of intercultural communication, and to put forward suggestions managers and employees can take to improve their intercultural management and communication skills at workplace. Suggestions shall also be given to those domestic companies which are developing oversea markets.This thesis contains three parts:The first part is Introduction. This part introduces the topic of this thesis, the significance of the study, the theoretical frame, and the general structure of the thesis as well.Part two includes three chapters: Chapter One first provides the definitions of the key terms such as culture, communication and intercultural communication, within in the framework of which this thesis is developed. Then theories that this thesis is based on are introduced, which includes intercultural management expert Geert Hofstedes' cultural dimensions and American intercultural communication scholar Carley H. Dodd's intercultural communication model and the creation of an adaptive third culture.Chapter Two selects five cases of intercultural communication in multinational companies. They are all unsuccessful communication cases. Possible causes of interpersonal intercultural communication conflicts between employees are also examined in this chapter.In Chapter Three, with the help of Hoftsdede's cultural dimensions theory the thesis approaches the main cultural differences between Chinese and American culture to analyze how these differences cause communication conflicts between American and Chinese employees at work. Then the chapter goes on to study on how to reduce the impact of these differences and achieve an effective intercultural communication in workplace and how to improve employees' communication ability and skills. Several suggestions are also given in this chapter to those Chinese companies that are developing oversea markets.The third part draws a conclusion for the whole study. It gives a brief summary of the thesis, the limitations of the study, and fields that can be improved in the future study.