A Tentative Study Of Chinese Contractor's International Business Communication Practice: An Intercultural Perspective

The international projects executed by Chinese contractors are of a kind of multi-cultural environment and international project management fall into the category of intercultural communication. As the soul of international project implementation, some of the project managers don't understand or are not aware of different ways of thinking, cultural backgrounds; therefore, some of them are puzzled or even shocked when they are communicating with their counterparts, and hence different types of conflict occur. How to eliminate the barriers and conflicts caused by cultural differences is a new research topic on the effective intercultural business communication in international project.For the reasons mentioned above, the thesis first introduces national cultural dimensions theory developed by Dutch scholar Geert Hofstede and high-low context cultural dimensions theory by American scholar Edward Hall. Hofstede's national cultural dimensions cover collectivism-individualism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, masculinity-femininity and long term-short term. Edward Hall categorizes cultural as being either high or low context. The communication competence is demonstrated by motivation, knowledge and skills. In addition, the thesis discusses the relationship among cultural, intercultural business communication and international projects as well as the competence of project manager during the implementation of international projects. Though each of the groups conducts their project management under one goal--to successfully implement the major infrastructure civil works projects, understandings and cultural dereferences sometimes represent a major influence on the timely and orderly implementation of the projects.Then the thesis presents the principles, characteristics and process related to the international business negotiation, and offers in-depth analysis of cultural dimensions implication on intercultural negotiation.The thesis applies the theoretical concept of intercultural business communication to the practices of intercultural business communication and contract negotiation occurring in international projects executed by Chinese contractors. Some empirical cases experienced by the author during the implementation of international project are exemplified to analyze cultural dimension implication on intercultural negotiation from intercultural perspectives. In the end, the author comes up with findings that the project managers in international projects must improve their intercultural communication competency from the aspects of knowledge, motivation and skill. The author also puts forward some constructive suggestions for Chinese contractors to adopt the appropriate communication strategies to deal with collectivism or individualism cultures accordingly.Based on the above analysis, the thesis concludes that multi-cultural projects are becoming the norm. To achieve the international projects success economically and culturally, Chinese contractor should be culturally sensitive, proactive in understanding, adapting and accepting the counterparts' cultures and conduct the effective intercultural business communication by thinking globally and act locally.