On The Intercultural Communication Features Of Chinese Employees Working In American Multinational Companies In China

With the increasing integration of the world economy, China has played a more and more essential role in this era of globalization. Attracted by the high speed development of China, an increasing number of American multinational companies have established subsidiaries in China and the role they play in the Chinese economy cannot be overlooked. However, due to the different cultural backgrounds, misunderstanding and conflicts may happen between the employees in multinational companies. It is believed that effective intercultural communication in the workplace is becoming increasingly demanded. In recent years, various researches on communication features have been conducted by many multinationals to distinguish cultural differences, minimizing misunderstanding among the different cultural groups and strengthen the company cohesiveness.This dissertation aims to explore the changing features of communication patterns of Chinese employees working in American multinational companies. After a review of the theories on cultural dimensions and intercultural communication, this thesis works out a questionnaire to explore changing features of communication patterns of Chinese employees working in American multinational companies and proposes5research questions accordingly. In addition, interviews are conducted as a supplementary study to explore the issues participants seen as relevant and essential in the questionnaire. They are based on the changes of Chinese employees’communication pattern in American Multinational companies from the perspective of five cultural dimensions, namely Low and High Uncertainty Avoidance, High and Low Context, Particular versus Universal, Collectivism versus Individualism, Culture Shock and Acculturation. The analysis of the questionnaire and interview shows that though Chinese employees still abide by some Chinese traditional principles such as "universalism" and "collectivism", influenced by the multiculturalism and cultural assimilation in the workplace, Chinese employees do change some of their communication patterns. They tend to emphasize "rules " and "verbal communication" and are more likely to pay more attention to "individualism " and" direct expression".This thesis applies Origin to conduct the data analysis and illustrate charts. It puts forward suggestions for the employed persons to enhance their intercultural communication skills in the workplace in accordance with their needs. Some suggestions for future studies of intercultural communication features of Chinese employees working in American multinational organizations are also presented.