Page 456 - Cultures and Organizations

Intercultural Encounters 421

expatriates, and preferably their spouses too, as well as sometimes their
children, about the new country, including its geography, some history,
customs, hygiene, dos and don’ts, what to bring—in short, how to live.
They do not provide much introspection into the expatriates’ own culture.
They are extremely useful, but the strongly motivated expatriate-to-be can
also get this information from books, videos, and Web resources. In fact,
the institutes offering this type of training usually maintain good book and
video libraries or websites for urgent individual preparation.

An even better preparation for a specific assignment is, of course, learn-
ing the local language. There is a plethora of crash courses available, but
unless the learner is exceptionally gifted, learning a new language at the
business level will take several months full-time—a bit less if the course
takes place in the foreign country so that the learner is fully immersed.
Most employers do not plan far enough ahead to allow their expatriates
such an amount of time for language learning, to their own detriment. If a
male expatriate gets this chance, it is highly beneficial to involve his spouse

as well. Women, on average, are faster learners of languages than men.
They are also better at picking up nonverbal cultural clues.
The other type of intercultural communication course focuses on
awareness of and general knowledge about cultural differences. Awareness
training focuses on one’s own mental software and where it may differ from

others. It is not specific to any given country of expatriation; the knowl-
edge and skills taught apply in any foreign cultural environment. They
deal not so much with the question of how to live in the other culture as
with how to work: how to get a job done. Along with the (future) expatri-
ate, the course may be attended by the spouse, too, because an understand-
45
ing spouse is a major asset during the culture shock period. It should, in

any case, definitely be attended by the expatriate’s boss at the head offi ce
and by staff specialists who communicate with the expatriates. Experience

has taught that a chief problem of expatriates is getting the understand-
ing and support of the staff who act as their contacts in the home country
organization. The home front should acquire the same cultural sensitivity
demanded of the expatriate. Conditions for success of this type of course
are the commitment of top management, the investment of a suffi cient
share of the trainees’ time, and the participation in the same type of pro-
gram of a critical mass of company personnel.
In the design of intercultural competence courses, process is as impor-
tant as content. The learning process itself is culturally constrained, and
trainers who are not aware of this constraint communicate something