Page 288 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

266 Peter Franklin

and in Ehlich and Wagner (1995) (although some of these latter studies investi-
gate simulated or monocultural negotiations). However, it is often not accept-
able for scholars to observe and/or record in business contexts. This difficulty in
collecting authentic business and management interaction data means that inter-
cultural trainers often do not know with any degree of certainty what kind of
communication or interaction difficulties need to be prepared for in any particu-
lar cultural pairings.
The focus of the work on the little authentic data available has also tended
not to help the management trainer. It is often either contrastive (e.g. Yamada
1997), or else it describes the characteristics of intercultural communication
(e.g. Neumann 1997). More valuable from the training point of view is the li-
mited amount of research which has collected both authentic data and also
people’s evaluations of it, such as Spencer-Oatey and Xing (2000) on a business
meeting and Bailey (2000) on service encounters. Martin (2001) also uses the
observations of experienced cross-cultural negotiators in her study of simulated
Irish–German negotiation. It is such observations and evaluations which can be
of special use to the cross-cultural trainer and which self-reports can also pro-
vide.
Given this comparative dearth of relevant research it is unsurprising then
that cross-cultural trainers seeking to give scientific solidity and credibility to
their work resort to major studies, even if these are not always able to give the
help really needed. But is this reliance on ‘big picture’ studies really helpful to
managers dealing mainly with only one other culture, as in the case of post-
merger integration? In particular, the following questions arise, and the answers
to them may cast doubts on the salience of the classical studies and the use to
which they are put in much cross-cultural training:
1(a). Are the differences reported in the classical contrastive studies (Hofstede,
Trompenaars and Hall) noticed as differences by managers in their inter-
cultural interactions?
1(b). What differences are reported by managers but not described by the clas-
sical studies?
2. Do the differences described by the contrastive studies predict and ex-
plain the difficulties in intercultural management interaction?
3. What difficulties are reported by managers but are not predictable on the
basis of the classical, contrastive studies?
4. Can the differences and difficulties experienced by practising managers
be predicted more completely and explained more accurately by reference
to insights from other studies which have received less attention than
those by Hofstede, Trompenaars and Hall?