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Differences and difficulties in intercultural management interaction 275

(Thomas 1996: 118–122), which concerned German–Chinese interaction, the
interviews were conducted after a three- to four-month period of residence in
the host-culture under investigation, after the honeymoon period and at a time
when adjustment to and integration in the new culture are required. Thomas
assumes that in such a period the number of critical incidents is likely to in-
crease because individual explanations, stereotypes, and special patterns for
understanding the behaviour of members of the other culture have not yet been
formed.
The interviews were conducted only with those with a high degree of inter-
action with the host culture, such as managers and teachers, took place in the
first language of the interviewee and were recorded, transcribed and analysed.
The interviewees were asked to describe frequently occurring, task-related
encounters in which their interaction partner reacted in a way they had not ex-
pected. The interviewee should have experienced the situation as conflict-bound
or confusing or he/she should have misinterpreted the situation. The situation
should be unambiguously interpretable for somebody with sufficient knowledge
of the cultures involved. For each critical incident described they were also
asked to indicate why their interaction partner had behaved so unexpectedly and
to give their own explanation for the critical points in the incident they de-
scribed.
The interviewees were also asked to describe encounters in which to their
surprise they were able to interact without problems and without conflict and
which took place smoothly and harmoniously.
The critical and harmonious incidents and the explanations given were trans-
lated into Chinese or German. The descriptions made by the Chinese were given
to Germans who had lived for a long time in China and were experts on the
country to assess and explain the critical incident. The descriptions made by the
Germans were likewise given to Chinese experts to assess and explain.
With the help of these assessments and explanations, the descriptions of the
interactions were analysed to identify the culture standards which determined
the interaction process in the phase in which it was experienced as critical. The
assumption was that the incidents were experienced as critical because behav-
iour was contrary to expectation. The member of one culture adheres to his/her
own culture standards and thus shapes and interprets the interaction situation in
a way unfamiliar to the other culture. A comparison of the assessments and ex-
planations by the two sets of experts led to the determining of the culture stan-
dards significant for the critical incidents being investigated.
In a final step, the culture standards which emerged from this analysis were
compared with knowledge and insights derived from research in the areas of
cultural history and philosophy. Experts were asked to associate the culture
standards established in the analysis with events and sources in the history of the
culture concerned.