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Differences and difficulties in intercultural management interaction 279

experienced cross-cultural trainer but understandably are not predicted or ex-
plained by the classical contrastive studies which are used to such an overwhel-
ming extent in cross-cultural training. Nor are they documented in the relatively
few culture standards studies.

2.5. Summary of the results of the case study
The managers in the case study reported some cultural differences that they ex-
perienced as difficulties; however, these could not be predicted and explained in
their entirety through the work of Hall, Hofstede and Trompenaars alone, but
only by reference to comparative studies of British and German management,
and to work on culture standards. Perhaps equally significant for the intercultu-
ral training of the managers concerned, the case study also made clear that
people do not necessarily experience cultural differences as difficult. Finally, it
highlighted that many difficulties were connected more with communication
than with culture – issues that could be readily solved through training.

3. A role for applied linguistics?

Using self-reports, such as those discussed in this article, is one way in which
cross-cultural trainers can to some extent compensate for the relative paucity of
appropriate authentic, interactionist data provided by applied linguistics, and
thus for the lack of knowledge about the nature of, and especially the perceived
difficulties of, intercultural interaction in international management.
Cross-cultural training which addresses the difficulties that the trainees
have experienced is immediately more credible to them, and therefore likely
to be more successful. Inadequate though self-reports may be, they do provide
a first access to the authentic intercultural business interaction that is so elu-
sive to the investigator and trainer. In addition, they are – at least for the
trainer – an easily applied means of collecting data which may yield knowledge
and insights that are more useful for helping trainees to master the communi-
cation situation than the dominant contrastive, value- and behaviour-oriented
approaches.
What self-report data probably cannot give the trainer – and what interac-
tionist data derived from the management area and analysed by applied linguists
may be able to provide – is knowledge of how the difficulties experienced are
dealt with and, most useful of all, overcome (if at all) in the intercultural inter-
action; what behaviour and language co-occur with the difficulties experienced;
and what behaviour and language co-occur with the absence of difficulties and
thus may be conducive to effective or at least unproblematic intercultural man-
agement communication.