Intercultural Trainings for German Expatriates going to China

Bachelorarbeit von Caroline Zamor

Abstract:

The increasing international interconnection of the world’s economics has the consequence that more and more German employees have to stay abroad for a longer time. The south-east Asian and especially the Chinese economic environment are gaining a bigger and bigger role – also for the German textile market due to a strong economic growth, the low wage level – especially in the manufacturing branch this is an important decision factor - at approximately EUR 0,32 per hour and the size of a potential market.

The low wage level will not rise in the near future. China as a market is not interesting at the moment because the purchasing power is not large enough at the present. The fact that China’s economic importance is growing requires a new kind of approach to enter the market in any kind of way. Since Germany is a country with only few raw materials the requirements of manpower have changed. The requirements regarding the qualification of the labour rise and the so-called ‘human-capital’ develops into one of the factors with the biggest influence on economic growth and employment.

China does require special skills regarding management, communication and intercultural interactions. In the last years the persons in the responsible departments became aware of this.

A relatively new area of research has become more and more important for the human resource departments in German companies: the intercultural preparation of employees and expatriates. Expatriates fill the key positions for the exchange of information between the parent company and the office abroad.

For a successful expatriation a profound preparation regarding intercultural communication and behaviour is needed. The better the preparation the better will be the expatriation for the company and the expatriate. A failed dispatch abroad can cost the company approximately € 125.000, - per employment. However, the consequences for the expatriate can also be disastrous: social and professional decline and depression and others.

This work has the aim to answer the following questions:

How can well designed training programs look like?

What kinds of possibilities do exist?

Who does offer intercultural trainings in Germany?

How are employees in German textile and clothing companies prepared in practice compared to other industries?

Is the investment in the intercultural trainings useful, efficient and worth it?

To find answers to these questions the second chapter gives an overview about China’s business and cultural face and the Chinese-German relations.

In the third chapter the expression culture itself and its influence on the human behaviour are explained.

The fourth chapter presents the area of intercultural trainings and preparation of German employees who are sent to China: the history of intercultural trainings and the different methods, the role of intercultural trainings for the preparatory process and ways to evaluate them.

In the fifth chapter two German renowned suppliers and their programmes are introduced.

The question how German employees of textile and clothing companies are prepared – also in comparison to other branches of industry - is attempted to be clarified in the sixth chapter by presenting an empiric study which has been drawn up by questionnaires filled in by German employees, conversations with experts and extracts from companies’ policies regarding human resource management.

The seventh chapter introduces a concept and guidelines for companies for an integral intercultural preparation for German expatriates. The eighth chapter draws a final conclusion.

Table of Contents:

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Chapter 4.4, Intercultural trainings – an overview:

It is difficult to define the term intercultural training in an absolute way. One will find a lot of definitions but in general one can say that intercultural training is a concrete and planned form of intercultural learning and takes place on different levels.

The cognitive level transmits the ‘hard facts’ about the political and economic situation and cultural norms and values whereas on the experiential level the participant learns via role plays and simulations how to behave in conflict situations in order to prepare him or her for these cases.

There are various approaches to design such a training but all methods try to sharpen the assimilation of the own culture, sensitize it for a foreign culture and to learn how to deal with special situations where the cultural difference is the reason for the conflict or has to be taken into consideration. Intercultural trainings do also help to cross cultural borders and to avoid the shaping of stereotypes and prejudices.

The mediation of competences is the core task of intercultural trainings. These competences can be subdivided into different fields:

Practical competences such as everyday life competences, culture and country specific competences.

Social competences such as empathies, intercultural team work.

Self competences such as self reflection in an intercultural sense.

The history of intercultural trainings:

The very early beginnings of intercultural research work are to be found in Germany. At the end of the 19th century the scientist Lazarus and later Wundt developed a kind of national psychology.

They assumed that the human behaviour is not only influenced by any individual itself but rather by the ‘nation’s soul’. These beginning research attempts were not further developed but reanimated during the Second World War.

The nation who continued the line in the 60ies and early 70ies were the United States of America. The creek of this need lay in different fields:

The social workers had primarily worked with citizens and groups from ethnical minorities with a different cultural background and value system.

The American military that was participated in the Second World War and the Korean war was searching for ways to improve the communication between themselves and the political and military partners, the neighbour countries but also with the citizens.

Some US-American companies were expanding and becoming multi-national : they had a need for what is called today intercultural training for their employees.

Although one can say that this work was not systematically planned and highly influenced by the American view towards the world key issues such as ‘culture shock’, ‘universalism vs. particularism’ and many other aspects were examined.