Reflection on Two Articles About Intercultural Communication

Intercultural Communication The Ivey business case Collision Course -- Selling High Performance Motorcycles in Japan outlines the case of the Japanese importer and marketer of an Italian line of motorcycles, Tommasi. In this case, there are several issues raised. First, there are communication barriers between the different people involved in marketing the motorcycles -- Japanese dealers who speak little English and Western expats on the marketing side who speak little Japanese. Second, there are issues with the product, and the way that the product is being marketed.

The protagonist in the case is the intermediary between the dealers and the Italian company, and therefore has to work with these conflicting marketing tactics daily. The dealers feel that their expertise in the Japanese market has not been reflected adequately in the company's strategy. Conversely, the company would prefer to see its strategy implemented as it desires. So there are intercultural communication issues at the basic level, and at higher, conceptual levels.

The context of the issue is that Tommasi is rolling out new customer relationship management (CRM) software globally. This probably could help the Japanese dealers with some of what they want, which is to emphasize relationships in their management. However, there are issues in that the team is working around Katoh, who theoretically should be informed of this initiative at an early stage. There are clearly communication issues, for example Bonardi is said to not be getting all of the information either.

So the different people involved in this project may be talking to each other, but there are important people who are being kept out of the loop. Some of the cultural differences are not related as much to Japanese-Italian cultural differences, but the differences between dealers who are locally-owned and do business in the manner of their local markets, and a company that sells its products globally and wishes to have a certain degree of standardization.

In other words, where there are intercultural communication issues, these are not just related to national culture, but organizational culture as well. Communicating the value of the CRM system seems actually more like an organizational culture issue in this case. Moving towards an analytics-driven model does not preclude sales people from forming relationships. What it does is it allows the sales people to focus their energies on building the right relationships.

It can also help with helping sales people understand their target market better -- it's great to meet existing customers but what about potential future customers? Ultimately, the resistance to change to the new CRM system relates more to organizational cultural inertia than anything that is specific to a national culture. People believe that the way they have always done things is the best way that there can be.

Some of the issues here are not intercultural at the national level at all -- for example holding Katoh and Bonardi out of some of these discussions is going to create resentment on their part. That's not intercultural, but it is poor communication practice. This is actually important -- the dealers are framing the issue as one of intercultural communication when it reality it is not. However, the dealers' concern that the company is not listening to them is important.

As communication goes, the whole point of using local dealers is to tap into their local market knowledge. Thus, Tommasi needs to listen to the local dealers at some point, and take their advice into account. The case indicates that perhaps the flow of communication between the two parties has not been equitable, at least not as much as it could be. Thus, in the case many of the issues were more a matter of not having the right communication channels open.

Things occurred that were not communicated between JNO and the dealers, but that lack of communication bred the current state of mistrust. The critical takeaway, though, is that the communication problems seem less about national culture than about either organizational culture and in particular about Tommasi not having set up the right communication structure with two way flows, and full transparency that the local dealers expect. Part 2. The HBR article about Samsung highlights the way that Samsung blends Korean and Western business practices.

Samsung essentially built its company on Western values -- pay and promotion on merit, including putting young people in positions of power over elders. This approach in particular was intended to deliver better results by creating motivation among the company's managers, but it runs completely contrary to Korean business culture. However, Samsung executives realized that the Korean business culture only really worked in the domestic market, and would be an impediment should they seek to expand the company globally with this culture.

Samsung developed a hybrid system that blended the tight systems of Korean management with Western approaches to finance, meritocracy, and innovation. In creating this hybrid system contrary to Korean business orthodoxy, Samsung knew that it needed to make a business case for this. The changes that it made were done gradually, and were done using some major competitors as benchmarks -- GE, HP, and Texas Instruments. They also adopted Six Sigma, again an American management program.

Samsung had initially felt that it could import Western managerial talent to the company, but in the end it struggled to do so in part because living and working in Korea was disorienting for many Western managers and their families. Furthermore, local Korean managers struggled with the idea of integrating foreigners, did not know how do so and were unconvinced of the merits of doing so. The article also discusses a particular senior executive, a Korean who spent most of his career in the U.S.

and thus was essentially bi-cultural. He was able to be a bridge between the two cultures, and thus was highly effective. He behaved as a Korean would, but was nevertheless able to also behave with Western colleagues in line with their expectations. Some of his success was attributed to simply not making the mistakes that other Westerners might make.

One of the traits that was identified as being important was openness -- the story relates that a particular protege was thought to be good because he would eat kimchi and drink Korean wine.