Crossing the Cultural
Divide
A Multinational Business Class
By Sheila Puffer
How international has business really become?
One telling indicator is that in 1994, six percent of all business travel
in the largest American companies was international-but by 1997, the figure
had more than tripled to twenty percent, according to the National Business
Travel Association. Increasingly, businesspeople are finding that their
work involves contact with other countries and cultures. Some people travel
abroad occasionally on brief business trips, some live in another country
for several years, and countless others correspond with business associates
around the world without ever leaving home.
Students in the College of Business Administration
are well aware that their careers will inevitably have an international
dimension, even if they never leave the U.S. While Northeastern students
can solidly prepare themselves for global business by taking courses in
international management, marketing, finance, and accounting, another approach
is one I have developed in the course "Cross-Cultural Management through
Literature." Last spring, using my recently published book, Management
Across Cultures: Insights from Fiction and Practice, twenty honors undergraduates
and I analyzed short stories and management readings to explore some of
the sensitive cultural issues that can make or break international business
transactions.
While the writing styles of literature and business
might seem like an unlikely combination, we found that they actually complemented
each other well. The business readings provided practical guidelines and
concrete examples in straightforward prose, while the stories conveyed
cultural subtleties and shades of meaning in rich literary language. The
topics we discussed included culture shock, the challenges of learning
new languages, the meaning of work and personal values, conceptualizations
of power and authority, and business ethics, with stories set in countries
on every continent except Antarctica.
Likewise, the students-from Argentina, Bulgaria,
China, Germany, Mexico, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Spain, Tanzania, Venezuela,
and Vietnam, as well as the United States-represented nearly every continent,
reflecting Northeastern's highly diverse student body. Many had worked
or studied in cultures besides their own-some on international co-op assignments.
As a result, they were able to recount personal experiences and provide
cultural insights about every story and part of the world covered in the
course, except for a story on Australian aborigines.
At first, some students were rather apprehensive
about the course's approach, being more practiced in analyzing business
cases and crunching numbers than giving their opinions of literary works.
It was also the first time they had heard music in a business class (other
than perhaps as background in a corporate video). A musical selection was
played to set the tone for each story, and students engaged in friendly
competition to "name that tune" and win soft drinks for correct
answers. Most everyone got off to a great start by recognizing U2 as the
rock group paired with an Irish story, and Michael Jackson's song "Bad"
needed no introduction when it accompanied a story on unethical business
practices by a Japanese company in Los Angeles. But many people went a
little thirsty when traditional Chinese pipa music, Indian sitar instrumentals,
or excerpts from a Wagner opera were played. Nonetheless, someone in the
class nearly always managed to come up with the right answer-another benefit
of a multicultural group.
Once we began discussing the short stories, it
soon became clear that they could be readily and meaningfully applied to
managerial situations and practices. For example, "English as a Second
Language" is a sensitive story set in New York about immigrants trying
to learn a new language, find work, and adapt to the culture. "Government
by Magic Spell" deals with the power and authority wielded by a young
girl in an African clan. Two humorous selections had ties to the Boston
area: in "Yard Sale," a Peace Corps volunteer who had "gone
native" in Samoa returns to Cape Cod wearing a sarong, while "Mister
Taylor" depicts a Bostonian's ghoulish business of importing freshly
shrunken heads from South America.
Each story was paired to an article on a management
topic. The meaning of "English as a Second Language," for example,
was broadened by the management reading " 'Englishes' in Cross-Cultural
Business Communication," which highlights the pitfalls inherent in
using English as a lingua franca in business.
The final hour of each three-and-a-half-hour session
featured a guest speaker. The speakers, many of whom were N.U. alumni,
shared with the class their views on the selected readings and their experiences
and perspectives as they related to the weekly
topics. For example, lawyer MaryAnn Pinto, BA'86,
spoke about the intricacies of U.S. immigration law. Of Indian descent
but raised in Kuwait and Portugal, Pinto proved invaluable in interpreting
a story about a Mexican immigrant's legal problems.
Another speaker was Boris Zverev, MBA'95, a Russian-born
financial analyst at International Communications, a company which translates
software from English into other languages. Each employee there is a native
speaker of the language being translated, creating an environment that
is very much cross-cultural, with, for instance, French natives working
alongside Germans and Chinese. Zverev noted how much fun it is to work
in a multicultural atmosphere-and how reassuring to hear nearly everyone
speak English with an accent, like himself.
Although the class met once a week, the students
went on-line to extend their discussions outside class. They used an intranet
called the MeetingWeb to post their opinions about the readings before
each class and then make subsequent postings about their reactions to the
class discussion.
Near the end of the quarter, the students had
a chance to apply their learning through group projects. With the help
of a university librarian, each student team searched out a short story
and a related management reading on a topic of their choosing, such as
business ethics in Africa. The team then analyzed the readings and wrote
a report, in the form of a business letter to a manager working in a foreign
culture. The letter pointed out aspects of the host culture that the manager
should be aware of, especially things that could have an effect on managerial
decision making or cultural adjustment. To make the exercise as authentic
as possible, several managers with cross-cultural experiences, most of
whom are Northeastern alumni working in the Boston area, volunteered to
work with the students.
The closeness of the student interactions, and
the intensity of the debates, created a remarkable camaraderie among the
class. They came up with the idea of creating a class T-shirt-"the
ultimate manifestation of solidarity," in the words of one member
of the group. The shirt's design consists of a globe surrounded by the
flags of all the nations claimed by the class, and the words, "20
Students, 23 Countries, One Class. Cross-Cultural Management '98."
We all wore our shirts in the final course meeting and subsequently at
a party at my home.
Besides being a lot of fun, this course is representative
of Northeastern's emphasis on providing students a broad education through
interdisciplinary study. In many cases, this breadth is achieved by taking
classes in different colleges or departments. In courses such as "Cross-Cultural
Management through Literature," the humanities and professional management
education are combined.
Sheila Puffer is a professor of human resources
management and international business in the College of Business Administration.
Students Natasha Davidson and Nickolay Dimitrov assisted in writing this
article.
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