This MOOC explores different aspects of intercultural management, including teams, leadership, Human Resource Management, marketing and negotiations. When you complete this MOOC, you will have a richer understanding of the concept of culture, and how culture influences the way that individuals behave. You will also get a deeper knowledge about how culture shapes management practices in international organizations. We will introduce you to a number of experts in the field of intercultural management who will discuss the challenges and the benefits of dealing with employees on a global level. Moreover, we will share with you insights from our own research to illustrate recent developments in the field of intercultural management. During the MOOC we will provide you with a variety of concepts and tools that empower you to successfully interact with people from other cultures to achieve your desired personal and business-related goals. Please have a look at the teaser available at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVze_O6vjKI
Foreign Language Use: Proficiency and Anxiety
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Do curso por ESCP Europe
Intercultural Management
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Kerstin AlfesProfessor of Organisation and Human Resource Management
Berlin Campus
Robert WilkenProfessor of International Marketing
Berlin Campus
Chiara SucciProfessor of Organizational Behavior
Turin Campus
Marion FestingProfessor of Human Resource Management and Intercultural Leadership
Berlin Campus
[MUSIC]
Welcome back to our module on intercultural negotiations.
As announced in the introductory unit,
we will take some time to explore a very obvious, and at the same time,
highly relevant dimension of business negotiation that crosses borders.
The use of a common language which is often also a foreign language to at least
one or even both negotiating partners.
This unit will provide you with some insights into how proficiency in
a foreign language will affect the course and
the outcome of intercultural business negotiations.
You might have guessed already that the use of English is widespread
in international trade.
Using a common language should facilitate things immensely.
In fact most business negotiations take place in English.
Some researches suggest that the standardization of negotiation through
an increased use of English as the [FOREIGN] has even increased global trade.
I believe that both things go hand in hand in that the willingness to
deal-making across borders increases the necessity to use a common language.
And the increased use of English facilitates and, hence,
increases deal-making across borders.
However, using a common language,
which is english in most cases, does not always facilitate things.
Why?
The answer is simple.
[FOREIGN] Now I got you confused,
just to make my point and you probably got it.
For many people involved in international business negotiations.
English is not their native language.
So in the first place, before being able to conduct business negotiations
it is necessary to learn English.
It is obviously very important to master English, otherwise there is ample room for
misunderstandings and negative or unfavorable negotiation outcomes.
Consequently, in order to understand the potential
impact of the use of a foreign language in intercultural business negotiations,
we need to consider foreign language proficiency.
Foreign language proficiency indicates how well a person
masters a specific foreign language.
For the reasons mentioned above,
we are particularly interested in English proficiency.
There is some evidence that bad foreign language proficiency
can have negative consequences.
For example,
poor foreign language proficiency can slow down communication processes.
And a negotiation is in essence all about communication.
If a business partner has relativity low foreign language proficiently
then trust in him or her is often relativity low as well.
These negative feelings maybe unjustified of course.
But for negations to be successful neutral trust is particularity important.
And trust is simply a subjected feeling.
To put it more cautiously trust is never completely objective.
In the end negotiators with a relatively low foreign language proficiency
will be trusted less and will also be less likely to experience high status.
The situation is particularly problematic if there is a linguistic gap
between the two business partners.
In these cases, it is difficult to establish a business relationship.
A symmetric,
linguistic pertinency ultimately can even reduce trade across borders.
In a comprehensive longitudinal study, on the basis of data from 100 countries,
the authors and Susmann in 2010,
showed that English language proficiency strongly impacted global trade flow.
Therefore, these countries, with low average English proficiency,
were less involved in it, while countries with a high average
English proficiency score Played a more important role on the international stage.
It is interesting to observe that English language proficiency
varies quite substantially across countries
which sometimes has little to do with the stage of development or modernization.
The difference between France and Germany for instance is a good example.
For more examples,
you may be interested to have a look at the so called English Proficiency Index.
Comparing TOEFL, the test of English as a foreign language across countries,
is another idea which Kim and Lee in 2003 implemented.
Although there is little research on the influence of foreign language proficiency
on negotiation processes.
We can assume that altogether, a good foreign language proficiency score,
also increases the chance of achieving better negotiation results.
Mastering the foreign language ensures that you can devote your
full attention to the nuts and bolts of the negotiation.
You do not need to spend too much cognitive effort on finding appropriate
words and formulations necessary to spell out the claims, suggestions and
requests to your negotiation partner.
Although it is always easier to use your native language,
a good foreign language proficiency can help increase precision
in your communication with your negotiation partner.
Foreign language proficiency can also create specific
feelings using this language.
Foreign langauge anxiety is a negative emotion.
It can even be fear that somebody experiences when
using this foreign language.
There was a negative relationship between foreign language proficiency and
foreign language anxiety.
So beyond the direct negative effects of poor foreign language proficiency on
negotiation processes and outcomes, there is also potentially more complex
joined effect aligned with foreign language anxiety.
Regardless of whether it is well justified or
not, people may simply be anxious when using English in negotiations.
Which also is not beneficial to reaching a good negotiation result.
There is also some evidence that some people who are anxious about
using a foreign language perform worse in work related tasks.
In one of our own research projects, we observe German and
French students who participated in a negotiation simulation.
One interesting result relates to asymmetric foreign language anxiety,
whereby if one negotiation partner is significantly more anxious in
foreign language use than the other.
Then negotiation profits will likely be imbalanced as well.
So the less anxious negotiator performs better.
Also join profits are relatively low when
asymmetric in foreign language anxiety is relatively high.
These results demonstrate that in more subject aspect of foreign language use.
So for anxiety, not foreign language proficiency, which is perhaps more
objective can explain what comes out of the negotiation in monetary terms.
These observations lead to the following conclusion.
In order not to suffer from foreign language use issues in intercultural
business negotiations, training in the negotiation language is inevitable.
Okay, let's do a short training.
>> Inevitable.
>> All right, once more.
>> Inevitable.
>> Okay, so I repeat training in the negotiation language is inevitable.
A high proficiency should help master the communication process much better.
At the same time it can also help increase self esteem in using a foreign language.
Practicing it as often as possible is an obvious and easy by defective method.
All companies that sent, selling or buying teams to international negotiations
should offer a specific and high level language training to them.
Otherwise they accept a higher risk of negotiation impasses.
So thank you for listening and stay tuned because next time we will explore in some
more detail the language dimension of intercultural business negotiation.
[MUSIC]
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