Does business know how? The role of corporate communication in the operations of globalized companies

The second major research project run by the International Business Communication unit at HSE started in 2006 and will continue until 2009. Its starting point is the idea of communication know-how as an integral component of business know-how in corporate activities. On a concrete level, we aim to characterize ‘successful communication’ in situations where BELF is used in multinational companies. One of the five subprojects (for more details, see http://www.hse.fi/EN/research/t/p_10/liike2/) comprises a questionnaire survey targeted at companies operating globally, and related interviews.

The ongoing project is a spin-off from the first one, since it inspired us to focus on BELF-related issues. Here I narrow my discussion to only three areas: the nature of English needed in international operations, the role of culture, and the persuasion strategies of BELF communication. At this point, I must emphasize the fact that we are still collecting data and our present data have not been systematically analyzed. So, the findings I will be briefly discussing next are preliminary and should be treated as such.

First, respondents with different cultural backgrounds working in internationally operating companies considered the English proficiency important and felt that BELF communication usually works well in situations where both parties are familiar with the topic. On the whole, communication with other non-native speakers was considered easier than that with native speakers.

This finding is in line with the suggestion by Charles & Marschan-Piekkari (2002), who argue that multinational corporations should invest in training their native English speaker employees to better understand and communicate with their non-native colleagues. Also, it could be argued that BELF speakers might well benefit from training in each other’s specific discourse practices.

Second, it seems that in BELF communication culture plays an important role. However, although it is important to know both the organizational and national culture of the communicator, they are not considered as relevant as the knowledge of the other party’s role in the organization. Comments supporting this finding were also obtained from email writers, who were not able to tell the nationality of some of their frequent communication partners (see Kankaanranta 2006). This finding is in agreement with Jameson’s (2007) conception of individual cultural identity, in which nationality is but one component of many. Other such components are, for example, profession, education, religion, gender, and language.

Third, the respondents strongly agreed with the claim that such persuasion strategies as directness, explicitness, and politeness are important in BELF interactions; in particular, clarity was emphasized. They also stressed the importance of stepping into the other party’s shoes and of making him/her feel good. Thus, successful BELF communication seems to remind us of Aristotle’s rhetorical appeals and their importance in international business communication as discussed by Campbell (1998).

In particular, logos appeals are considered crucial: facts must be presented clearly, explicitly, and directly. Pathos appeals, i.e. appealing to the emotions of the audience, on the other hand, can be exploited to ease the possible cultural hiccups, since the attempts to be polite and to make the other party feel good are bound to pave the way for successful communication. And as mentioned earlier, the fact that knowing the role of the communicator was regarded as essential can be interpreted as emphasizing the ethos appeal.

To sum up, these and other emerging findings will be subject to further analyses and will be complemented with interview data. Finally, we aim at characterizing the prerequisites of successful international communication.

The future of intercultural business communication

Practitioners and trainers alike should approach intercultural business communication from a new perspective, the BELF one, which would make the specific aspects related to the use of English in intercultural business encounters explicit.

First, the BELF perspective would emphasize the fact that BELF is used for doing business among people who are members of the global business community. In other words, all BELF users share the ‘B’, i.e. the context and culture of business. Because business is a highly goal-oriented activity, communication skills become crucial in order to achieve the goal.

Second, it would emphasize the fact that BELF is nobody’s mother tongue. This feature will naturally emphasize not only the need for appreciating different types of English, accents and pronunciation in particular, but also the need for appreciating different discourse practices.

Third, it would emphasize the need to learn and appreciate basic pragmatic phenomena, such as the use of politeness, and rhetorical appeals.

In particular, emotional appeals (pathos) and attempts to make the other party feel good can effectively bridge the gap between speakers coming from different cultural backgrounds. Plus, closely related to the previous point, the BELF perspective would also emphasize the need for cultural sensitivity: understanding one’s own cultural identity is a prerequisite for understanding that of others.

Inspired by the two research projects, we have modified our courses aimed at all B.Sc. (Econ.) students at the Helsinki School of Economics to meet the challenges of the globalizing business world more efficiently. Over the past ten years, we have changed our focus from ‘Business English’ to ‘English business communication’ with BELF as a natural starting point. In all our courses we aim to enhance our students’ communication skills in an intercultural environment, which naturally calls for a strong emphasis on communication strategy including, in particular, the in-depth analysis of the audience (see Kankaanranta & Louhiala-Salminen 2007).

In 2005, the European university degree reform resulting from the Bologna process gave us an exceptional opportunity to start a new Master’s program in International Business Communication (see http://hse.fi/ibc/msc). The two-year Master’s Program focuses on the strategic role of communication in the global operations of multinational corporations. Among other things, we aim to train communication professionals with an understanding of the role of BELF in corporate strategy implementation in intercultural environments.

As we all know, communication is challenging. It is challenging for people who have worked together for years and who share the same national, organizational and professional culture. It is bound to be even more so between people who, for example, become colleagues overnight because of a cross-border merger. Assuming the BELF perspective in such situations, and in other international encounters, it should pave the way for successful intercultural business communication.

Instruction: While writing an effective abstract of Anne Kankaanranta’s article you will: use one or more well-developed paragraphs: these are unified, coherent, concise, and able to stand alone; use an introduction/body/conclusion structure which presents the article's purpose, results, conclusions, and recommendations in that order; follow strictly the organization and chronology of the article; provide logical connections (or transitions) between the information included; add no new information, but simply summarize the article; make it understandable to a wide audience; use passive verbs to downplay the author and emphasize the information.

Parts of an Abstract

Despite the fact that an abstract is quite brief, it must do almost as much work as the multi-page paper which it covers. In a computer architecture paper, this means that it should in most cases include the following sections. Each section is typically a single sentence, although there is room for creativity. In particular, the parts may be merged or spread among a set of sentences. Use the following as a checklist for your next abstract:

Motivation:

Why do we care about the problem and the results? If the problem isn't obviously "interesting" it might be better to put motivation first; but if an article describes intermediate progress on a problem that is widely recognized as important, then it is probably better to put the problem statement first to indicate which piece of the larger problem the author is breaking off to work on. This section should include the importance of the author’s work, the difficulty of the area, and the impact it might have if successful.

Problem statement:

What problem is the author trying to solve? What is the scope of her/his work (a generalized approach, or for a specific situation)? Be careful not to use too many special terms. In some cases it is appropriate to put the problem statement before the motivation, but usually this only works if most readers already understand why the problem is important.

Approach:

How does the author go about solving or making progress on the problem? Does s/he use simulation, analytic models, prototype construction, or analysis of field data for an actual product? What is the extent of her/his work? What important facts does s/he control, ignore, or measure?

Results:

Specifically, most papers conclude that something is so many percent faster, cheaper, smaller, or otherwise better than something else. If possible, put the result there, in numbers. Avoid vague, hand-waving results such as "very", "small", or "significant."

Conclusions:

What are the implications of the author’s research? Is it going to change the world (unlikely), be a significant "win", be a nice hack, or simply serve as a road sign indicating that this path is a waste of time (all of the previous results are useful). Are the author’s results general, potentially generalizable, or specific to a particular case?