6TH International Congress on Technology - Engineering - Kuala Lumpur3 - Malaysia (2018-07-19)

Cultural Factors And Communication: A Case Study On Emotional Intelligence And Group Performance

Abstract—Cultural factors have long been known to influence the communication and success potential of competition. Cultural factors act as invisible barriers in international business communications. Understanding cultural differences is one of the most significant skills for firms to develop to have a competitive advantage in international business. Emotional intelligence in a culturally diverse environment effectively supplements cultural awareness to predict superior performance through its dimensions of empathy and social skills. The ability to understand emotional intelligence cross-culturally is an invaluable asset for firms in doing international business. Index Terms— communication, cultural factor, emotional intelligence, international business INTRODUCTION Cultural factors have long been known to influence the communication and success potential of competition. As broadly defined, culture is a body of shared knowledge which tells what is appropriate behavior in certain conditions. As with greater globalization and more mobility, many cultural differences are emerging and converging in the workplace. Even within the same organization, there could be dramatically diverse cultures, each providing different rules of appropriate behavior and unspoken assumptions about the right way to perform. Cultural awareness shapes how business firms behave in cross-culturally reflected international markets (Tian, Trotter and Liu 2015). It is broadly recognized that cultural factors act as invisible barriers in international business communications. Understanding cultural differences is one of the most significant skills for firms to develop to have a competitive advantage in international business (Emery and Tian 2004). Communication is one of the most essential functions to master for any business to succeed in today’s increasingly competitive markets, particularly for firms doing business internationally. A firm’s profitability is in part determined by its business communication strategies and skills. However, top managers in companies working internationally sometimes neglect the significance of the invisible barriers cultural differences create in business communication (Tian, Liu and Tian 2015). Cultural factors play a key role and function as invisible barriers. Even as the world is becoming globalized, many nations have increasingly voiced their claim to ``a right to culture`` in international businesses. It is predicted that national culture will be a critical factor affecting economic development, demographic behaviour, and general business policies around the world (Tian 2000). Such claims at the macro level will be important for making trade policy, protecting intellectual property rights, and creating resources for national benefits. At the micro level, these claims could be invisible barriers for firms working in or wanting to enter international markets. For example, the last summit of francophone nations in the 20th century called for a ``cultural exception`` in GATT/WTO rules governing trade of goods. In these nations, these claims will affect public policy on international trade rules. They also might initiate worldwide cultural protectionism for trans-national trading. As the voice of cultural rights increases, firms doing business internationally will face other challenges from other dimensions of culture. From a management perspective, it is important for companies to realize that markets today are worldwide and cross-cultural. Being aware of and sensitive to cultural differences is a major factor for success in the world marketplace. Failure to put marketing strategy in a cross-cultural context of the countries where a company is doing business will work to the detriment of brands and business relationships (Tian 2004). If globalization is an inevitable process, then cross-culturalization will also be inevitable. On the one hand, the world is becoming more homogeneous, and distinctions between national markets are fading and, for some products, disappearing altogether. This means that business communication is now a world-encompassing discipline. On the other hand, the cultural differences between nations, regions, and ethnic groups in terms, far from being extinguished, are becoming stronger. This means that global/international business communication, a cross-cultural process, requires managers to be well informed about cultural differences nationally, locally, and ethnically to win in global markets. International business communication is communication that crosses national boundaries for business purposes. Communication among people from the same culture is often difficult. Therefore, communication between people from diverse cultures from the point of view of language, values, customers, and ways of thinking, will be far more difficult, a degree of miscommunication being almost inevitable (Ferraro, 2002). Business communication literature focused on advertising supports the hypothesis that advertising content differs between countries. International advertising research has confirmed differences in advertising content between countries. The premise upon which these studies predicated is that advertisements, in part, reflect individual countries’ social systems (Culter and Javalgi, 1992; Emery & Tian, 2003; McLeod and Kunita, 1994; Mueller, 1992; Ramaprasad and Hasegawa, 1992; Tse, Belk and Zhou, 1989; Zandpour, Chang and Catalano, 1992). Values, norms, and characteristics embedded in advertising messages appear in various cultures to a greater or lesser degree (Emery and Tian, 2003; Mueller, 1993). Therefore, understanding the importance of cultural values in advertising has great practical value in business communication. Determining differences in cultural values should guide the formulation of international business communication strategies (Munson and McIntyre, 1979). Ignoring the cultural meaning embedded in advertising could lead to a misinterpretation of the firm’s intended message (McCracken, 1987). Such miscommunication is responsible for many businesses failing in international markets. CULTURE & EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE Emotional intelligence is a set of abilities that includes the abilities to perceive emotions in the self and in others, use emotions to facilitate performance, understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and regulate emotions in the self and in others. Individuals’ emotional intelligence can be formatted through a learning process that is of course influenced by cultural factors (Mayer and Salovey, 1997). Individuals tend to share universally is the assumption that everyone else sees the world from the same perspective they do. Consequently, what seems like a simple request or interaction could become messy and convoluted. Is there a way to cut across cultural difference and understand one another at the same level? Based on the previous studies conducted by Sheinin (1996) and Simpkins (1998) 15 cultural variables should be considered by business professionals from a cross cultural perspective (see table 1). If we do not consider these variables when conduct EI analysis, serious errors in judgments can result. Analysis based on a lack of cultural awareness may misinterpret the information and thus affect the effectiveness of strategic decisions. A key focal point of this type of analysis is on the role that emotional intelligence plays in our understanding of the relationship between international business communications and firm performance. Table 1 Cultural Variables to Consider Variable Content Action Is the culture relationship-centered, where stress is placed on working for the experience rather than the accomplishment? Or is it more task-oriented where stress is placed on actions that achieve the goal? Competitiveness Is more emphasis placed on competition for rewards, or co-operation for the benefit of life and relationships? Communications Is the preference for explicit one-to-one communications, or more of an implicit dialogue and avoidance of conflict? Are communications formal, where emphasis is placed on protocol and social customs, or informal, where restrictions are dispensed with? Environment Do they feel they can dominate it to fit their needs, should they live in harmony with it, or do they feel that their world is controlled by fate and chance? Individualism Is the individual more important then the group, or are the needs of the individual subordinated to the group interests? Loyalty to self or society? Structure Does the society lean towards order, with its predictability and rules, or flexibility, where tolerance of unpredictable situations and ambiguity are acceptable? Thinking Does the culture favor inductive reasoning based on experience and experimentation, or deductive reasoning based on theory and logic? Time Is there a concentration on one task at a time, with a commitment to schedules, or an emphasis on multiple tasks, with relationships being the most important? Is punctuality precise and fixed, or is it fluid and loose? Power and authority What are the dominant views of authority versus subordinates and the power distance between individuals? Union and management How much effect does union-management co-operation on achieving a successful company? Social values What is the dominant view of wealth and material gain; the attitudes toward and the desire for material wealth versus religious satisfaction; the good life or other non-material stimuli found more in traditional societies? Risk view Do they view risk taking as a measured calculation of anticipated success? Change and innovation Do people in a society embrace and adapt to change which promises to improve productivity or do they maintain their basic faith in traditions or old ways of doing things? Ethical values What is the prevailing view of ethical standards and moralities? Gender What is the degree of masculinity vs. femininity? If emotional intelligence is culturally oriented, are some aspects of emotional intelligence influenced by culture? And how do we use this concept to improve performance? Conceptually, emotional intelligence in a culturally diverse environment effectively supplements cultural awareness to predict superior performance through its dimensions of empathy and social skills. With a heightened sensitivity and awareness to the mind-set of culturally diverse groups, obstacles to cross-cultural communication are minimized thereby increasing the probability of success in the world marketplace. Despite a growing appreciation for its impact on managerial practice (Ashkanasy and Daus, 2002), minimal research has been done to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence and job performance (Cote and Miners, 2006). Of particular interest to the current research are those studies that look at the relationship between emotional intelligence and group performance. We expect that emotionally intelligent groups will be more effective at recognizing situations that have the potential for conflict and therefore are better able to deal with these situations in ways that will best facilitate group performance. Moreover, given that the likelihood for conflict would be higher when group members are dissimilar, we expect that heterogeneous groups will display a larger increase in performance level in comparison to their homogeneous counterparts. Thus, we expect that the impact of heterogeneity on group performance is attenuated by emotional intelligence such that improvements in EI among diverse groups have a greater impact on group performance than it would for homogeneous groups. AN EMPIRICAL DEMONSTRATION Sample. Data was collected from 64 undergraduate graduate students enrolled in an introductory management course in a small private college in the US. The sample included 30 females and 34 males, with an average age of 21.24 years. Most subjects, 97%, were Caucasian, while only 3% were African American, and 3% Asian. For this investigation, students were assigned to 6-9 person groups. Assignments were made to provide an equal dispersion of cross functional interests (accounting/finance, marketing, operations management, engineering and other) within each group. A total of 8 groups were represented within our sample. Demographic information on each subject was collected from college records. Measures. As part of a course requirement, each subject completed a survey adapted from the Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI) (Boyatzis & Goleman, 2002). This 72-item questionnaire is assessed on a 7-point Likert scale and measures 18 competencies organized into four clusters. The self-awareness cluster includes competencies relating to emotional self-awareness, accurate self-assessment and self-confidence. Social awareness reflects empathy, organizational awareness and service orientation. Self-management is assessed in terms of emotional self-control, transparency, conscientiousness, adaptability, optimism, achievement orientation and initiative. Finally, relationship management is represented by developing others, inspirational leadership, change catalyst, influence, conflict management and teamwork and collaboration. Scores collected and analyzed for each of these 18 competencies were used to obtain our measure of individual emotional intelligence (EI). Although emotional intelligence represents an individual-level characteristic, many authors have suggested that collective or group emotional intelligence is created through the product of group member interactions, a dynamic that eventually comes to characterize the group (Yang & Mossholder 2004). Consistent with that assumption, group level emotional intelligence has been operationalized in a variety of ways, including: as aggregates (e.g., the mean) (Rapisarda, 2002); as a threshold above which group members must score (Huy 1999); as the team leader’s emotional intelligence (Feyerherm and Rice, 2002) or perhaps as the highest EI score among a group. Like Jordon, Ashkanasy, Hartel, & Hooper (2002), however, we agree that an average group emotional intelligence is a reasonable indicator of emotional intelligence as a shared group property. In this study groups above the 50th percentile of EI scores were classified as high in emotional intelligence, all others were classified as low. Group performance was assessed using a Words-In-Sentences Company (WIS) exercise developed by Marcic & Seltzer (2005). At the beginning of this exercise, each group was asked to represent a small company that manufactures words and then packages them in meaningful English-language sentences. During each production run, teams were given a raw material phrase, whose letters served as raw materials available to produce new words in sentences. Prior to beginning the exercise, and to ensure that team output would conform to certain production criteria, specific rules (production standards) were reviewed with each team. Following that review, a practice production run was held to ensure that each team understood of the rules of the exercise. Teams were then given 10 minutes to manufacture as many words as possible and package them in legitimate sentences. The output of each WIS company was measured by the total number of acceptable words that were contained within each sentence. Diversity was defined by within-group variations in gender. For conducting heterogeneity comparisons, groups whose members were all the same gender were homogeneous, while groups with variations in gender among its membership were a heterogeneous mix. RESULTS Moderating Effect of Emotional Intelligence. This study examined how emotional intelligence, is likely to affect the relationship between group heterogeneity and group performance. As seen in Figure 1, heterogeneous groups are more noticeably impacted by emotional intelligence. Specifically, as emotional intelligence increases, heterogeneous groups experience greater gains in their performance level compared to their homogeneous counterparts. Therefore, as these results suggest, heterogeneous groups are more likely to benefit from higher levels of emotional intelligence within the group. To further analyze this pattern of results, differences in performance scores were observed across each of the 18 EI competencies. Table 2 reveals differences in the average number of words-in-sentences for high and low group competency levels and between heterogeneous and homogeneous groups. Surprisingly, as seen in the table, certain competencies have a negative impact on group performance, especially among homogeneous groups. In particular, 7 of the 18 EI competencies have a negative impact on performance in homogeneous groups. Conversely, only 2 of the 18 EI competencies negatively impact the performance level of heterogeneous groups. Table 2. WIS Performance for High/Low Competency by Heterogeneity We surmise that heterogeneous groups that are high in emotional intelligence are likely to be able to take full advantage of the wide-ranging mix of competencies associated with the EI construct, thereby allowing them to capitalize on the diverse array of skills and insights that reside within heterogeneous groups. To further explore the relationship between the 18 emotional intelligence competencies and the group-based dependent variable, correlations were observed for the total sample and for both heterogeneity conditions (homogeneous/ heterogeneous). As seen in Table II, emotional intelligence by itself has a stronger association with the dependent variable than either the homogeneous or heterogeneous group independently, perhaps owing to the small sample size in this study. Among the 18 individual competencies, self-awareness and conflict management are significantly related to performance levels in heterogeneous groups, suggesting that these groups are more likely to benefit from higher levels of competence within these areas. Table 3. Emotional Intelligence Correlations with Group-Based WIS Performance Measure CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS Culture shapes our values, language, customs and even the way we define success. Emotional intelligence is associated with culture and therefore has such a powerful effect on performance management. If it is hard enough in managing performance with a more homogeneous workforce of employees from the same country, similar backgrounds, shared experiences and common language, then it is even harder to manage the performance with a more heterogeneous workforce of employees from different countries with various cultural backgrounds. The cross-cultural aspect of emotional intelligence is of importance in today’s global economy given the facts that emotions are a universal language and that people in all cultures and places share a similar view of traits, such as integrity and authenticity, the ability to understand emotional intelligence cross-culturally is an invaluable asset for firms in doing international business. For those charged with developing leadership in a culturally diversified organization, emotional intelligence should be a top priority to consider developing leaders, as well as for fostering an organizational climate with a strong backbone of trust and a shared vision, so even when people do not understand one another, they can still work through the challenges. Due to the sample constrains, this study is limited in scope of discussion and the findings are the subject to be further explored. More concreted data need to be collected for comparative analysis purpose and should be examined through a cross-cultural perspective. Future studies should include ability measures of EI and another cognitive variable such as rumination. Another important line of future research is the examination of the influence of culture on the relation between EI and the affective (hedonic balance) and cognitive (life satisfaction) components of subjective well-being. 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Camilla H. Wang, David K. Tian, Kathy Tian, Tian Guang