Should You Learn the Language?

Should You Learn the Language?
multinational, it has been suggested that organizations around the world will begin to look very much
alike. One theory states that as the companies become more similar, the organizational culture might
dominate or diminish the effects of the larger culture. Research thus far does not support the
likelihood of these developments. Laurent found that employees of different nationalities working for
a multinational firm maintained and even strengthened their cultural differences. German workers
became more German, American workers became more American, and Swedish workers became
more Swedish.25 The implication is that we must accept, even value, our cultural differences for
business success.
One way that multinationals are demonstrating cultural sensitivity is in their hiring practices.
PepsiCo, for instance, named lndra Nooyi as the company’s CEO in 2006. By 2013, she was ranked
10th in Forbes’s list of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women. Nooyi was born in India. Since 2001,
half of all new hires at Pepsi are either women or ethnic minorities. And managers earn their bonuses
in part by how well they recruit and retain them. Six of Its top twelve executives are women or
minorities. Pepsi argues that a diverse leadership helps the company to better understand the disparate
tastes of new consumers globally.26
Having explored some of the fundamental dimensions on which the people of the world differ and
how profound the differences are, we now turn our attention to more practical matters. The next
sections present approaches to success as intercultural communicators. More specifically, the rest of
this chapter discusses dealing with language differences, being nonverbally sensitive, being a good
intercultural communicator, and preparing for assignments or careers in international business.
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Stop and Think
Think about a person you work with who comes from a different culture. How do Hot stede’s
dimensions of cultural differences help to explain some of the differences you have experienced when
communicating with that person?
Stop and Think
1. How does the concept of high- and low-context cultures explain an expeflence you
have had at work when communicating with someone from another culture?
2. How does the concept of short-term and long-term orientation explain an experience
you have had working with someone from another culture?
Should You Learn the Language?
The first decision facing an international business traveler is whether to learn the language spoken in
the country to be visited. People who have learned a second language will testify that it can be a long.
involved, and tedious task. Furthermore, the difficulty level varies with the language to be learned.
Some have many subtle nuances that non-natives have a hard time capturing. And the many dialects
that exist within a country complicate the process even more. According to the US State Department.
despite our immigrant roots, just 10 percent of US citizens can speak a second language. In contrast,
more than half of the people in the European Union are bilingual, and 28 percent are trilingual.
Which languages are the most important to learn? According to the US Department of Education,
Chinese, Arabic, Farsi, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Hindi, and Urdu are the languages most vital to

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