跨文化商务交际案例分析

跨文化商务交际案例分析

How much is Hard Work?

Abstract:

In the intercultural business communication, Eastern and western people usually face a cultural conflict, because of the differences in values, culture and the different methods of behavior. This text embarks from the different features of culture between China and the United States, analyzing the failure of cross-cultural communication, and puts forward that the international business communication researchers should consciously cultivate their cross-cultural awareness, enhance the sensitivity of cultural differences, promote the integration of local culture and foreign culture, and decrease or even eliminate faults in the international business communication, in order to promote international business success.

摘要：

在跨文化商务交际中，东西方民族常常会因为价值观念、文化积淀以及思维、行为方式的不同而遭遇文化冲突。本文从中美文化的不同特点出发，针对跨文化交际失败的原因进行了分析，提出国际商务交际人员应自觉培养自身的跨文化意识，增强文化差异的敏感性，促进本土文化与外来文化的整合，减少乃至消除国际商务交际中的失误，促使国际商务成功开展。

Keywords:

Intercultural business communication, cultural conflict, cross-cultural awareness

关键词:跨文化商务交际、文化冲突、跨文化意识

Case: A team of four Chinese from a large prestigious organization were in Honolulu for ten days to meet with six American colleagues from several different US universities. The ten scholars were getting together to finish up a project that they had been working on together for more than three years. The data had been collected, with great effort and many bureaucratic tangles, in several villages in central China. The Chinese team had been tireless and super-humanly patient in working out every problem so that the data collection had been extremely successful.

The researchers had been working separately for nearly a year on analysis, reports and papers based on their data. The Americans felt very lucky to have obtained the financial and institutional support to give the group an opportunity to get together one last time—this time in the US—to read each other's papers, work out problems with the analysis of data, fill in missing bits of information that "the other side" had, and to make sure that everything had been handled in a politically sensitive way. They were to meet for ten days in Honolulu.

The Chinese delegation arrived on Friday morning and was installed in a comfortable, inexpensive hotel in Waikiki. When the Americans arrived last in the afternoon everyone was eager to talk about what they had been doing and to begin to work. They met for dinner and got right down to business at the home of one of the researchers, who had recently taken a job at the University of Hawaii. Since everyone was tired from travelling, they quit at ten o'clock, the Chinese were becoming very distracted. The interpreter, Yang Bing, a Chinese who had been in the US about six years and was married to an American, suggested that everyone break for lunch, but he was ignored. The Americans called out for pizza at two and kept arguing, writing, calculating, and discussing straight through the late meal. At seven, the Chinese were sent back to their hotel at their request; the Americans didn't get back to the hotel until ten.

Sunday was, as planned, another work day. The Chinese participated actively in the discussion in the morning, and after lunch, which at Yuan Bing's urging was served at one o'clock. By six, however, the Chinese were anxious to return to their hotel, though the Americans were equally anxious to keep working. On Monday morning, the Chinese announced that they were taking the afternoon off. The Americans were rather annoyed, since they felt pressured to get as much as possible accomplished in the short time they had together, but they agreed to arrange a car for the Chinese.

The next two days the Chinese worked hard and cheerfully all morning and into the evening, though they insisted on taking off a full hour for lunch at noon, and another for dinner promptly at six, even when they were in the middle of something. The Americans lunched on doughnuts and fruit provided at the conference center and kept on working. The interpreter could sense tension and resentment building between the two groups. Finally in Wednesday morning, the Chinese told the interpreter to announce that they were going to spend the last 48 hours sightseeing. The Americans were clearly dismayed, and protested. Yuan Bing decided it was time to stop outside his role of interpreter and intervene.

例子：中国一家知名研究机构的四位学者来到了夏威夷火奴鲁鲁，他们将在这里待十天，同来自美国几所大学的六位研究同事进行学术交流，完成一项他们已经共同研究了三年的项目。研究材料的收集工作是由这四位中国学者在华中的几个村子里进行的。他们不辞劳苦，成功地收集并整理了该学术合作项目所需要的所有材料。

在来夏威夷之前，这些学者已经进行了一年的单独研究，就各自掌握的材料进行分析，整理报告，撰写论文。美方学者为十位研究同事能够最后一次聚

会-这次是在美国-感到很高兴，这样他们得以研读对方的论文，填补那些已方

没有但中方学者已经收集到的学术信息。

中方学术代表团是周五上午到达的，在Waikiki的一家便宜又舒适的宾馆

住下。美国学者周五下午到达，他们一到便急着要求开始讨论各自的研究成果。一起吃过晚饭后，学者们便在其中一位在夏威夷大学从事研究工作的学着家中

开始了讨论。由于当天旅途劳累，晚上十点讨论结束。但是周六上午九点讨论

重新开始。研讨会开到下午一点时，中方学者已经很难集中精神了。研讨会的

翻译袁兵（在美国已待了六年，其爱人是美国人）提议先停下来吃午饭，但是

没有被采纳。两点，美国学者叫了披萨饼，匆匆吃完又继续讨论直到晚饭时间。七点，在中国学者的要求下，他们先被送回了宾馆，而美国学者之后又继续讨论，知道十点才各自回去。

按照会议的安排，周日不休息。在上午的讨论中，中国学者积极参与。在

翻译的催促下，午饭是一点提供的，但是下午的讨论中中国学者表现得没有上

午积极了。到了六点，虽然美国学者都还着急要继续讨论，中国学者都急着要

回宾馆了。周一上午讨论时，中国学者首先声明他们那天下午要休息，为此美

国学者有点恼了，因为他们觉得时间紧迫，希望能在这十天时间里完成尽可能

多的学术任务。虽然如此，他们那天下午还是为中国学者安排一辆车。

接下来的两天，中国学者从早到晚都身心愉悦地参与了讨论，他们唯一的

要求就是在中午十二点和晚上六点时研讨会准时中止，留出一小时进行午餐和

晚餐。而美国学者午饭仅吃会议中心提供的炸面包圈和水果，而且是吃完便继

续讨论。翻译可以明显感觉到中美双方学者之间的关系越来越紧张。最后，在

周三上午，中国学者要求翻译宣布他们将从周五中午开始结束研讨会，余下的

48小时他们将用来进行观光旅游。美国学者感到很失望，并且提出了抗议。这

时翻译袁兵决定出来调节矛盾了。

分析：在本案例中，来自中国的四位学者和来自美国的六位学者来到夏威夷，

他们计划用十天的时间来讨论一个共同的研究项目。尽管他们都认为自己已经

非常努力地工作了，但在讨论进行的几天内，还是出现了诸多矛盾，甚至最后

居然到了似乎不可调和的地步。

双方在夏威夷的矛盾冲突主要源于对何为“努力工作”的看法不一。美国

人认为，只要能够在计划时间之内完成工作，他们可以放弃正常的吃饭时间，

可以在办公室边吃快餐边工作，可以工作到很晚，可以周末加班；而中国人认为。工作于生活应该兼顾，工作时间努力工作，但必须要保证正常的吃饭和休

息时间。可是双方都无法接受对方的立场，直至最后陷入僵局。

美国学者的敬业精神令人敬佩，出个人能力、身体素质、工作态度等因素

之外，我们还可以从更深的文化层面找到原因。在美国，和崇尚个人主义、平等、竞争等文化特征一样，努力工作也是有历史原因的，当欧洲殖民者开始踏

上美洲这块荒凉的土地时，要想生存，首先必须要勤奋工作，到达美洲的清教

徒奉行的首要原则即是克服一切艰难险阻，在那里建立自己的家园。案例中的几位美国学者正是奉行了“努力工作”的原则，为了在短暂的几天之内和中国学者进行顺利地讨论和沟通，他们似乎只要工作，而不要生活了，而这点正是中国学者无法理解的。

中国学者和美国学者在夏威夷碰面之前，双方就应该对对方的工作习惯有个初步的了解：如果在事先进行了了解比较困难，那么在第一天工作之后，发现双方在工作时间与吃饭、休息时间的安排差异较大时，就应该进行坦诚地沟通，然后商量可能让双方都满意的工作方式，这样也许可以避免后来矛盾的发展。