Interview for a Thai

Cross-Culture Final Assignment

Introduction

Nowadays, international trade and technology developed rapidly, people can easily break the geographic barriers and have increasing opportunities to participate in international teamwork. People in an international team are possibly from very different cultural backgrounds, where conducting an effective communication is a challenge. The goal of this report is to reveal the cultural conflicts during working and living in a different culture than the one they grew in. I would like to investigate the conflicts and analyze the underlying reasons by interviewing an expatriates, Natt Chen, Thai, who has been working in the Netherlands for two and half years. Dr. Chen is the most ideal interviewee I could find because of his personal life and working experience.

Background of Interviewee

Dr. Chen, 34 years old, has been working as a Post Doctor in Delft University of Technology (TUD) from 2013. He has lived among five different countries, and stayed in Europe for two years before he came to work in the Netherlands. He obtained his PhD degree on Earth science from Taiwan Jiaotong University in 2012. After graduation, he started working as a Post Doctor in the same University. One year later, he came to work in the Netherlands. To support his work, his wife (Taiwan) moved in the Netherlands. Now, he works in an international research group, with the members from 5 different countries- Russia, China, Netherlands, Ireland and US.

Interview memo

I asked fifteen questions during half-hour to explore what challenges he has been facing during his assignment here in Netherlands and how he manages to work in an international team. According to chapter 5 of M.T Claes and B. Gehrke “Global Leadership Practices” (2014), I tried to cover all relevant topics and life situations a person is confronted with when he goes abroad for a work.

Preparation

Q1.What did you think when you first heard you were going to Netherland?

A1: “ It’s exciting. I think Netherlands is a nice country. From my knowledge, Dutch are Good English speakers. Also the university is well known, especially this group I’m working in.”

Q7: Did you have someone who could explain the local culture to you and that you could confide in?

A7: “TU Delft tries to organize the group for us, I received a lot of emails, like delft international, delft young, etc. But I have never attended them. It depends on person, I think, if I was an easy-going person, I would have learned a lot about the culture. But I’m kind of like eat-and-work, I work mostly by myself. And this is a bit difficult to learn local culture.”

From the interviewee’s answer I learnt that he had some knowledge about Netherlands and his assignment, but he had not attended any trainings for local culture. Probably because of the interviewee’s working style: he just focuses on his work.

Adjusting to another country

Q15: What are the main skills you acquired abroad, and how do you use them in your life and current job?

A15: “Main skill is, I think, you learn how to live. Cook, rent a house, etc. It was difficult to find a house here. Even in the first week, I had to live in a friend’s house, I stayed in a hostel, I couldn’t get a room. This will never happen in Thailand, you can always easily find a place, if you have money. You don’t need to wait in a line.”

According interviewee’s answer, I can learn clearly that when interviewee arrives a new country, he not only faces the stress of work but also faces the problem of life.

Job factor’s impacting performance

Q6: How would you sum up your first six months?

A6: “Pretty difficult for me, even I have worked in a lot of places. Six months was very fast, to learn thing, and to know people. Especially if you are talking about work, you supervisor, your boss, you don’t know their working style. I think from this perspective, it’s quite different between working in a research group and working in a company. As post docoter, once they employ you, they expect you to work from the first day, they will not train you anything, because they have no idea what you are going to do, they rely on you. So that’s why I said for the first six months is very difficult, because you have to do a lot, you have to learn a lot, because something you never heard of, you never did before. This is from my perspective. But from the company’s perspective, I think that maybe three months should be enough.”

Accrording to the interviewee’s answer, when he joined his international team, he needed a lot of time to adapt with the new working style and the new role. He autonomly adapted his preferred working style: expecting a training before starting real work. But his boss wanted him to work from the first day he came, and expected him learning things himself. This role conflict caused some conflicting messages that made his work adjustment more difficult.

Skills for global leadership

Q9:How many people did you work with? What team issues came up, and how were

they solved?

A9: “5 people, who are from Russia, US, Ireland, China, and Netherlands. It’s the normal procedure you have to meet problems. Communication is a problem.Not only from Asian, but also from other side. European countries have different languages, sometimes it’s difficult to understand what they mean. Sometimes, it’s not about English, it’s the massage they want to deliver by their words, the interpretation. For example, as from an Asian culture, we don’t say no directly, we will say ‘OK, I just try to do that’. A Dutch would say, if you don’t want to do it ,why would you say you will try to do that. From that point of view, they just want to hear you say no.

Oh, slove it needs time. Once you work with them, you will learn what they really want. The first time you will have misunderstanding, but the second, the third, the tenth, the hundred times, you will get it.”

Q13:Did you feel you changed as a result of working abroad? If so, how?

A13: “Yes, of course. Be more open-minded and confident when working in an international environment. Dare to say “no” to impossible tasks and say “ yes” to challenging tasks. them, you learn a lot.”

According interviewee’s answer, he works in a multicultural team. Communication is the main problem in their daily work. Sometimes they have some misunderstanding when interpretating the real meanings by others. The interviewee confronted this ambiguous situation of directly refusing request. He rarely says NO to his colleagues, even he really wants to refuse the request. This leads to some misunderstanding. He realized this cultural difference after many times of misunderstanding. He managed his perception poorly: he might have confusion, felt wronged, but he kept silent, instead of seeking for help from others. Partly due to this reason, it took him quite long time to percept the culture difference. After his perception of the difference, he changed his behavior and merged into the direct expressing atmosphere.