Culture Clash: Compromise and Consensus in Group Interactions
As stated in the article “Pratar du engelska?” also featured on lundintcomm.blogspot.se, English language proficiency plays a strong role in group communications in higher education—particularly in Sweden because of its large number of international students and programs taught in English. Another barrier to effective and efficient group interactions is the variety of interacting cultures. The University group setting creates a particular cultural context in which interactions will take place. Depending on which culture is most represented in the group, other less represented cultures might find themselves less influential in the decisions made by the group.
Another similar issue involves which cultural group will be most outspoken and likely to participate in group situations. Regardless of the dominant represented culture, most group settings take on a democratic approach to ensure all participants are heard and represented in the group’s decisions and work, but beyond this there are inherent cultural differences that limit the effectiveness of the group’s democratic decision making. One such cultural difference is collectivism vs. individualism. Using “Hofstede’s scale of individualism collectivism” we can see stark differences between Hong Kong’s culture, which is rated 25 and is “categorized as a collectivist culture where group orientation cultural norm is dominated, and people act in the interests of the group and not necessarily in the interests of themselves” and Swedish culture which, rated at 71 on the scale, has “a high preference for a loosely-knit social framework” where it is expected that individuals will care for themselves (Du-Babcock, 2013, p.105).
A study conducted by Du-Babcock recorded the turns taken, seconds of speaking time and average words used in a series of group meetings. The study contrasted the circumstances often found in Swedish and Hong Kong group meetings and found that the Swedish group took 5 times as many turns to speak, spent twice as much time and spoke twice as many words in the group meetings than their Hong Kong counterparts (Table 2, p.113). These findings are significant and illustrate a real issue present in intercultural communications in the group setting. Furthermore, Du-Babcock found that the leadership of the meeting’s proceedings varied between the two cultures, with the Swedish group allowing for free-flowing turns with little turn management whereas the Hong Kong group had a structured system of turn taking (p.126). Knowledge of these varying approaches to meetings in intercultural circumstances should facilitate better group communication and allow for an alternative, compromising and pragmatic approach to be taken regarding group management and interactions.
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