Acculturation and cross-cultural communication in new product development teams | |
| Author | Chonlatis Darawong |
| Call Number | AIT Diss. no.SM-12-04 |
| Subject(s) | Intercultural communication Acculturation Intercultural communication Acculturation |
| Note | A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | Because globalization has a significanteffecton many types of international business, Multinational Companies (MNCs) have established overseas subsidiariesin global territories. To develop new product for local market, MNCs have expanded new product development (NPD) activities insubsidiaries to meetlocal requirements. Although a large number ofstudies have investigated how culture impacts on NPD practice and performance using a comparative study in several countries or cultures, sparseresearch has explored the effect of cultural factor within multicultural context such as MNCs subsidiaries. To achieve NPD project, MNC headquarters control overseas subsidiaries through personal contacts by sending expatriate to manage local business operations. Since both expatriate and local employees are from different countries or cultures, it creates multi-cultural environment at workplace. Under this circumstance, there is an occurrence of the contact of twocultural values which include 1) expatriate’s culture of origin, and 2) host-country cultures from local employees. When both parties mutually work on NPD project, they inevitably communicate with one another to accomplish the assignment. This forms communication between different cultures, or cross-cultural communication. Although most of previous studies emphasize the importance of cross-functional communication, this research focuses only on the impact of communication across cultures during NPD. To scope the context of this study, our samples are drawn the same functional areas. For example, marketing managers in subsidiary in host country often communicate with marketing director in parent country. This communication is critical in order to deeply understand local needs and requirements and subsequently incorporated into the global platform design. During cross-cultural communication, in addition, cultural contact between expatriate and local managersleads to the acculturation which explains how members from different cultures gradually change their cultural values. In this study, a conceptual model has been established to illustrate the moderating effect of acculturative modes (i.e. integration, assimilation, separation, and deculturation) on the relationship between cross-cultural communication and psychosocial outcomes (i.e. interpersonal conflict and trust). Twoprimary contributions of the research to the NPD studies are apparent. First, this studyexamines how acculturative modes moderate the effect of communication between expatriate and local NPD team on the psychosocial outcomes. Second, the research investigates the impact of cross-cultural communication on psychosocial outcomes. This is important because each communication behavior (i.e. quality, bi-directionality, and formality) can have different impact on each outcome.The findings from this study are useful for both academic and managerial implications. Theoretically, academicians gain better understanding of how acculturative modes affect the influence of cross-cultural communication on psychosocial outcomes. In addition, management of MNCs can effectively improve the relationship between expatriates and local managers with the use of different communication behaviours during NPD project.iii |
| Year | 2012 |
| Type | Dissertation |
| School | School of Management |
| Department | Other Field of Studies (No Department) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Master of Business Administration (MBA) (Publication code=SM) |
| Chairperson(s) | Igel, Barbara;Igel, Barbara; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Badir, Yuosre F. ;Bohez, Erik Lucas Julien; |
| Degree | Thesis (Ph.D.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2012 |