Тематическое исследование по межкультурному обучению и кросс-культурной адаптации: на примере российских сотрудников, работающих в китайских электронных компаниях

1.1 Relevance of the Research
With the development of globalization, the cultural exchanges among countries are increasingly close, and the flow of talents is more frequent. This trend of globalization has resulted in a rising number of people who become modern nomads working abroad (Bonache et al., 2001; Coopers, 2005; Brookfield Global Relocation Services, 2013).
From the perspective of a rapidly developing industrialized country, China has gradually opened its market towards the globalization of trade and services. As a result, more and more foreigners now work in China – this primary emerging market (Gardner, 2007). In terms of China’s electronics industry, its growth rate is three times that of the GDP growth rate, and it is export-oriented (People’s Daily Online, 2007). It also means that foreign markets are great important targets for further development of China’s electronics industry. Therefore, hiring employees from abroad is one of the effective ways could not only expose the Chinese workforce toward foreign expertise, but also further access to foreign market.
Consequently, living in an almost entirely new cultural environment, foreign employees have to make adjustments in cross-cultural adaptation to overcome intercultural challenges, which allows them to work effectively (Ward & Rana-Deuba, 2000; Zakaria, 2000). As what Black and Mendenhall believe that intercultural training is not a luxury, but a necessity (Black & Mendenhall, 1990). Likewise, it is argued that intercultural training is a collaborative process of learning and developing all relevant cultures (Zhu, 2004). Studies on the intercultural training effectiveness show that such intercultural training can lead to cognitive, affective and behavioral changes for better cross-cultural adaptation. In this way, different cultural orientations can be regarded as contributing to achieve common goals. Only through appropriate intercultural training can cross-cultural problems be solved and intercultural competence can be improved.
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From the perspective of organizational-level, culture may have a profound effect on the vital results to a company, as well as management practices are heavily dependent on culture (Lillis & Tian, 2010). In earlier human resources research, Harris and Moran have already emphasized the importance of intercultural training. What they emphasize is that all managers should promote culture learning of their whole company, moreover, culture learning should be included in human resource development strategies of all global organizations (Harris & Moran, 1996).
Therefore, the cross-cultural adaptation of foreign employees is closely related to the success of their company. Those companies should attach great importance to intercultural trainings for their foreign employees to adapt to cultural differences and develop intercultural competence. What Black and Mendenhall believe is that intercultural training plays an important role in developing cultural understanding, which can help foreign employees to focus on potential cultural errors (Black & Mendenhall, 1990).
1.2 Research Gap
The deepening of globalization results in an increasing flow of global talents. The increasing emphasis on talent management and its contribution to a company’s sustainable competitive advantage has led to an increasing demand for global talented employees (Gallardo & Thunnissen, 2016). Hence, in recent years, there is a large number of scholars taking research on the value of intercultural training and cross- cultural adaptation. However, a majority of them are preferred to focus on the relationship between intercultural training and team performance (Matveev &Milter, 2004; Ochieng & Price., 2010; Zimmermann, 2010), while ignoring the impact on an individual. Here, it is found that researching intercultural training and cross-cultural adaptation on an individual is valuable.
Based on the great mathematical tradition in the Soviet Union (Vucinich, 1960), Russia always attaches great importance to the basic education on mathematics and science subjects, hence, there is actually a large number of Russian IT talents. Due to
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the declining Russian economy in recent years, a salary survey (with more than 5,000 white-collar candidates interviewed) conducted in 2015 showed that 58% would consider a move abroad for a better job (The Moscow Times, 2015). At the same time, the rapid development of China’s electronics industry has attracted an increasing number of Russian employees move to work in. What’s more, there doesn’t seem to be many empirical studies on Chinese electronic companies’ attitudes towards intercultural training, let alone the research about Russian employees. In a consequence, it is valuable to aim Russian employees working in Chinese electronic companies as our research objectives.
Moreover, one of the biggest challenges facing Chinese companies is the high turnover rate of their employees (Callegarin, 2017). A study carried out in China by AON in 2016 showed that in the Hi-Tech industry, the turnover rate went even up to 20.5%. It indicates the urgency to improve employee retention in the Chinese electronic company. In order to retain Russian employees, it is necessary for companies to employ various intercultural training programs for them. Thus, there is a close relationship among intercultural training, cross-cultural adaptation and Russian employees working in Chinese electronic companies.
Last but not least, in terms of intercultural training and cross-cultural adaptation, most articles in recent years are about the educational and hospitality industry (Vassou & Zopiatis, 2017; Akhmetshin et al., 2017; Wu, 2019). There are different features in different industries, which definitely show different outcomes in this research.
In brief, although some previous researches have explored some problems in cross-cultural adaptation caused by Sino-foreign cultural differences, it seems that there is a lack of some adequate convincing examples based on a specific country and a specific industry. Hence, in this research, a case study on Russian employees working in Chinese electronic companies is necessary conducted to collect more empirical evidence on this issue.
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1.3 Research Questions and Aims of the Research
This research aims to figure out the factors impact on intercultural competence of Russian employees working in Chinese electronic companies, the common practices and the possible improvement of intercultural trainings employed by Chinse electronic companies for Russian employees. In this case, it will provide references for other Chinese companies with Russian employees, so that realizing to attract more Russian talents and reduce the turnover rate of them. What the more important is that this research will unveil the existing problems of intercultural training programs implemented for Russian employees in Chinese electronic companies, so that arising more attention on solutions and cross-cultural adaptation.
Therefore, in this paper, it aims to answer 3 research questions:
1) What factors impact the intercultural competence of Russian employees working in Chinese electronic companies?
2) What are the common practices of intercultural trainings employed for Russian employees working in Chinese electronic companies?
3) What are the challenges for Russian employees working in Chinese electronic companies to attend intercultural training?