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Running Head: RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 1
What Went Wrong in Our Conversation? A Retrospective Analysis of Intercultural
Communication in Chinese and American Dyads
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 2
Abstract
We report a study using retrospective analysis to understand American and Chinese
participants’ feelings and reactions on a moment-by-moment basis during an interaction.
Participants talked about a fictional crime story together and then individually watched and
reflected on an audio-video recording of the interaction. We found more problems reported when
participants worked with a Chinese partner than with an American partner. In the communication
process, we found that the culture of the discussion partners affected the level of understanding
and involvement of the participants. The results indicated that problems related to aspects of the
communication process such as understanding or involvement might be caused by the interaction
of the participant with a partner whose cultural orientation conflicted with one’s own.
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 3
What Went Wrong in Our Conversation? A Retrospective Analysis of Intercultural
Communication in Chinese and American Dyads
The rising global connectivity in economic, educational, political and other spheres raises
the demand for international collaboration. While the potential benefits of global collaboration
have been recognized in both research and practice (e.g., Kayworth & Leidner, 2000; Maznevski
& Chudoba, 2000; Thill & Leonard-Barton, 1993), a variety of problems have been reported in
culturally heterogeneous global teams both in terms of the task work and in the relational aspects
of teamwork (e.g., Olson & Olson, 2000; Windsor, 2001; Wardell, 1998; Handy, 1995).
One possible cause of these problems in global teams is culture differences in
communication styles, norms, value systems and the like, which can make cross-cultural
communication problematic (e.g. Cramton, 2001; Hinds & Kiesler, 2002). For example, Hall
(1976) has observed that some cultures use a low context communication style, which is direct
and to the point, whereas other cultures use a high context communication style, which is more
indirect and relies heavily on the context of communication. This difference may cause
misunderstandings and negative emotions in intercultural interaction (Hall, 1976).
A number of researchers have used observational and survey techniques to identify the
kinds of problems that arise in intercultural communication (e.g., Ting-Toomey, Oetzel & Yee-
Jung, 2001; Setlock & Fussell, 2010; Gelfand, Nishii, Holcome, Dyer, Ohbuchi & Fukuno,
2001). The results of these studies suggest that cultural groups do differ in their styles of
communication, and that intercultural communication can be problematic. However, the results
can’t pinpoint the specific communicative behaviors that lead to interaction problems. Several
laboratory experiments have been able to identify specific kinds of communication patterns that
are especially problematic (e.g., Li 1999a, 1999b) but because participants’ reactions to the
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 4
interaction are obtained after the fact, these studies likewise can’t pinpoint what is going wrong
at the level of the moment-by-moment dynamics of the interaction. The goal of the current study
is to provide a deeper understanding of the kinds of communication problems that arise in
intercultural teams and the impact of these problems on team performance and members’ liking
for one another. To achieve this goal, we use a technique developed in psychology, retrospective
analysis, in which participants in a conversation are asked to reflect on a moment-by-moment
basis on their interaction, with the help of video recordings (Gottman & Levinson, 1985). We
compare same-culture pairs of Americans (low context communicators), same-culture pairs of
Chinese (high context communicators), and intercultural American-Chinese pairs. We examine
how team members of different cultures experienced the process of communication in terms of
understanding the conversation, involvement, interest and negative feelings during the
collaboration process; how these experiences may or may not lead to communication problems
and how they influence the outcomes of collaboration. Theoretically, our study contributes to the
development of theories in intercultural collaboration with better characterization of
communication problems in intercultural interaction. From an application standpoint, the results
of our study could clarify how technology may improve certain aspects of group communication
to reduce problems, thus guiding the design of interventions for intercultural group collaboration.
In the remainder of this introduction, we first provide an overview of prior research on
understanding, involvement, and negative emotions in communication. We then present the
goals of the current study and our specific hypotheses. After that, we describe our experimental
design and measures, and present our results. We conclude with a discussion of how mismatches
in communicative styles can impact intercultural interaction.
Problems in intercultural communication due to cultural differences
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 5
Since the 1990s, a number of studies have examined the advantages of global teams, as
well as the challenges in managing them (e.g Ives & Jarvenpaa, 1991; Harasim, 1993; Jarvenpaa
& Ives, 1994; Kristof, Brown, Sims & Smith, 1995). These studies have highlighted cultural
difference as an important challenge to global virtual teams (e.g., Kristof et al., 1995, Jarvenpaa
& Leidner, 1998). Cultural differences may lead to miscommunication and information
distortions (e.g., Kayworth & Leidner, 2002), such as failure to interpret messages from partners.
Even when technological advances are able to help reduce the physical distance, cultural gaps
may make it difficult for distributed work teams to establish common ground (Olson & Olson,
2002). Culturally diverse teams have been claimed to possess the potential to be more successful
in various tasks (Watson, Kumar & Michealson, 1993; Cox & Blake, 1991); however, they often
fail to realize these potentials or take longer time to complete (Watson et al., 1993), due to the
various problems brought about by cultural gaps.
One kind of cultural gap may be brought about by differences in communication styles.
Hall (1976) contrasted cultures that use what he called low vs. high context of communication
styles. Low context cultures such as those of the US and Canada prefer more direct, to-the-point
communication, with little regard for the specific context in which this communication occurs.
In contrast, high context cultures such as those of China, Japan and Korea, prefer a more indirect
style of communication, emphasizing the role of contextual cues, such as gaze, facial expression
and relationships between partners, in the production and interpretation of meaning. Although
not perfectly correlated, high-context communication styles are typical of collectivistic cultures,
whereas low-context styles are typical of individualistic cultures (Gudykunst & Ting-Toomey,
1988; Gudykunst, et al., 1996).
Both high and low context communication styles can be effective among groups who
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 6
share the same style. However, problems can arise when communicators have different styles
(Cramton, 2001). For example, low context communicators typically expect their conversational
partners to directly express disagreement, but high context communicators tend to express
disagreement indirectly though silence. In this scenario, the low context communicator may
erroneously assume that his or her partner is in agreement. At the same time, a low context,
direct, style of communication may be perceived by high context communicators as
inconsiderate and dominating (Gudykunst, Ting-Toomey & Nishida, 1996).
Team members may also differ in the emphasis they place on completing an assigned
task vs. building rapport (Triandis, 1995; Walls, 1993). Some cultures, such as the U.S, place
priority on getting work done efficiently, with minimal regard to building interpersonal
relationships. Other cultures, such as China, tend to emphasize the need to achieve group
harmony and solidarity (Walls, 1993). Problems can arise in intercultural teams if task orientated
team members focus on what information is conveyed while relationship orientated team
members pay more attention to how that information is conveyed and what this indicates about
the relationship between speaker and addressee(s).
Based on previous research between different cultures such as American and Chinese, we
hypothesize that:
Hypothesis 1A: Americans and Chinese working with a partner from a different culture
will report more problems than when working with a partner from the same culture.
In addition, having to use a second language (typically English) in intercultural
collaboration might create more problems for non-native speakers. Therefore we proposed:
Hypothesis 1B: Chinese working with Chinese will report more problems than Americans
working with Americans.
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 7
Problems in intercultural collaboration have been explored under various perspectives. In
this study we are interested in three major aspects of the communication process that may cause
problems: 1) understanding, which is closely related to communication grounding, 2)
involvement and interest, and 3) negative emotions during interactions.
Understanding in communication
Mutual understanding plays an important part in communication as it ensured meanings
are accurately transferred between partners. To achieve mutual understanding, partners in
conversations engage in a process called grounding (Clark & Brennan, 1991). Cultural
differences in the grounding process can lead to mutual misunderstandings in cross-culture
teams. Li (1999a, 1999b) suggested that Chinese people engaged in grounding activities to build
good interpersonal relationships with their partners, whereas Anglo-Canadians engaged in
grounding for the sake of conveying information across to their partners. These differences led to
inefficient grounding, less understanding between partners, and thus more problematic
intercultural communication. Therefore, we hypothesize that:
Hypothesis 2A: Americans and Chinese working with a partner from a different culture
will report lower level of understanding than when working with a partner from the same
culture.
In addition to grounding, language fluency and the level of comfort in using a second
language to communicate also affects understanding in conversation. Various studies pointed out
that when communicating in cross-culture teams, team members who are not comfortable with
using a second language to communicate found it harder to catch up with the conversation as
well as to make themselves understood (e.g., Kayworth & Leidner, 2000; Setlock & Fussell,
2010). We think that this applies even when two people from the same culture converse, but in a
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 8
second language. We thus hypothesize that:
Hypothesis 2B: Chinese working with Chinese will report lower level of understanding
than Americans working with Americans.
Involvement in Conversation
Involvement is an integral part of any social interaction. Cegala, Savage, Brunner &
Conrad (1982) conceptualized interaction involvement as “the extent to which an individual
participate with another in a conversation” (pp. 229). Involvement has been identified to
facilitate affiliation, expression of intimacy, regulation of interaction (Patterson, 1983), improved
cohesion of conversations, and thus, fostering better understanding (Villaume and Cegala, 1988).
Research in intercultural collaboration has often found less involvement in cross-cultural
teams (Chen, 1995; Li, 2001), possibly due to cultural differences in the ways people express and
interpret conversational cues of involvement. For example a forward lean might indicate
involvement for one culture and an attempt to control or dominate for another culture (Patterson,
1982, 1983; Cappella, 1983). Therefore, we hypothesize that:
Hypothesis 3A: Americans and Chinese working with a partner from a different culture
will report lower level of involvement than when working with a partner from the same culture.
Moreover, based on the conclusion from previous studies that Chinese are more
relationship oriented and prefer high context communication, we expect that Chinese participants
will also try to express a high level of involvement in the conversation. Therefore, we propose
the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 3B: Americans working with Americans will report lower level of involvement
than Chinese working with Chinese
Negative Emotions in Communication
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 9
Moods and emotions have definite influences on team interaction and performance (e.g.,
Kelly & Barsade, 2001) and effective team communication involves attention to members’
affective states, emotions and feelings (Higgins, McCann, & Fondacaro, 1982; McCann, Higgins
& Fondacaro, 1991). In many intercultural collaboration studies, cross-culture teams report more
negative emotions such as anxiety, tensions (Chen, 1995; Ting-Toomey, 1999), frustrations and
annoyance (Cox and Blake, 1991; Seetharaman, Samarah & Mykytyn, 2004). This finding has
been attributed to several causes, including the fact that people are more attracted and persuaded
by similar others (Tajfel & Turner, 1986; Cramton & Hinds, 2005), anxiety, tension and low
self-esteem (Cegala, 1984), and a lack of common ground (Clark and Carlson, 1981). Therefore,
in the interaction of American and Chinese, we hypothesize that:
Hypothesis 4A: Americans and Chinese working with a partner from a different culture
will report higher level of negative emotions than when working with a partner from the same
culture.
In addition, lower levels of understanding (H2b) in Chinese pairs using a second
language might lead to more negative emotions. Therefore, we proposed:
Hypothesis 4B: Chinese working with Chinese will report higher level of negative
emotions than Americans working with Americans.
Outcomes of intercultural collaboration
It is still unclear from the literature how the problems regarding the above three aspects
of the communication process may affect the final outcomes of intercultural collaboration. While
Li (1999a and 1999b) found that better grounding led to better performance, Setlock et al. (2004)
and Wang et al. (2009) did not find objective performance differences despite differences in
communication styles. A few studies have suggested that culturally heterogeneous groups will
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 10
have worse performance (e.g., Paul, Samarah, Seetharaman & Mykytyn, 2004; Diamant,
Fussell, & Lo, 2008; Li, 1999a, 1999b). We thus propose:
Hypothesis 5A: Americans and Chinese working with a partner from a different culture
will report lower perceived team performance than when working with a partner from the same
culture.
Hypothesis 6A: Americans and Chinese working with a partner from a different culture
will achieve lower objective performance than when working with a partner from the same
culture.
Moreover, members’ subjective evaluation of the performance might not correlate with
actual performance as it also involves their evaluation of the overall the experience. We think
that since Chinese pairs tend to be more concerned about maintaining group harmony and
cohesion, they will be less critical than American about their partners and their teams, and thus
report higher opinion of their team performance than American pairs.
Hypothesis 5B: Chinese working with Chinese will report higher perceived performance
than Americans working with Americans.
At the same time, because of the lower level of understanding hypothesized for pairs
using a second language, we also expect that:
Hypothesis 6B: Chinese working with Chinese will have lower objective performance
than Americans working with Americans.
The Current Study
The current study tries to pinpoint problems in intercultural communication between
American and Chinese speakers using a retrospective analysis technique adapted from
psychology (Gottman & Levenson, 1985). In this technique, participants review their own
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 11
conversation using audio-video recordings as probes. The interaction can be broken down into
small increments of a minute or less, allowing us to identify exactly when in the conversation
problems arose and what was being said and done during that moment.
We chose to examine Chinese and American pairs for two reasons. First, the literature on
cross-culture communication has shown that these two cultures differ greatly on a variety of
cultural dimensions, including individualism – collectivism, high – low context communication
and task - relationship focus (e.g Gudykunst et al., 1996). Second, previous studies often found
communication problems arising in Chinese-American and Chinese-Canadian teams, which were
associated with negative team outcomes (e.g Li, 1999a). Our study therefore aims at explaining
the problems found by these studies.
Method
Design
Same-culture and cross-culture pairs discussed and solved a crime case. Each Chinese or
American participant was paired up randomly with a partner from the same culture or from a
different culture, resulting in three combinations (10 Chinese-Chinese (CC) pairs, 10 American-
American (AA) pairs, 10 American-Chinese (AC) pairs).
Participants
Participants consisted of 60 students (53% undergraduate) studying at a large American
university. Of these, 30 students were native Chinese speakers who had been born in the
People’s Republic of China (83%) or Taiwan (17%), and had spent less than 5 years in the
United States or Canada. The Chinese participants spoke fluent or near-fluent English. The other
30 participants had lived for more than 10 years in the United States or Canada and spoke
English as their native language.
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 12
Participants were paired randomly into one of the three culture grouping conditions (AA,
AC, CC); however, to control for age difference we made sure that graduate students were paired
with other graduate students, and undergraduates were paired with other undergraduates.
Materials
Task. The task consisted of discussing a crime story and identifying the culprit of the
crime. The crime story, developed by the first author, involved a break in and a murder attempt
on a victim named Alex. Alex is the leader of a rock band of four people. The other three
members of the band were the three prime suspects, one of whom was the actual culprit.
Two different versions of the crime story were prepared, based on the reports of two
witnesses. Each version contained 10 pieces of information important to solving the case. The
two versions shared common information about the victim, crime location, and attack on the
victim. They also included details complementing each other that needed to be combined to fully
understand what happened, such as the time and location of each of the suspects before and after
the crime. The two versions also contained three contradictory details about the crime: (a) the
time of the attack, (b) the body builds of the culprit and (c) the color of the shirt the culprit was
wearing as they were reported from the different perspectives of the two witnesses. These had to
be resolved through discussion to identify the culprit. The details were presented on a single
sheet of paper (622 words for version A; 644 words for version B).
Memory quiz. A paper and pencil memory quiz was created to test participants’
understanding of the materials prior to discussion with their partner. The quiz consisted of 10
multiple choice questions on the key details of the crime (e.g., time, suspects).
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 13
Culprit identification form. An online survey form was used by the pairs to indicate
their responses. The form had one slot for indicating the culprit(s) of the crime, and another box
for entering a short paragraph on the pairs’ reasoning behind their identification of this culprit.
Post task survey. Participants completed an online survey asking about their reactions to
the task and partner, their communication styles, and their basic demographic information. Task-
related questions consisted of four 5-point scales adapted from the NASA TLX workload scale
(Hart & Staveland, 1988) to measure mental effort, temporal effort, overall effort, and frustration
during the task, and two five-point scales to measure participants’ subjective evaluation of their
team and individual performance on the task.
Partner-related questions consisted of four items measuring the participant’s liking of
his/her partner, the partner’s liking of the participant, the participant’s enjoyment and comfort in
working with their partners.
Questions about communicative styles include Triandis’ (1995) individualism and
collectivism scale and a subset of 13 items from Gudykunst et al.’s (1996) high and low context
culture scale, selected from the three factors that have the highest loadings in Gudykunst et al.
(1996) study: ability to infer meaning (IM), interpersonal sensitivity (IS) and use of indirect
communication (I).
Retrospective analysis survey. The online retrospective analysis survey consisted of 7
rating questions and an additional open response question that participants completed after each
1-minute video clip. The first three questions asked each participant to rate on 5-point Likert
scales their level of tension (very tense-very relaxed), annoyance (very annoyed-not annoyed at
all) and interest (not interested at all-very interested) in the conversation. The next two questions
asked participants to rate how much their partners understood them and how much they
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 14
understood their partners, respectively (1 = not understanding at all; 7 = very understanding).
The remaining two questions asked the participants to rate how much their partners and they
themselves felt involved with the conversation (1 = not involved at all; 7 = very involved). The
final question asked whether the participant had noticed any problem with their interaction at the
point of time shown in the video clip. If their answer was yes, we asked them to provide details
about what went wrong, and what they would have done to prevent or remedy the problem.
Equipment and Video Processing
Three cameras were used to video tape the pairs’ discussions. A Canon Vixia HF1100
high definition camcorder recorded a holistic view of both participants from 5’ (1.5 m) away.
Two Sony DCR-SX44 handycams (720 x 480 color NTSC video), positioned 4’ (1.2 m) directly
in front of the participants, were used to record the head and upper body of each participant.
The two Sony video streams were fed to the left and right channel of a Q-See QSD9004
digital video recorder to be synchronized and combined into a single split-screen video with two
frames, with a good display frame rate of 120 frames per second and resolution of 704 x480 each
frame (see Figure 1). The left frame of the split-screen video showed the video of the participant
sitting on the left and the right frame shows the video of the participant sitting on the right.
Sound was recorded using two Sony ECM-44B - omni-directional lavalier condenser
microphones, connected to a Shure SCM262 Stereo Channel Mixer. The split-screen video and
sound stream were combined and synchronized by the Q-See DVR to make the videos for the
retrospective phase of the experiment.
Two Dell workstations with Dell Ultrasharp 19 inch monitors (1140 x 900 resolution)
were used to present the video clips during the retrospective analysis. The video was synched by
the Q-See DVR and was played back using the software that accompanied the DVR. The 10-
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 15
minute video of the discussion was divided into 10 sequential clips of 1 minute each to be played
one by one in chronological order to both participants.
Procedure
The experiment consisted of two phases: a discussion phase and a retrospective analysis
phase. In the Discussion Phase, each pair was brought into a room, signed consent forms, and
received task instructions. Each participant received one of the two versions of the crime story.
They were given 10 minutes to read the story and learn the details of the crime, after which the
hard copies were taken away and they were given the memory test. The experimenter then
corrected the quiz and left the corrected quiz with the participants for the rest of the experiment.
Each pair then discussed the story face-to-face for 10 minutes. In order to solve the
crime, the pairs needed to gather all the information from both versions of the story, resolve
conflicting details, and identify the culprit. At the end of their interaction, each pair submitted
their conclusion about the culprit and the reasoning behind their decision in the culprit
identification form. Each participant in the pair then separately filled out the post-task survey.
In the Retrospective Analysis Phase, the two participants were seated at separate
computer workstations with a divider in between. They were shown a series of 10 one-minute
video clips of their conversation in Phase 1, using the playback software on the Q-See DVR.
After each clip, participants filled out the retrospective analysis survey. After the last clip, the
participants were debriefed, paid and dismissed.
Measures
Control variables. Three measures were used to establish that participants from America
vs. China differed in terms of cultural background and communication style: individualism,
collectivism, high context communication. We also counted the total number of words used.
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 16
Individualism and collectivism. We computed factors for individualism and for
collectivism, by averaging all the items originally belonging to these factors in Triandis (1995).
Cronbach’s alpha for these factors were low, possibly due to our low sample size, so we used the
scale in its original format because it has been widely validated by other investigators.
High context communication. The 13 items we used from Gudykunst et al.’s (1996) high
and low context scale were averaged (after inverting the low context items) to create our measure
of self-reported high context communication style (Cronbach’s alpha = .51; Table 2).
Word count. We counted the number of words used by each participant in the transcripts
of the discussions using TAWC software (Kramer, Fussell & Setlock, 2004).
Dependent variables. Dependent variables are number of problems, levels of
understanding, involvement and negative emotions, subjective outcomes and performance.
Problems. We collected a binary measure for whether or not problems exist every minute
of the 10-minute long interaction.
Understanding. Participant’s ratings, on a 7-point scale, of how much they understood
their partner (self’s understanding) during each minute of their conversation were negatively
skewed, so we recoded the data into three categories (1 to 5 =1, 6=2 and 7=3), roughly
corresponding to problematic understanding, good understanding and excellent understanding.
Involvement. Participant’s ratings, on a 7-point scale, of how much they felt involved in
the conversation (self’s involvement) during each minute of their interaction were likewise
negatively skewed and recoded in the same manner as Understanding into three groups.
Participants indicated, on a 5 point scale, how much interest they felt in the conversation. This
measure was also negatively skewed and recoded into three groups (1 to 3 =1, 4=2 and 5=3).
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 17
Negative emotions. Participants’ ratings on a 5 point scale of how tense and how annoyed
they felt in the conversation were negatively skewed and recoded into three categories as above.
Subjective task performance. The two questions measuring participants’ subjective
evaluation of their team performance and their individual performance were highly correlated, r
= .61. These were averaged to create a composite score (Cronbach’s alpha = .75).
Effort on the task. The four items from the NASA TLX workload scale were averaged to
measure effort spent on the task (Cronbach’s alpha = .76).
Objective performance. Pairs’ answers to the crime task consisted of two parts: the name
of the culprit(s) and an explanation for the solution. The answers about the identity of the culprit
were marked 1 for correct answers or 0 for incorrect answers. The explanations were scored in
terms of the presence of three key clues needed to prove the culprit guilty. Two research
assistants, who were blind to the conditions of the experiment, coded for the presence of these
clues in the answers (1 for yes, 0 for no). Each of them graded all the teams (kappa= 95%).
Results
We report the results in three parts: First we describe manipulation checks to establish
that American and Chinese participants did in fact use different communication styles. Then, we
report the results from the retrospective analysis, followed by the performance analyses.
Manipulation check
We conducted two-way Analyses of Variance with participant’s culture (American or
Chinese) and gender as the two factors on three characteristics: individualism, collectivism, and
high context communication style. Gender was included based on prior work suggesting gender
differences in communication styles (e.g., Herring & Martison, 2004).
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 18
Individualism and Collectivism. We found no significant difference in individualism
between the two cultures (F[1, 56]<1, n.s) or between men and women (F[1, 56]=1.01, n.s)., as
well as no interaction (F[1, 56]<1, n.s). However, for collectivism, there was a near significant
main effect of culture (F[1, 56]=3.72, p=.06). As anticipated, Chinese participants reported
being more collectivistic than Americans (for Chinese, M = 5.31, SEM= 0.14; for Americans, M
= 5.05, SEM= 0.13). We also found a near significant interaction between culture and gender
(F[1, 56]=3.69, p=.06). American females tended to be more collectivistic than American males
(for American males, M= 4.72, SEM= 0.25; for American females, M= 5.17, SEM= 0.10),
whereas the opposite was true for Chinese (for Chinese males, M= 5.52, SEM= 0.20; for Chinese
females, M= 5.17, SEM= 0.19). However, there was no overall main effect of gender (F[1,
56]<1, n.s).
High context communication. For high context communication style, we found
significant main effects of both culture (F[1,56]=7.18, p<0.01) and gender (F[1,56]=5.46,
p<0.05), and also a significant interaction effect (F[1,56]=10.94, p<0.01). Chinese were found to
prefer high context communication style more than Americans (for Chinese, M = 4.31, SEM=
0.08; for Americans, M = 4.16, SEM= 0.09). Females were found to prefer a more high context
style than males (for males, M = 4.08, SEM= 0.11; for females, M = 4.31, SEM= 0.07).
However, we also found that American females (M= 4.34, SEM= 0.10) preferred high context
style more than American males (M= 3.64, SEM= 0.10). In contrast, Chinese males (M= 4.38,
SEM= 0.13) preferred high context style more than Chinese females (M= 4.26, SEM= 0.19).
Total number of words used. We conducted mixed model Analyses of Variance with
self’s culture, partner’s culture and the interaction of these two as the fixed effects, and pairs,
individual within pairs and time within individual as random effects on the number of words
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 19
used by each participant. We did not find any effect of partner’s culture (F[1, 56]<1, n.s) or any
interaction (F[1, 56]<1, n.s). However, we observed a trend (F[1, 56]=2.68, p=0.10) for
Americans to use more words (M=65.68, SEM=3.81) than Chinese (M=56.84, SEM=3.81).
Retrospective analysis of pair interaction
To test Hypotheses 1 to 4, we conducted mixed model Analyses of Variance with self’s
culture, partner’s culture and the interaction of these two as the fixed effects, and pairs,
individual within pairs, and time within individual as random effects. Note that in mixed models,
when tests of fixed effects involve a linear combination of variances at different levels of the
model (e.g., group and individual), it is standard to estimate the degree of freedoms associated
with the denominators by using Satterthwaite’s approximation. Therefore, non-integer degree of
freedoms may occur (see Littell, Milliken, Stroup & Wolfinger, 1996 for details). Because our
hypotheses concern the fixed effects of culture, we present only these fixed effects below.
Problems in Communication. Hypothesis 1A predicted that American and Chinese
participants will report more problems when working with a partner from a different culture than
when working with a partner from the same culture. Hypothesis 1B predicted that Chinese
working with Chinese will report more problems than Americans working with Americans. To
test these hypotheses, we conducted a mixed model analysis of the form outlined above, using
the number of problems reported during the retrospective analysis as our dependent measure. As
shown in Figure 3, H1a was partly supported. Significantly more problems were reported with
Chinese partners than with American partners (for Chinese partners, M= 3.9, SEM= 0.51; for
American partners, M= 1.8, SEM= 0.37; F[1, 51.16]=9.35, p<0.01). However, there were no
effects of self-culture and no interaction (both F < 1, n.s.). H1b was also supported. Chinese
working with Chinese reported more problems than Americans working with Americans.
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 20
Understanding. Hypothesis 2A predicted that Americans and Chinese working with a
partner from a different culture will report lower level of understanding than when working with
a partner from the same culture. Hypothesis 2B predicted that Chinese working with Chinese
will report lower level of understanding than Americans working with Americans. These
hypotheses were tested with a mixed model analysis using the level of understanding reported
during the retrospective analysis as the dependent measure. Contrary to H2a, we found no effect
of partner’s culture (F[1, 53.93] = 1.38, n.s) and no interaction (F[1, 27]<1, n.s) on reported
understanding. As Figure 4 shows, contrary to H2b, we found a trend that Chinese reported
higher levels of understanding (M=2.20, SEM=0.12) than Americans (M=1.93, 0.12), regardless
of with whom they were working.
Involvement. Hypothesis 3A predicted that participants working with a partner from a
different culture will report a lower level of involvement than participants working with a partner
from the same culture. Hypothesis 3B predicted that Americans working with American partners
will report lower levels of involvement than Chinese working with Chinese partners. To test
these hypotheses, we conducted mixed model analyses on the level of involvement and interest
reported during the retrospective analysis.
As shown in Figure 5, H3a was partially supported. There were no main effects of self’s
culture (F[1, 55.17]<1, n.s) and partner’s culture (F[1, 55.27]<1, n.s), but there was a trend for an
interaction between self’s and partner’s culture (F[1, 27]=2.76, p=0.10). Americans working
with another American tended to report a higher level of interest (M=2.28, SEM=0.14) than
Americans working with a Chinese partner (M=1.99, SEM=0.18). Similarly, Chinese working
with a Chinese partner tended to report a higher level of interest (M=2.31, SEM=0.14) than
Chinese working with an American partner (M=2.02, SEM=0.18).
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 21
No significant effect was found for involvement (for self’s culture, F[1, 55.61] = 2.00,
n.s; for partner’s culture, F[1, 55.61]<1, n.s; for interaction, F[1, 27] <1, n.s).
Negative emotions. Hypothesis 4A predicted that Americans and Chinese working with
partners from a different culture will report higher level of negative emotions than when working
with partners from the same culture. Hypothesis 4B predicted that Chinese working with Chinese
will report higher level of negative emotions than Americans working with Americans. To test
these hypotheses, we conducted mixed model analyses on the level of tension and annoyance
reported during the retrospective analysis. Neither hypothesis was supported (all Fs < 1, n.s.).
Outcome Measures
Subjective Outcomes. Hypothesis 5A predicted that Americans and Chinese working
with a partner from a different culture will report lower perceived team performance than when
working with a partner from the same culture. Hypothesis 5B predicted that Chinese working
with Chinese will report higher perceived performance than Americans working with Americans.
These hypotheses were tested using two-way Analyses of Variance with two factors: self’s
culture and partner’s culture on the perceived pair performance ratings of participants and the
perceived effort spent doing the task.
As shown in Figure 6, H5a was partially supported. There was a trend toward lower
subjective performance evaluation when one worked with a Chinese partner (for Chinese partner,
M= 4.53, SEM= 0.22; for American partners, M= 5.05, SEM= 0.22; F [1, 50.85] =2.62, p=0.11).
There was no main effect of self’s culture (F[1, 50.85]<1, n.s) and no interaction (F[1, 27]<1,
n.s). We also observed a trend toward more effort spent working with a Chinese partner (for
Chinese partners, M= 4.08, SEM= 0.16; for American partners, M= 3.65, SEM= .20; F [1, 55.91]
=2.28, p=0.13). Again there was no main effect of self’s culture (F[1, 55.91]<1, n.s), and no
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 22
interaction (F[1, 27]<1, n.s). Contrary to H5b, Chinese working with Chinese had a tendency
towards reporting lower perceived performance than Americans working with Americans.
Performance. Hypothesis 6A predicted that Americans and Chinese working with a
partner from a different culture will achieve lower objective performance than when working
with a partner from the same culture. Hypothesis 6B predicted that Chinese working with
Chinese will have lower objective performance than Americans working with Americans. To test
these hypotheses, we conducted one-way ANOVA with culture combination (AA, AC, CC) as
the factor on the binary rating of the answers given by the pairs and on the total number of clues
given in the explanations. The results did not support either hypothesis. We did not find any
effect of pair combination on the answers’ correctness (F[2]<1, n.s) nor on the total number of
correct clues (F[2]=1.88, n.s).
Discussion
This study aimed at identifying problems that arise in intercultural collaboration by
examining various aspects of the communication process such as understanding, involvement
and negative emotions. First, we hypothesized that more communication problems would be
reported in cross-culture pairs than in same culture pairs. Second, we predicted that these
problems would be associated with lower levels of understanding and involvement and higher
levels of negative emotions in cross-culture pairs compared to same culture pairs. Third, we
proposed that this would lead to lower performance and poorer subjective outcomes in cross-
culture pairs than in same culture pairs.
We found mixed support for these hypotheses. Our first and second set of hypotheses
were partly confirmed. We found main effect of partner’s culture on the number of problems
reported. We also found main effects of self’s and partner’s culture on two aspects of the
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 23
communication process: understanding and involvement. Our third set of hypotheses was partly
confirmed. We did not find any significant difference on the performance of pairs. However we
found a trend toward lower subjective outcomes with Chinese partners than with American
partners.
The most intriguing aspect of our findings is the lack of interaction between a
participant’s own culture and his/her partner’s culture on most variables. Americans did report
more collaboration issues working with a partner from a different culture (Chinese). This is
consistent with previous work indicating that differences in communication styles between
Chinese and Western partners can create problems in collaboration (e.g., Li, 1999a, 1999b,
Setlock et al. 2004). The difference between Americans’ low context style and Chinese’s high
context style could have led to differences in collaboration strategies such as how to organize
and share information, how to resolve conflicts, or how to approach the crime case. In addition,
American might find it hard to adapt to a Chinese’s partner usage of English.
Interestingly, we found the opposite for Chinese participants, who reported more
problems working with a Chinese partner. Perhaps having to use a second language to
collaborate on a difficult problem-solving task may hinder the communication between Chinese
partners, who may have very different styles of English use. This may lead to a lower level of
understanding and a higher level of tension. However, we found a trend that Chinese reported
higher level of understanding than Americans. There are a number of different possible
explanations for this effect, including cultural differences in the use of the understanding scale,
or a failure of non-native English speakers to accurately detect when they did not understand a
message.
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 24
The level of involvement in same culture (AA or CC) pairs tended to be higher than in
cross culture pairs, consistent with previous research (Chen, 1995; Li, 2001). A variety of factors
may explain this finding. First, when conversing with a person having the same communication
style, participants may find it easier to communicate and thus easier to become engaged in the
conversation. Alternatively, people may simply feel more involved when interacting with people
who are similar to them, across a great many dimensions. Teasing these two explanations apart
can be difficult because similar others are likely to share the same communication style.
Although more problems were reported in collaborations with Chinese partners, we did
not find any difference in objective task performance. One possible explanation is that for a
decision making task like the crime case in our experiment, which had only 10 minutes of
allotted time, pairs might be likely to leave confusions, disagreements and doubts unresolved due
to time pressure (e.g., Edland & Svenson, 1993; Johnson, Payne, & Bettman, 1993; Smith,
Mitchell & Beach, 1982). A longer-term task in which people have to work together over time
might show a performance effect, as misunderstandings are compounded. It is also possible that
the self-reported problems mostly concerned the relational or affective aspects of the
collaboration, rather than task execution.
Limitation and Future Directions
There are several important limitations to the current study. First, we examined dyads,
not larger groups of cross-culture members, which may be more typical of global teamwork. We
also focused only on two out of the many cultures with which people engage in intercultural
teams. Furthermore, our Chinese participants were studying or working in the U.S and clearly
do not represent the larger population of Chinese people with whom Americans might
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 25
collaborate. Another limitation is the relatively small number of dyads in each condition, which
reduced the power of some of our analyses.
Our next steps include a more detailed coding of the transcripts to further understand the
dynamics of the dialogues at the time at which participants report a problem. We also plan to
explore how our various measures of the communication process (tension, annoyance, interest,
involvement and understanding) change over time during the interaction. In the longer term, we
plan to use the same retrospective technique to examine how problems arise in intercultural
computer mediated communication. With the findings from these analyses, we hope we can
uncover the mechanism by which the communication process could lead to communication
problems in intercultural collaboration. This in turn will help us characterize these problems at a
deeper level, which hopefully will provide insights into how intercultural collaboration can be
improved.
Conclusion
In this study we explored the problems that arise in intercultural communication. We
used retrospective analysis to examine three aspects of the communication process:
understanding, involvement and negative emotions, in 30 pairs of American and Chinese
participants. We found a main effect of partner’s culture on the number of problems reported, but
we did not find the expected interaction between the participant’s own culture and partner’s
culture. We also found that participants tended to report higher involvement in interactions with
someone who shared their cultural background. Our findings help clarify when problems arise
as a function of one communicator’s own cultural orientation, irrespective of the cultural
composition of the group, and when these problems arise from mismatches in communication
styles.
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 26
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Figure 1. Split screen video used for playback during the retrospective analysis phase.
Figure 2. Experimental set up. A: The set up of the discussion table for Phase 1.
B: The workstation of a participant during Phase 2 (retrospective analysis).
A. Phase 1 pair discussion B. Work station in Phase 2
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 36
Figure 3. Mean number of problems per clip from the retrospective phase of the
interaction by participant culture and partner culture. Error bars indicate standard errors
of the mean.
Figure 4. Mean level of understanding on a scale of 1 (not understanding at all) to 7 (very
understanding) per clip by participant culture and partner culture. Error bars indicate
standard errors of the mean.
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 37
Figure 5. Mean level of interest on a scale of 1 (not interested at all) to 7 (very interested)
per clip by participant culture and partner culture. Error bars indicate standard errors of
the mean.
Figure 6. Mean subjective evaluation of performance on a scale of 1 (low) to 7 (high) by
participant culture and partner culture. Error bars indicate standard errors of the mean.
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 38
Table 1
Questions used to evaluate experience in the task with factors loadings from factor
analysis with Varimax rotation
Items Loadings
How comfortable are you in collaborating with your partner? .915
How much did you like your partner? .912
How much did you feel liked by your partner? .874
How much did you enjoy the session? .769
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION 39
Table 2
Items originally belonging to High and Low Context culture in Gudykunst et al. (1996).
Low context High context
In arguments, I insist on very precise
definitions
I am very good at knowing the feelings other people are
experiencing.
I openly show my disagreement with
others
I listen attentively, even when others are talking in an
uninteresting manner
In interacting with someone I dislike, I keep my true
feelings hidden
I can tell when someone likes me without being told.
I qualify (e. g., use "maybe," "perhaps") my language
when I communicate
When pressed for an opinion, I respond with an
ambiguous answer
I listen very carefully to people when they talk
I use silence to avoid upsetting others when we
communicate
I catch on to what others mean even when they do not
say it directly.
I avoid eye contact when I communicate with others
I avoid clear-cut expressions of feelings when I
communicate with others