What factors are associated with communication problems in Dancom? Discuss the impact of these factors on the inter-cultural tensions in the company and suggest some approaches to their resolution.

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  • What factors are associated with communication problems in Dancom? Discuss the impact of these factors on the inter-cultural tensions in the company and suggest some approaches to their resolution.

This case study concerns Dancom (not its real name), a large Danish company which is a world leader in some of its areas of business. The organization encompasses significant cultural divergences in its day to- day interactions since it has subsidiaries in more than a hundred countries and employs more than 20,000 people worldwide. Dancom started its activities in Russia as a Sales Office in 1993. Currently it is represented by a sales office, a production unit and two branch offices in four different Russian cities.

The culture of two different countries also plays a vital role in the communication problem in Dancom. Basically culture means the system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviours, and artefacts that the members of society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning.

If we look at Dancom first thing that we notice is that Dancom is a Danish company. And it is operating in Russia. As a result the management and the employees are mixture of Danish and Russian nationalities. The first factor associated with communication problems is, Here Denmark is the parent country, and Russia is the host country. So the local Russian sees the Danes as foreigners. Often they call them as “foreigners”. So from the get go it creates a communication gap between locals and the foreigners. It is almost given that people from a similar group will communicate better. Whenever they come across a different group there is an invisible barrier between two parties. So any sort of communication is cautious and hesitant. At Dancom the interaction of host and foreign culture makes communication complicated.

One of the biggest factors in communication problem is the Russian employee’s perception of belonging to the organization. There are two groups, “Hosting insiders” and “Hosting outsiders”. Having these two groups made communicating complicated within the organization and at the interpersonal level. As these groups associate themselves differently to the organization, they developed different values to each other. The hosting insiders are mostly employees who joined Dancom immediately or soon after the establishment in Russia. They believe that the atmosphere in the organization is friendly .they also are satisfied and feels proud of working for Dancom. They identify themselves strongly with the organization. As result they have less formulized and informal communication system with the Danes. They believe that having an informal relation with their superiors will increase the unity and efficiency at workplace. They don’t like to write official request or other papers to solve problems. They also like to enter their Danish superior’s any time they want to discuss a problem directly. The case also indicated that the Russian s don’t have respect of other people’s private space It reflects on their way of communicating with the Danes.          

The hosting outsiders present another factor to the communications problem in Dancom. It leads to inter-cultural tension within the company. If we take at look at the characteristics of hosting outsiders we will be able to understand the communication problem and the inter-cultural tension in Dancom. Most of them joined very recently and do not identify themselves strongly with the organization. Like other Russian the hosting outsides did not spend much time working for Dancom. They have their own set of value and believe. They found themselves lost and lonely. It led to a distance in the communication with the Danish employees of Dancom. They feel more formal approach is better for an organization like this. They believe that formalization will solve many problems.  

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The culture of two different countries also plays a vital role in the communication problem in Dancom. Basically culture means the system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviours, and artefacts that the members of society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning. Most of these hosing outsiders are disappointed with the company. They feel needs and goals of company and their own are two different worlds. As a result of this I believe the communication between them and the Danes are not very good. Which lead to ...

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