Intercultural collaboration stories:

On narrative inquiry and analysis as

tools for research in international business

Martine Cardel Gertsen andAnne-Marie Søderberg

Department of Intercultural Communication and

Management, Copenhagen Business School,Frederiksberg, Denmark

Correspondence:A-M Søderberg, Copenhagen BusinessSchool, Porcelænshaven 18A,2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark.Tel: þ45 38153204;Fax: þ45 38153840;E-mail: ams.ikl@cbs.dk

Received: 8 September 2009Revised: 25 February 2011Accepted: 27 February 2011Online publication date: 21 April 2011

AbstractThe objective of this article is to show how narrative methods provide useful tools

for international business research. We do this by presenting a study of stories toldabout the collaboration between a Danish expatriate manager and his Chinese

CEO in the Shanghai subsidiary of an MNE. First, we explain and exemplify how

narrative interviews are designed and conducted. In this connection, we considerthe interviewers’ interaction with the interviewees, and clarify our reasons for

focusing on the two selected interviews. Second, we demonstrate how narrative

concepts and models are able to elucidate intercultural collaboration processes byanalyzing how each member of a dyad of interacting managers narrates the same

chain of events. We show how the narratological concepts of peripeteia and

anagnorisis are well suited to identifying focal points in their stories: situationswhere change follows their recognizing new dimensions of their conflicts,

eventually furthering their collaboration. We explain how Greimas’s actantial

model is valuable when mapping differences between and changes in the

narrators’ projects, alliances and oppositions in the course of their interaction.Thus, we make it clear how they overcome most of their differences and establish

common ground through mutual learning.

Journal of International Business Studies (2011) 42, 787–804.

doi:10.1057/jibs.2011.15

Keywords: cross-cultural research; cross-cultural management; China; interculturalcollaboration; narrative interviewing; narrative analysis

INTRODUCTION

Danny went about poking his nose into everything y he was very concerned

because I hardly left any paper on my desk in the office, and he was anxious

that the Chinese employees would think that I was not doing a bloody thing, so

I had to put some piles of paper on the desk y I also received a letter from him

saying that he was quite sure that pupils in Danish elementary schools were

taught to place their chairs under the desks. And once he mailed to everybody

in the Shanghai office that somebody had forgotten a pizza box on the copy

machine. y I just thought that it was ridiculous.

This fragment of a story, told by an expatriate Danish manager inShanghai, illustrates how he initially experienced the collaborationwith his superior, a Chinese CEO. Real-life stories such as thisabound in the daily lives of international business people, and thiscontrasts sharply with the scantiness of narrative studies publishedin international business research. But, as pointed out by cognitive

Journal of International Business Studies (2011) 42, 787–804& 2011 Academy of International Business All rights reserved 0047-2506

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psychologist Jerome Bruner, narratives generallyspring from the dialectic between what was expectedby the narrator and some unforeseen course ofevents that took place instead. And, as he phrases it:“culture is, figuratively, the maker and enforcer ofwhat is expected” (Bruner, 2002: 15). Thereforeinternational business, and not least the intercultur-al collaboration involved, provides raw material inthe form of stories that people tell, which in turnbecome rich data from which to make sense of themicro-processes underlying cross-cultural interac-tions fundamental to understanding strategy imple-mentation across borders.

In this study, we show how narrative analysisfurthers international business theory developmentabout international business collaboration. Weintroduce narrative theory and narrative interview-ing, and demonstrate the use and potential ofnarrative methods by analyzing stories about inter-cultural collaboration as told by two managers: aDane and a Chinese working in a Chinese sub-sidiary of an MNE headquartered in Denmark.Their interaction, and their mutual efforts to colla-borate, involve not only different types of knowl-edge, values and behavior, which they may or maynot share, but also their ongoing sensemaking. Weshow how a narrative approach offers possibilitiesto capture the richness of meaning in this sense-making, something that is easily lost if their indivi-dual and mutual experiences are reduced tothematic, codable categories, as is often done insurveys and structured research interviews.

The purpose of this article is to answer thefollowing research questions:

� How can intercultural business collaboration bestudied through narrative interviewing?

� How can analyses of narrative interviews withexpatriate and local managers elucidate theirdifferent attempts to make sense of and learnfrom critical events in their intercultural colla-boration?

� Which aspects of intercultural business collabora-tion are narrative methods particularly suited toexpound upon?

After a brief presentation of the parts of narrativetheory most relevant to our research focus, weconsider narrative interviewing as a method ofinquiry, and describe our research design. Thesubsequent section consists of in-depth analysesof two narrative interviews and a discussion ofour findings. Finally, we offer some concludingremarks, and discuss how other areas within

international business research can benefit fromapplying a narrative approach.

NARRATIVE THEORYThe theory and systematic study of stories ornarratives1 began in the early 20th century as ascience of literary form and structure (Propp, 1968;first Russian edition 1928). The following definitionof a story highlights a number of the essentialcharacteristics of this concept:

A story describes a sequence of actions and experiences

done or undergone by a certain number of people, whether

real or imaginary. These people in turn are presented either

in situations that change or as reacting to such change. In

turn, these changes reveal hidden aspects of the situation

and the people involved, and engender a new predicament

which calls for thought, action, or both. The response to the

new situation leads the story towards its conclusion.

(Ricoeur, 1983: 150; quoted in Feldman, Skioldberg,

Brown, & Horner, 2004: 149)

The scope of narrative studies has expanded into,for instance, history, where it has been shown howhistorians construct plots when accounting forspecific historic events (White, 1987). Narrativestudies have also spread to sociology and anthro-pology, for example in studies of personal lifestories (Riessman, 2008), and to cognitive psychol-ogy, where the focus is on how subjective reality isconstructed through the stories people tell tomake sense of their lives (Bruner, 2002). Narrativeapproaches have found their way into business-related disciplines as well. They have been appliedto marketing, for example in studies of brandcommunities and connections between brand,individual identity and culture (Schau & Muniz,2006), to studies of strategy as a form of fiction(Barry & Elmes, 1997), and to studies of managers’autobiographical identity work (Watson, 2009).But, most notably, the narrative perspective hasgained a solid ground in organization studies overthe last 20 years. For example, Gabriel (2000) hasexplored emotional and symbolic aspects of orga-nizational life, related to organizational politics,culture and change, based on analyses of storiesfrom the field. Other organization scholars havestudied not only how managers and employeesconstruct plots and characters to make sense ofchange (Brown & Humphreys, 2003), but also howthese stories have an organizing effect (Czarniawska& Gagliardi, 2003). Finally, concepts from narratol-ogy have been used in interpretive studies ofpublic management (Czarniawska, 1997 and 2001;

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Feldman et al., 2004), and in studies of entrepre-neurship (Hjorth & Steyaert, 2004).

Although some researchers have argued for theuse of narrative methodology in cross-culturalorganizational research, and have explored notionsof control across cultures through a narrativeapproach (Soin & Scheytt, 2006), it has been usedinfrequently in cross-cultural work. This is also thecase in the field of international business, withfew exceptions: for example, a longitudinal studyby Gertsen and Søderberg (2000) of a series ofinternational acquisitions of a company; a study byOsland (2000) of expatriate managers’ heroic tales;and a study by Søderberg (2006) of top managers’contrasting narratives about integration processesfollowing an international merger. Even in therelatively recent Handbook of Qualitative Methods forInternational Business only one of the articles dealsmore than sporadically with narratives, and thenprimarily as a means of research representation(McGaughey, 2004).

In a study of stories told by US expatriates, Osland(2000) expounds the various stages of the expatriateexperience, and the transformations the indivi-dual goes through. She relies on a framework deve-loped by Joseph Campbell to analyze hero myths(Campbell, 1968). Our focus is not on stories ofindividual psychological transformation, but ratheron stories of mutual learning and interculturalcollaboration. We investigate how narrators pre-sent the process through which they discover andlearn something new about cultural differences andhow to bridge them. Furthermore, we identify theturning points where change in collaborationpatterns seems to occur.

In the following we present and discuss twoconcepts related to the chronological developmentof stories, as well as a plot model of narrativestructure: see the Appendix for an overview of thekey concepts used in this article.

As touched upon in the definition quoted above,a story is composed as a sequence, that is, it has achronological dimension. It is made up of actionsand experiences – events – selected by a narratorand ordered along a line of time from a certainpoint of view. Events represent transitions from onestate to another, caused or experienced by thepeople in the story (Bal, 1985). When narratorsdescribe an event, they relate it to individuals’intentions and actions as well as to other events,thereby suggesting causal relations between them.In this way, they are integrated into a plot thatgives them meaning. Events may have to do with

changes representing challenges or crises – criticalincidents, in other words.

In Aristotle’s discussion of plots in Poetics(Aristotle, 1989, originally 4th century BC), thenotion of peripeteia is pivotal. Literally, the Greekterm means “sudden change,” and it describes thereversal of fortune experienced by tragic characterssuch as King Oedipus. When a messenger giveshim the information that makes him realize thathe has slain his father and married his mother, thefollowing train of action is changed as a conse-quence of his critical discovery. Something similar –although hopefully less tragic – often happens inthe stories of critical incidents in the interculturalbusiness collaborations we have studied. It maywell be situations wrought with doubt, irritation orother emotional discomfort, which eventually leadnot only to a change of action, but also to culturalunderstanding, learning and progress in collabora-tion. Therefore, it is relevant when studying storiesof intercultural collaboration in an MNE to iden-tify peripeteia, the turning point, and anagnorisis,the term introduced by Aristotle to designate therecognition of hidden aspects of a situation thatmarks a change from ignorance to knowledge.

Greimas’s Actantial Model for Narrative AnalysisThe actantial model developed by Greimas (1966)for narrative analysis of plot structure furtherelucidates how stories are constructed. In particu-lar, if the model is used to compose snapshots ofthe stories at different points in time, and from theviewpoints of interacting narrators, it is well suitedto cast light on their differing or changing inter-pretations of their own projects, as well as those ofothers who either assist or frustrate the narrators’projects. The characterizations of these others, asheroes or villains, for example, are decisive for theway a plot unfolds in the stories told.

Greimas’s actantial model is widely applied innarrative analysis of plot structures, and below it isapplied to a fairy tale for illustrative purposes. It is atraditional story of a prince who loves a princesscaptured by a dragon. He combats the dragon with amagic sword to set her free, and finally receives herhand in marriage from her father, the king (Figure 1).

The central notion in Greimas’s model is theactant. Greimas posits six actants in three pairs ofbinary opposition. These three pairs of relatedactants conceptualize fundamental patterns foundin most narratives: subject/object, which designatesa quest or wish for something; sender/receiver,which stands for a process of transmission or

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communication; and, finally, helper/opponent,which describes support or opposition related tothe subject’s endeavors. In the case of empiricalnarratives such as ours about intercultural businesscollaboration, the subject-actant is frequently iden-tical with the narrator. He or she is trying to fulfilla desire or aspiring toward a goal (e.g., a managerworking hard to establish a new subsidiary). Thoughthe object-actant may be a human being (as theprincess in the fairy tale), in our context it is morelikely to consist of reaching a certain state (e.g.,a promotion, or the successful completion of aproject). The sender-actant may be a person (e.g., theCEO), but is often an abstraction (e.g., the forces ofglobalization). The receiver-actant is often, but notalways, the same person as the subject-actant (e.g.,the local manager who is given an important task bythe CEO). Similarly, the helper-actant and theopponent-actant may be either persons or abstrac-tions, furthering or impeding the quest for thedesired object (i.e., the helper may be hard work or acompetent colleague; the opponent may be lazinessor an incompetent superior).

Turning points in real-life stories, like the ones westudy here, represent peripeteia in the Aristoteliansense. They are often characterized by a plot deve-lopment that changes the actantial model, some-times as an expression of increased knowledge(anagnorisis). Changes in the model may be, forinstance, that a helper appears, an opponent be-comes a helper, the object is redefined, or thenarrator presents himself/herself as a subject in anew way. The roles that the narrator assigns to himor herself and to others may be differently designedat different stages in a narrative. This means thatmore than one actantial model is needed toencompass a narrator’s development of his/herstories about actors and events.

NARRATIVE INTERVIEWING ANDRESEARCH DESIGN

We chose the two narrative interviews analyzed inthe next section from a corpus of data generated in

the context of a more comprehensive qualitativestudy of intercultural collaboration and learning infive multinational companies of Danish origin.

In autumn 2009, two scholars conducted narra-tive interviews with expatriate managers andChinese managers in Chinese subsidiaries of theseMNEs. The interviews centered on the interviewees’personal experiences of successes and challenges inintercultural collaboration. Three days before theinterviews took place, each interviewee received ane-mail from the two researchers with informationabout the objectives of the research project. Theyassured the interviewees anonymity, and promisednot to disseminate any information obtained duringan interview to other persons in the company. Inorder to prime the interviewees, the researchersprovided them with a list of sample questions.Western expatriate managers in China were asked,for example: “What are your most significant experi-ences from collaboration with Chinese colleagues?Can you think of something particularly surprising,frustrating, difficult, positive, thought-provoking?”The researchers sent similar questions on intercul-tural interaction and collaboration with expatriatemanagers to the Chinese managers.

All narrative interviews were performed either inthe interviewee’s own office or in a companyconference room. Interviews typically lasted from1.30 h to 2 h; they were recorded and transcribedverbatim. The interviews with Danish expatriatemanagers were carried out in their mother tongue,Danish, whereas the interviews with Chinesemanagers and expatriate managers of other nation-alities were carried out in English. We havetranslated the excerpts from the interview withthe Danish manager analyzed in this article intoEnglish.

Choosing Appropriate Focal Stories for In-DepthNarrative AnalysisTo elucidate through narrative analysis how man-agers make sense of and learn from critical eventsin their intercultural collaborations, we chosetwo stories from a subsidiary of the multinationalcompany, ComDan,2 with regional headquarterssituated in Shanghai. This organizational unitcoordinates the activities of ComDan’s sales officesand production facilities in several locations inChina. In Shanghai, we interviewed three expatri-ate managers from Denmark (the managing direc-tor of the Shanghai office, the director of businessdevelopment, and a senior commercial develop-ment manager) and five Chinese managers (the

Sender → Object → Receiver- The mighty king

↑Helper → Subject ← Opponent

- The prince’s fairy godmother, who gives him a magic sword

- The prince from a neighboring kingdom

- The vicious dragon who has captured the princess

- The prince- The princess

Figure 1 Greimas’s actantial model: simple application to a

generic fairy tale.

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CEO of China, the deputy managing director of thesubsidiary, the senior sales manager, the humanresources manager, and the financial controller).

We chose the two stories because they are multi-faceted in the sense of including plots, conflicts andreferences to organizational as well as culturalcontexts. They constitute neither a random sample,nor a representative case. Such material maynot be the richest, and it has been our objective tosingle out interviews that reveal as much and asvaried information on the phenomenon of inter-cultural collaboration as possible (Flyvbjerg,2004). One narrative interview is with Jan Gram, aDanish expatriate who is managing director of theShanghai office; the other is with Danny Lim, alocal Chinese who is the CEO of China. The twointerviews explicitly refer to the same series ofcritical events in an intercultural collaborationprocess, but told in two different voices. They areabout conflicts that evoked emotions, challengedthe interviewees’ existing understandings, and, inthe end, made the expatriate manager and the localCEO reflect on their collaboration and cope with itin new ways.

Matching the Focus of Narrative Analysis with theResearch QuestionMost importantly, we chose these two particularmanagers’ stories because their qualifications andpositions in the subsidiary make it crucial to them,as well as to the MNE, that they are able tocollaborate. The experienced, middle-aged ChineseCEO knows the local culture and the local marketswell – context-specific knowledge that is highlyneeded in the MNE, which is in a phase of globalexpansion and has acquired several Chinese com-panies. According to other interviewees at theheadquarters, the younger expatriate manager hasthe potential to become a top manager in the MNEin the future. He makes it clear in the interview thathe is ambitious, and well aware that it may benefithis international career to develop his culturalsensitivity further. According to his own account,it is an important part of his assignment to raiseawareness in the Chinese subsidiary of the globalstrategy developed by headquarters, and he realizesthat he must do so in close collaboration with theChinese CEO.

In contrast to traditional power relations betweenexpatriate and local managers in subsidiaries ofWestern MNEs, the Chinese manager occupies thehighest position in the subsidiary as CEO of China,while the expatriate is managing director of the

Shanghai office, and thus his subordinate andsecond in command. This may reflect a generaltrend, at least in ComDan, where we learnedthrough interviews with managers at the head-quarters that the company is currently delegatingmuch more responsibility to local managers thanthey did just a few years ago. However, ComDanstill sends out expatriate managers, primarily tosecure a better integration of operations in thesubsidiaries to strengthen the global organization.

Therefore, for our two interviewees, collaborationis a sine qua non if they are to fill the positions theyhave been assigned in an adequate manner. Thus,we have chosen the two interviewees because theyconstitute a significant dyad in the subsidiary, andtherefore may reasonably be expected to be moti-vated to work intensely with the challenges ofintercultural collaboration.

To sum up, we find the two narrative interviewswell suited to serve the two main purposes of thisarticle: first, to illustrate how analyses of narrativesof cultural encounters can be carried out usingnarratological concepts and tools; second, to illus-trate how a narrative approach may deepen ourunderstanding of intercultural collaboration pro-cesses and mutual learning in a business context.

Reflexivity is obviously important in all kindsof scientific activity, and not least in qualitativeresearch such as the narrative study reportedhere. As researchers, we need to be aware of theactive roles we play, both in the production of thenarrative interviews and in the subsequent analysisof them. Narrative interviewing is not just “datacollection” about “what really happened,” butinvolves a process of mutual construction of empi-rical material through the interviewees’ promptedstorytelling about selected events. Moreover, we donot let the “voices of the field” speak entirely forthemselves in our analyses; we choose the quotesaccording to our criteria of importance from theinterview transcripts. Through our choice of mod-els and concepts we emphasize certain structuresand meanings in their stories.

Conducting the InterviewsInterviewers act as co-authors of the narratives toldto them, to the extent that the interviews arecarried out on their initiative: they ask the ques-tions, and may influence the process by comment-ing. But, in contrast to standardized interviews, theinterviewers only asked very few open questions toset the scene in the two narrative interviews wehave selected for analysis. It was, however, crucial

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to the interaction with the interviewer that theinterviewee felt that the few questions asked – andthe interview as a whole – were relevant andspecifically related to the interviewees’ currentwork situations. The interviewers had prepared forthe interviews by familiarizing themselves withboth the organizational and the cultural contextof the subsidiary. One interviewer is a professor ofChinese business studies, the other a professor ofcross-cultural communication and management.These backgrounds, as well as their knowledge ofComDan from readings and from previous inter-views at the headquarters, were useful during initialinformal talk (about, for instance, a recent bio-graphy of ComDan’s corporate CEO) and whenmaking a few small comments along the way, forinstance about the impact of Confucian values inChina. This helped in making the interviewees feelconfident that they were telling their stories tointerested and well-informed listeners.

An understanding of the interviewer’s role asthe narrator’s empathic “fellow traveler” (Gabriel,2000) guided the interviewers’ efforts. Once theinterviewee had started telling his stories, theinterviewers tried to refrain from interrupting histrain of thought by commenting or evaluatingat length. The interviewer asked a few clarifyingquestions in order to stimulate the storytellingalong the way, and occasionally the interviewerrepeated a statement made by the narrator in anattempt to encourage him to go deeper into issuesof specific research interest, in this case thecollaboration between the expatriate and the localtop manager. Sometimes it is useful for the inter-viewer to make a brief remark in order to keepthe interview going, or to get the interviewee togo deeper into his story, for example when theinterviewer remarks: “That’s certainly a very posi-tive story” and the interviewee takes this as a clueto go deeper into his story about the troublesomecollaboration process: “Yes, well, but it wasn’t forfree! We had huge conflicts during the first sixmonths; we had to work hard to get to understandeach other. [The interviewee goes on to elaborate].”But, most of the time, the interviewers limitedthemselves to listening as actively and attentivelyas possible (by signaling comprehension and inter-est by nodding, keeping eye contact, or smilingsympathetically).

Further Reflection on the Interviewer EffectWhen listening to the audio files and reading thetranscripts of the two interviews, we notice various

indications that a trustful relation between inter-viewers and interviewees was created. While bothinterviewees now feel that they have overcomemost of the problems in their collaboration, it stilldemonstrates a degree of confidence that they arewilling to tell us in detail about difficult experi-ences with struggles and misunderstandings fromtheir personal perspectives. Other indications of agood social interaction between interviewers andinterviewees are the narrators’ humorous remarksand laughs, which became more frequent duringthe interviews. Also, the interviewees’ body lan-guage and general attitude became increasinglyrelaxed. The expatriate manager, in particular, usedmany informal expressions and funny turns ofphrase, for instance when he referred to himselfwith ironic distance as “a crazy headquarter con-nected gwailo [common Cantonese slang expres-sion for foreigner, literally: ‘foreign devil’].” Finally,the interviewees expressed interest in getting toknow more about the findings from the researchproject, and offered to be of further assistance. Thismay have been pure politeness, of course, but mayalso indicate that they had not experienced theinterview situation as disagreeable or a waste oftime.

The impression remains, however, that the inter-viewers were a little more successful in establishingcontact with the expatriate manager. When com-pared with the Chinese CEO, the Danish expatriategives the impression of speaking more freely, andof addressing problematic issues more directly.There are several possible reasons for this. One isthe cultural dimensions of communication styles,where extant research would lead us to expect aDane to be more direct, explicit and unambiguousthan a Chinese (cf. Hall, 1976, on high- and low-context communication). Another explanationhas to do with the power relations betweenthe corporate headquarters and the subsidiary.Although the interviewers made it clear from theoutset that they were not sent by headquarters, anddid not represent its interests and perspectives, theinterviewers were still of the same nationality asthe vast majority of headquarters management.This may have made the Chinese CEO more wary ofexpressing any overt criticism related to head-quarters or Danish colleagues in general. Never-theless, he has worked in the company for 20 years,and he told the interviewers that he had familiar-ized himself with a more direct communicationstyle. Actually, the Chinese CEO did make a fewcritical comments, too, notably when talking about

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headquarters managers who know very littleabout Chinese culture and the Chinese society,and express no interest in learning about it. Onthe contrary: “You know, they will say, ‘You guys,let me teach you.’ They still have that kind ofattitude.”

The Danish expatriate, by contrast, shared thenative language and cultural background of theinterviewers, something that probably made himmore at ease in his interaction with them. Wewould therefore expect it to be easier for him to tellinterviewers of the same nationality about hismore problematic experiences of intercultural col-laboration, thus creating an ad hoc national com-munity with them as “fellow travelers.” He impliesthat he expects the interviewers to see the Chinesecontext much in the way that he does, for instancewhen he makes an initial humorous demonstrationof the Chinese ritual of business card exchange, orwhen he describes Chinese management as beingvery focused on “what we in our part of the worldsee as silly details.” Here, his use of “we” showshe includes the interviewers in his observations,assuming that they share them. A final reason whythe young expatriate manager appears to speak veryfreely, not only about his own struggles, but alsoabout his relation to the Chinese CEO, may be thathe possesses considerable informal power due to hisclose connections to top management at the head-quarters. We will elaborate on this point in thenarrative analysis below.

NARRATIVE ANALYSESIn the narrative analyses we look at what the storiestold in the course of the two narrative interviewssay – in this case about intercultural collaboration –and compare the two accounts of the same series ofevents. We also look at how each narrator constructshis plot in order to tell a story from his perspectiveand in his voice.

We use the notions of peripeteia and anagnorisiswhen identifying critical incidents in narratives.We concentrate on events that are narrated in moredetail, since the narrator typically perceives them ascrucial. Since we are interested in learning howto further intercultural collaboration, we look intoany instances of accompanying anagnorisis we canfind in the narratives, that is, insights followingfrom such events. In addition, we use actantialanalysis to throw light on developments in alli-ances and oppositions as the stories proceed. Westructure our analyses of the two narrative inter-views around our interpretations of the actants, and

the ways in which they relate to each other in thestories told by the two narrators.

In the following analyses of the narrative inter-views with Jan Gram, managing director of theShanghai office, and Danny Lim, CEO of China, wefirst look at the collaboration process through Jan’sperspective. In order to capture the dynamicsof the process as it unfolds in his understanding,we separate his story into two parts, and use theactantial model to investigate how he sees theactants and their functions in each. In the first partof the story, Jan looks back at the problematicinitial phases of his assignment in Shanghai beforethe turning point or peripeteia; in the secondpart he tells of the present situation, and how hegradually learned to handle his relationship toDanny more successfully (anagnorisis). Next, weapproach Danny’s account of the collaborationprocess, and use the actantial model to show howhe defines the actants and their functions differ-ently. We also identify and analyze peripeteia in hisstory. Finally, we discuss and compare their stories.

Jan’s Story: Pizza Boxes, Papers and Chairs –Toward an Understanding of the Chinese BusinessContextJan Gram is in his mid-30s. After his graduationfrom a business school in 1998, he was employedby ComDan, where he has had a meteoric career,starting at the headquarters in Copenhagen, wherehe was eventually appointed strategic director, andsince 2007 in China, at first as a business develop-ment manager. At the time of the interview in theautumn of 2009 he had been working as managingdirector of the Shanghai office for about a year. Asbriefly touched upon, ComDan has been through adecade of rapid and dramatic growth in China,and the corporate management at headquartershas given the Chinese organization considerablefreedom to run the business according to localpreferences during this turbulent period of time.Now, however, the corporate management feelsthat the time has come to standardize operationsmore, and make sure that both managerial ap-proaches and marketing efforts correspond tothe strategy decided at headquarters. As a formerstrategic director, Jan is familiar with the goals setat headquarters, and it is part of his job in Shanghaito push the local organization in that direction.

When describing his international career to theinterviewers, Jan says that he has been conscious ofa need to prove himself because of his age, which isyoung for his position, and also because it is well

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known in the organization that his former superior,the corporate CEO of ComDan, appreciates hiswork and has furthered his career. He is awarethat this has made his Chinese colleagues see himas a “golden boy.” During the interview, Jan tellsprimarily of the collaboration with Danny, hispresent superior, the CEO of China. It is a processthat he now sees as fairly successful, but which wasinitially wrought by “huge conflicts.” With ahumorous twinkle in his eyes, he also mentionsthat Danny has nicknamed him “the turbo engine”because of his energetic, but somewhat impatient,way of handling his work.

Jan’s story, part 1. Jan begins his story by tellingabout his initial difficulties as an expatriatemanager when trying to apply the leadership stylehe has been socialized into at headquarters. Itimplied that he would see it as his job as a superiorto delegate responsibility to his subordinates, andexpect them to take control of the operationaldetails and the planning required to meet thedeadline agreed upon. Also, he expected them to beable to reason and act in accordance withComDan’s strategy. When he tried to implementthis empowering management style in China byoutlining general objectives without explicitlystipulating what should be done to meet them,his Chinese subordinates would tend to wait formore detailed instructions, but without askingdirectly for them: “Then Friday afternoon arrived,and the Chinese had done nothing at all, but theywould defend themselves by saying that the task Ihad given them was not sufficiently specified, andthey lacked a daily follow-up.” He realized that hecould not immediately change his subordinates’behavior, and that a more stepwise approach wascalled for:

They are used to totally directive management. y You have

to change yourself and accept that [your leadership style]

must be more directive and things stated much more

clearly. y They have not been taught to work in that way

[i.e., independently], and if you want them to do so, you

must teach them by initially managing in the way they are

used to and then gradually explain and demand that they

work in the way you believe they ought to.

In addition to the difficulties Jan experienced withhis subordinates, he also found it hard to get usedto his new superior. Jan knows that his formersuperior at headquarters, the corporate CEO, calledthe Chinese CEO, immediately after Jan’s arrival.He “asked Danny to see it as his personal respon-sibility to integrate me into the local culture, and

emphasized that he expected him to be tough aswell as nice but to help me.” Though this wasmeant to be to Jan’s advantage, he found, at leastinitially, that Danny went about it with rather toomuch zeal:

Danny went about poking his nose into everything y he

was very concerned because I hardly left any paper on my

desk in the office, and he was anxious that the Chinese

employees would think that I was not doing a bloody thing,

so I had to put some piles of paper on the desk y I also

received a letter from him saying that he was quite sure that

pupils in Danish elementary schools were taught to place

their chairs under the desks [i.e., Jan did not do this]. And

once he mailed to everybody in the Shanghai office that

somebody had forgotten a pizza box on the copy machine.

y I just thought that it was ridiculous.

Jan tells the interviewers that he found it exaspera-ting and irrelevant that a CEO would comment onsuch minor issues, and he was also surprised thathis new superior did not appear to appreciate hisfast and goal-oriented working style, which hadhelped him achieve success at headquarters. Inparticular, Danny got very annoyed with Jan’s wayof quickly communicating his own solution to aproblem by sending e-mails to all employees in theShanghai office.

Another issue that caused some trouble was thetwo managers’ different perspectives on work vsfamily life. Whereas the issue of work–life balance islaunched as part of the corporate culture and thecorporate social responsibility in this MNE, as wellas in many other Western MNEs, Jan got theimpression that there was no clear line of separa-tion between work and private life for the middle-aged Chinese CEO. Danny would often call Jan athome: “In the beginning, he liked calling me eachweekend because he thought that one of hiscontributions as a boss should be to make sure thatI worked weekends, too, so that he could benefit asmuch as possible from this resource [i.e., Jan] thathe had been allocated.” According to Jan, hispatience was exhausted one Sunday morning whenDanny called him to discuss a meeting on theforthcoming Wednesday. Jan got upset and askedwhy they could not just discuss the specific issue inthe office the next day. Then Jan simply hung upthe phone, although he was aware that this wouldbe considered an extremely rude thing to do toone’s superior, especially in a Chinese context:“And we had an enormous conflict, since this wasa huge loss of face for him” (see Jia, 1998; Worm,1997, for theoretical discussions of the concept of“face” in Chinese culture).

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Applying Greimas’s actantial model to Jan’s story,part 1. In Figure 2 we use the actantial model tosystematize the plot of Jan’s story about his firstworking experiences in the Shanghai office. Janinstalls himself as the subject who aims at aligningthe Chinese subsidiary more with the head-quarters’ global strategy, involving a higher degreeof standardization, and implementing its manage-ment ideas, among them empowerment. He attemptsto do so by demanding more planning and inde-pendent work of his subordinates, and he com-municates his viewpoints in a direct manner, alsoto his superior, Danny. From Jan’s perspective,Danny acts as an opponent of this project, sincehe practices a very different communication andmanagement style.

Jan’s story, part 2. Though Danny’s unwelcomephone call represented a low point in the twomanagers’ relationship, Jan feels that it made themboth see that they were forced to find a way ofworking together if they were to carry out their jobsin the Chinese subsidiary:

It made us talk about those issues, and cultural differences

and family patterns, and work-life balance in China vs

Europe and things like that y So when we had both calmed

down, we began discussing “why did you react like that in

that situation, and why did I react like that.”

Jan was motivated to learn and adjust, and his jobas a managing director in Shanghai provided himwith opportunities to learn about cultural differ-ences in communication and management prac-tices. And he felt a commitment to overcome atleast some of them in order to build trust. Throughdialogue about their different cultural backgroundsand experiences grew a mutual respect. Accordingto Jan, they began working as a “real managementteam” based on an understanding of their shared

interests, which came to the fore during theirdiscussions. They were both ambitious and hard-working leaders, identifying strongly with ComDanand its strategic goal of making the Chinesesubsidiary a major player in the world’s largestmarket for its products. Thus, from a narrativeperspective, we see Danny’s disturbing phone callon a Sunday and Jan’s face-threatening act towardhis superior as a turning point, peripeteia, in Jan’sstory.

Although the phone call represents peripeteia inJan’s story, the accompanying anagnorisis – thelearning through realization of hidden aspects ofthe situation – did not happen overnight. But,gradually, Jan began to understand Danny better.He eventually changed his perception of, forinstance, Danny’s instructions regarding pizzaboxes, papers and chairs as “simply pathetic” toseeing them as meaningful in the Chinese context.He came to see the Chinese CEO’s talk about rulesand norms detailing appropriate behavior at theworkplace as symbolic communication. Also, Janrealized that Danny believed it to be a manager’sduty to influence his subordinates through rolemodeling:

Little by little I got an understanding that this is

micromanagement, but it is also the Chinese way to use

tiny examples as symbols of something essential. A left

pizza box tells something about the company’s concern for

the environment and about respecting your colleagues.

Placing the chair under your desk when leaving the office is

important if, as a manager, you want other people to act in a

disciplined way. And paper on the manager’s desk tells your

subordinates about being hard-working and committed.

After some discussions with Danny about Jan’shabit of informing everyone at the office by e-mailof the solutions he thought best, Jan understoodthat he had inadvertently threatened Danny’s faceand potentially undermined his authority as CEO.This would be the case if the Chinese CEO hadalready made another decision regarding the matterin question, and had tried to get support for hissolution from other employees through face-to-faceconsultations:

At the headquarters in Denmark it is easy for a powerful

boss to say, tongue in cheek: “Okay, if I am an idiot I am

happy that I am surrounded by smarter people.” Then we

will all laugh and go on. It does not work like that in China

y it has to be the eldest and most experienced person who

proposes the best solution y if a junior puts forward a

better idea, it will create a problem for the senior, and it

means that the idea will be crushed at birth, no matter how

good it is.

Sender → Object → Receiver - The corporate CEO - The MNE

↑

Helpers → Subject ← Opponents - Strategic thinking and long-term planning- Empowerment- A direct communication style

- Jan as a managing director of the Shanghai office

- Danny as the CEO of China and as Jan’s superior- Micromanagement- An indirect communication style

- A Chinese subsidiary aligned with the headquarters’ global strategy and management ideas

Figure 2 Greimas’s actantial model applied to Jan’s story,

part 1.

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Jan realized that he could not translate a moreegalitarian approach to decision-making directly to aChinese business context, and moreover he learnedto communicate so that due respect was paid toDanny’s higher position in the company hierarchy:

I started writing an e-mail in a draft format and then just

checked up with colleagues: “Did Danny mention this

project?” And with some bigger issues I just tell Danny that

I plan to reply to this specific mail, and if he has not already

mailed, I will take an initiative. The problem is that you are

sometimes much too quick. And then you forget asking

yourself about the cultural dimension: “Who is in charge of

replying to this request? Who has the power to solve this

problem?”

Jan begins to see that it is crucial for his relation-ship with Danny – and an important part ofChinese facework – that he shows him respectand reverence, also by giving Danny credit for hismentoring efforts. When telling his story to theDanish interviewer, however, Jan underlines thatDanny has learned something from him as well. Asone of several examples, he mentions how he hastaught Danny to work out strategic plans andcommunicate them to headquarters in a structuredform that they appreciate and understand – some-thing that makes it easier to secure their support oflocal initiatives. Jan says: “We both know that itreally has been more of a partnership, but when wetalk about it, he is the mentor and I am the mentee.”

Applying Greimas’s actantial model to Jan’s story,part 2. After a first year with many discussions andnegotiations with Danny, Jan redefines his projectand reconfigures his world view to some extent.The new situation as it is presented in the storyhe told may be systematized as in Figure 3. Now,his object is no longer to implement the head-quarters’ strategic goals and standardization plansuncritically, but rather to balance global and localneeds in the development of the Chinese subsidiary.

In this process, Danny changes from being anopponent of Jan’s project into being a helper and amentor. Instead, impatience and ethnocentrism(primarily his own and that of the headquarters)hinder his endeavors. Moreover, he now acknow-ledges his Chinese subordinates as hard-working andcommitted people, helping Jan in achieving hisgoals.

Danny’s Story: Chinese Boxes – Mentoringthrough StorytellingDanny Lim, who is CEO of China and in his 50s,has been with ComDan for 20 years, starting out asa sales manager.3 He describes it as his overridingambition to build a successful business for thecompany in China. As he sees it, his strong loyaltyto the company is important in order for him tosucceed. He defines it not just as a commitment tothe organization as such, but also as a commitmentto the individuals who work there. He believes thatthey will be more motivated for hard work if theirmanagers “care for them.” The notion of family isimportant when Danny explains his loyalty tothe company, and his feeling of a necessity to“sacrifice” his immediate personal needs for thecompany. His ideal appears to be that the employ-ees should be as attached to the company as theyare to their families, a view that he finds widespreadamong the Chinese employees: “For some, we arelike a family at work.” (For an introduction topaternalistic leadership and the view of the work-place as a family in China, see Cheng, Chou, Wu,Huang, & Fahr, 2004; Westwood & Lok, 2003.)

Danny expresses concern that his Danish expatri-ate colleagues do not display the same loyalty. Hesays: “They will tell me, for instance: ‘My family lifeshould not be disturbed during the weekends.’”Although Danny acknowledges to the interviewersthat some kind of work–life balance must be foundat a modern workplace, also to accommodate thewishes of a younger generation of Chinese, he findsthat the expatriates are too inflexible in this regard.

Danny’s mentor story. The newly arrived Danishexpatriates, especially those who have had no pre-vious experience of Asia, sometimes pose problems.Not because they do not share Danny’s desire forsuccess in China, but because they do not realizewhat is needed to obtain it: “They always arrive in avery impatient mood. y This kind of impatientbehavior creates an unnecessary psychologicaldefense reaction from the Chinese. And I alwaysexperience this kind of learning process.” But

Sender → Object → Receiver- A Chinese subsidiary balancing local and global needs

- The MNE

↑

Helpers → Subject ← Opponents

- Danny as a mentor and guide to Chinese work culture- Chinese subordinates’ hard work and loyalty towards the company

- Jan as a managing director of the Shanghai office

- Impatience- Ethnocentrism

- The corporate CEO

Figure 3 Greimas’s actantial model applied to Jan’s Story,

part 2.

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whereas Danny sometimes finds it extremely hardto explain the conditions in China to foreigncolleagues at headquarters, he does not feel that theproblems with the expatriates are insurmountable,because he also sees cultural similarities and findssome common ground:

The good thing is that the Danish culture and the Chinese

culture have a number of common elements y: a strong

commitment to make things work well and also a strong

cooperative spirit. y We know that if you give them time,

the Danish expats can perform. And they can adapt to the

local culture.

So, eventually, most of the expatriates become ableto help Danny in his quest for success in China.

This requires them to go through a culturallearning process, and Danny explains that he seesit as part of his job to assist them. As far as Jan isconcerned, the corporate CEO at headquarters hasexplicitly asked Danny to help Jan settle in China,and Danny mentions that he is “officially hismentor.” Thus, he has received the responsibilityfor Jan’s successful socialization into the Chinesebusiness context. He gives the impression of takingthis task very seriously, and it is the central topic ofthe narrative interview.

Danny says confidently that Jan has “learned alot from my coaching,” and explains how he hasplayed the same mentor role in relation to otherexpatriates. But the cultural exchange has not justbeen one-way in the course of Danny’s career.During his many years with ComDan, he haslearned something himself about Danish cultureand Danish management, and this, he reflects, maybe why corporate headquarters has singled him outfor mentoring tasks. He says: “I see myself as a mix –you know I mix Chinese and Danish culture.” Healso acknowledges that expatriates like Jan are ableto teach him and other local employees someof the capabilities he sees as necessary for ComDanChina’s further development. He mentions, forinstance, strategic planning skills and the abilityto give feedback in a motivating manner.

Mentoring Jan was not always easy: “At thevery beginning the personal chemistry may posesome problems.” When talking about communi-cation, which Danny sees as “a basic fundamentaldifference” between Danes and Chinese, hedescribes the Danish approach as direct and “veryclear.” During meetings, for example, “the Daneslike to throw things on the table.” But it does notalways work that way in Asia: “For the Asian people,especially the Chinese, y sometimes hide things.

They are not really at a [meeting] table to try tochallenge. The Danes y like challenge.” Danny’sdescription of these perceived differences fits wellwith research in intercultural communication; ithas found that individuals from high-contextcultures (such as China) tend to react to potentialconflicts in a non-confrontational and indirectmanner. But individuals from low-context cultures(such as Denmark) are more likely to be directand confrontational in such situations (Chen &Starosta, 1998). When explaining how the moreindirect communication style works to obtain aharmonious relationship, Danny emphasizes theimportance of storytelling as an inherent partof facework and conflict resolution in a Chinesecontext (see also Hwang, 1998): “And this kind ofstorytelling – indirectly – you know, it may giveyou a warning y especially at times when you havedone something wrong. y If you are going tocriticize people, try to wrap it with some story-telling.”

As Danny sees it, another main problem is thatthe Danes are used to making independent deci-sions concerning the tasks they have been given:“They have very firm ownership y they’re themaster of this piece of work.” When Jan had justtaken up his position, however, Danny frequentlyfound it necessary to advise him on what was andwhat was not feasible in a Chinese context. ButJan was “so impatient” and did not appreciate theadvice from his Chinese superior. According toDanny, he said: “You know in Denmark, when theboss tells me what to do, then I have the freedom tomanage and decide and then to come out with aresult!” Still, Danny did not want Jan to waste timeon unrealistic plans, so they spent a lot of timearguing. Eventually, the simmering conflict blewup, and Danny’s description becomes detailedwhen he recounts this part of the story; he quotesthe dialogue word for word as he recalls whathappened. This indicates a pivotal point in hisstory:

One day after six months, Jan rushed to my room y He

closed the door and said: “Danny, I cannot work with you,

because the corporate CEO in Copenhagen [i.e., Jan’s

former superior] always told me ‘You should do this’ – and

then I did it! But you, Danny, you keep on telling me not to

do this and that; that along the way I have to be careful. I’m

really fed up with all your interruptions.”

Danny’s Ferrari story. Danny responded to thisoutburst by telling a story, thus illustrating howstorytelling is used frequently in a Chinese work

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context to admonish in an indirect manner. Thestory went as follows:

Assume that you are the son of Jens Holm [the Danish

corporate CEO] in Copenhagen. One day your father buys

you a Ferrari. The car is put outside your office and he says:

“Son, this is a gift to you – drive carefully.” Now, this is Jens

Holm [the Danish CEO] telling you this, so you are very

happy to drive it. You have no accidents y Because you’re

born in Copenhagen, you know exactly how Copenhagen

people behave: you know the traffic conditions, you know

everything. You even know that when you turn around –

then you get home. Now you’ve come to China y and your

father is now Danny Lim. Then I say: “Son, I bought you a

Ferrari, but son, be careful, y even if there’s a red light be

careful because some cars will not stop behind you and will

crash into your car. When you come to a zebra crossing,

don’t stop your car, because in China, no one stops at the

zebra crossings y I just want you to have a safe drive and

then you come home! y Now the whole issue is that your

boss, your father, wants you to come home safely, so it’s a

kind of care more than interruptions.” Jan said, “OK, thank

you” and went back to his office. Twenty minutes later he

came back to my room again: “Hey, Danny, thank you so

much! Now I understand what you are talking about –

thank you for your care.” y Now Jan has been with us for

three years, and he has such an excellent understanding of

the local culture.

Applying Greimas’s actantial model to Danny’sFerrari story. In this brief story, Jan is theprotagonist and the subject. Danny assigns Janthe role of a son, while he himself (as well as thecorporate CEO) acts as a father, a benign power,who bestows the gift of an expensive car and thetask of driving it safely upon the subject andreceiver. Danny’s use of family metaphors whendefining the roles in this story may be understoodin the light of his ideal of the company as a kind offamily. The object or the aim for Jan is to drivethe Ferrari successfully. This is uncomplicated inCopenhagen, but not in China. Here, Chinesedrivers act as his opponents, since they may crashinto his car or behave in other ways that he cannotpredict. And this is where his father acts as a helper,and provides him with the information he needs tobe able to drive safely (Figure 4).

Applying Greimas’s actantial model to Danny’smentor story. Thus, in Danny’s narrative aboutmentoring Jan, his telling of this didactic story asa reaction to Jan’s angry outburst becomes aturning point that radically changes the followingcourse of action, influencing his own role and, evenmore so, that of Jan. It constitutes peripeteia,and is accompanied by anagnorisis. Jan’s relativeignorance or lack of understanding of the Chinese

business context is changed to his recognition of aneed to learn from Danny’s advice. The story in thestory is what decisively triggers off Jan’s culturallearning process, at least from the narrator’s pointof view. Of course, the story in itself is not enough –the socialization process takes time, and time actsas Danny’s helper in the mentoring process. Still,Danny’s principal helper is actually the story aboutthe Ferrari, which he employs as a didactic device.The opponent is Jan himself as he acts in theinitial phase, or rather the attitudes that make himbehave in that way: impatiently and somewhatethnocentrically, without regard for his superior’sadvice and experience. As long as he sees allDanny’s contributions as annoying interruptionsof his work, Danny cannot meet his objective as amentor.

It appears that Danny actually tells three inter-related but different stories in the narrative inter-view. As an overall framing narrative, he tells ofhimself as he strives to set up a successful businessin China for his company. As a part of thisendeavor, which requires the Danish expatriatesto cooperate, he narrates how he has gone aboutthe task of mentoring Jan. In Danny’s story of thismentoring process, he himself is the subject, andhis aim is to enable Jan to carry out his job well inChina – a task for which he has been explicitlysingled out by the corporate CEO. At first, Danny’sproject is opposed by what he sees as Jan’simpatience and his somewhat ethnocentric atti-tude. He is helped, however, by the passing of timeand, first and foremost, by his own didactic andfictitious tale of the Ferrari, where Jan learns todrive safely. Listening to it makes Jan more open tolearning from Danny, and the project is furthered.The way in which Danny’s narrative is structuredaround stories embedded in each other resembles

Sender → Object → Receiver

- Danny as the “father” in the main part of the story – who gives the Ferrari as a gift- The Danish CEO as the “father” in the first part of the story

- Driving the Ferrari safely

- The corporate CEO as “father” (when Jan returns “home” safely)

↑

Helper → Subject ← Opponents

- Danny as the “father” who gives relevant advice

- Jan as the “son” and driver of the Ferrari

- Other drivers in China who act unpredictably- Jan’s lack of knowledge of Chinese traffic

Figure 4 Greimas’s actantial model applied to Danny’s Ferrari

story.

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what is sometimes called a “Chinese box structure”in literary theory (no pun intended). This conceptis used to characterize fiction told in the form of astory within a story (Nelles, 2002). In Danny’snarrative, his embedded story about the Ferrari andits effects, as the narrator perceives them, provokesreflection and learning, thereby leading to bettercollaboration between the two managers (Figure 5).

DiscussionJan’s cultural learning and its positive impact onthe collaboration process constitute a centraltheme in both stories. Jan’s own description ofhis experiences demonstrates that he has acquiredconsiderable knowledge of, for instance, the work-ings of indirect communication as well as themeaning of face and hierarchy in a Chinese con-text. Also, Danny praises Jan for having acquired anexcellent understanding of Chinese culture. Jan hasinvolved himself emotionally, too. His own choiceof words when describing his initial conflicts showsthat he felt annoyed and confused at times, some-thing that is confirmed in Danny’s story, where hedescribes Jan as being very upset at one point. ButJan, who is ambitious and strongly motivated toperform well in his position in China, explains howhe was able to reflect on and monitor his immedi-ate negative affective states. Gradually, he devel-oped a more empathic and respectful attitudetoward his superior. Also, his new insights intoculture-specific issues were translated into changedbehavior. One example is his changed procedureregarding e-mails detailing his suggested solutions.Thus, Danny’s story and Jan’s coincide in describ-ing Jan’s learning process as gaining momentumonce he starts reflecting actively on the intercultur-al interaction in which he is involved, muchassisted by his dialogue with Danny.

Both stories indicate that Danny has also learnedsomething, although it is not a main theme in thestories. In Danny’s own story, he is careful to place

himself in the role of the mentor and Jan in the roleof the mentee. Still, he does touch upon hisown cultural learning, for instance when he tellsabout his long experience and knowledge of Danishculture as a background for his mentoring skills.Also, he mentions having learned things fromexpatriates, for example regarding strategic plan-ning. Jan is very much the subject in his own story,so it is natural that he should focus on his ownlearning and experiences. He is very explicit aboutthe mentee–mentor relationship between himselfand Danny, and he uses this as an example of whathe has learned about the importance of face inChinese culture. He must take care to show Dannyhis appreciation of what he has taught him, and ofletting him appear as his mentor in the eyes ofothers; this has been beneficial to their collabora-tion. He makes it clear, however, that as he sees it,he has taught Danny a good deal, too, and, likeDanny, he mentions planning skills as an example.

Throughout his story Jan identifies with hisposition as managing director of the Shanghaioffice. We note, however, that he redefines hisobject along the way, and presents this change asrelated to his cultural learning process. Thus, hebecomes aware of a necessity to adjust headquar-ters’ global strategy and management ideas to thesubsidiary’s local conditions. Jan realizes that head-quarters’ standardization ambitions may not alwaysbe realistic. Also, his perception of Danny changesradically from seeing him as an opponent whoexasperates him to seeing him as a helper withwhom he feels comfortable working. In Danny’sstory about mentoring, his embedded didactic storyserves as a helper, and functions as the peripeteiathat redefines Jan’s attitudes. Jan’s impatience andethnocentrism are – at least in Danny’s perspec-tive – changed into open-mindedness and curiosity,which allow Danny to meet his objective as Jan’smentor.

In Danny’s story he constructs his identity as aChinese and a local manager through contrast withthe Danish expatriates, for instance regarding theirattitudes to work and their communication style.He does, however, place himself in a positionbetween the two categories when he characterizeshimself as a hybrid of Danish and Chinese culture.This enables him to play an important role in thesubsidiary as someone who has useful knowledge toshare with locals as well as with expatriates. Hereadily accepts the task of mentoring, because thisgoes well with his concept of the workplace as a sortof family where he – as the CEO of China – is in a

Sender → Object → Receiver- The corporate CEO (who transfers the responsibility for Jan’s socialization to Danny)

- Jan’s successful socialization to the Chinese context

- ComDan

↑

Helpers → Subject ← Opponents

- The didactic Ferrari story- Time

- Jan’s initial impatience and ethnocentrism

- Danny as Jan’s mentor

Figure 5 Greimas’s actantial model applied to Danny’s mentor

story.

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paternal position. It also fits well with theConfucian idea of unequal and complementaryrelationships between the superior and the sub-ordinate, the elder and the younger, and the fatherand the son (Chen & Starosta, 1998).

It is clear that Jan and Danny have differentperspectives on their collaboration process, andthey assign somewhat dissimilar roles to themselvesand to each other. Whereas Danny identifiesexplicitly with his role as Jan’s mentor, the latteridentifies less with his role as a mentee. Hementions it, but goes on to explain that it is reallymore of a partnership, where they have bothlearned from each other. In this way, Jan indirectlychallenges the mentor identity that Danny is eagerto communicate in his story. However, he does notdo so publicly in the organization, only in the storyhe tells the interviewers. On the contrary, as alreadymentioned, Jan is careful to confirm Danny’smentor identity when talking to him or others inthe local context. Jan does not use any of the familymetaphors (father/son) that Danny frequentlybrings up when talking about their relationshipand his own role in the company. But, like Danny,Jan identifies with his managerial position inComDan. This is something they have in common,and something that is important to both of them. Itmotivates them to bridge their differences, andhelps them in creating common ground.

When comparing the two narrative interviews, itis conspicuous that peripeteia is not the same:Danny does not mention the phone call, and Jandoes not mention the Ferrari story. This shows howthey select different events for their plots: whereasJan plots a story of conflicts and their resolution,Danny plots a story of successful mentoring. Still,there is considerable overlapping, for instancewhen Danny talks about the expatriates (in general,without naming Jan) not wanting to be disturbedduring weekends, and when Jan talks about hisrealization that Chinese communication is moreindirect and symbolic in nature. Also, they bothdescribe their present relationship in similar ways:Jan acknowledges that Danny has taught himsomething about the Chinese business context,and Danny acknowledges that Jan has learned a lotabout it.

In spite of the variations in their stories, bothmanagers convey the impression during the inter-views that they have now solved many of theirproblems, and work well together to adapt head-quarters’ strategies to the Chinese business context.Interestingly, their collaborative efforts were made

visible to a wider audience of employees duringthe time the interviewers visited the subsidiary: theorganization was in the process of adapting anew corporate strategic concept, labeled “winningbehaviors,” to the Chinese context. To this end, avideo was produced in the Shanghai office con-sisting of clips from locally well-known, action-oriented movies. These were bound togetherthrough features with the Danish expatriate man-ager and the Chinese CEO, both dressed up likeaction heroes. In these attires, they related theclips to “winning behaviors,” acting together in ahumorous way as role models and sense-givers tothe change processes.

CONCLUDING REMARKSWe have used stories told by a Danish expatriatemanager and his Chinese CEO in the Chinesesubsidiary of an MNE to present a narrativeapproach to the study of intercultural businesscollaboration. We have explained and exemplifiedhow narrative interviews can be designed andconducted, and we have reflected on the impactof the interviewers’ interaction with the inter-viewees when prompting their storytelling aboutthe collaboration process. It is time-consuming toconduct individual narrative interviews, in com-parison with surveys of big samples, and it requiresthe researcher to be able to inspire sufficient trust inthe interviewees for them to be willing to sharetheir stories. But successful narrative interviewing,for example about intercultural collaboration,provides access to accounts of individual experi-ences and retrospective interpretations of them, arich and complex empirical material that wouldhave been fragmented and decontextualized in asurvey with fixed categories.

In this article we have illustrated how analyses ofnarratives of cultural encounters can be carried outusing narratological concepts and models; and wehave shown how a narrative approach may deepenour understanding of sensemaking and mutuallearning in an international business context. Thenotions of peripeteia and anagnorisis were helpfulwhen identifying focal points in the plot analyses:situations where change, learning and progress inthe intercultural collaboration process are particu-larly likely to have taken place. Such situations,sometimes characterized by anger or other kinds ofunease, may eventually lead to a change of action,peripeteia. In the stories the two managers told,their accompanying anagnorisis, or recognition of

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new dimensions of the experienced problems,eventually furthered intercultural collaboration.

In addition to the two concepts of peripeteia andanagnorisis, which are both related to the chron-ological course of a story, the actantial modelserved to create an overview of changes in plotstructures. This tool has the advantage of securing aconsistent and systematic approach to the analysisof the stories told in the narrative interviews. Itoffers a brief, graphic overview of the narrativestructures in the stories told. In this way, it ispossible to demonstrate clearly how an analysis iscarried out, and how the conclusions are reached.We are well aware that each actantial model givesonly a snapshot of the narrator’s cognitive universe,as represented in his story at a given point in time.But as illustrated in the analysis we have conductedof the two parts of Jan’s story, plot developmentand dynamics in storytelling can be capturedby comparing sequential actantial models, eachdescribing a stage in a narrative.

The narrative methodology we applied to thestudy of intercultural business collaboration isable to deepen our contextual understanding ofthese complex and often challenging processes. Thedifferences between the two managers’ stories ofintercultural collaboration show that narratives donot mirror reality; instead, they provide us withdifferent retrospective interpretations of the sameseries of events. The stories offer us an insightinto the narrators’ experiences as they recall themat the time of the interview. Furthermore, we get animpression of the different ways in which the twomanagers try to make sense of their experiencesand reflect on their contributions to collaborationin a business context where cultural differencesplay a significant role.

While narrative inquiry and analysis do notprovide us with a definite, unambiguous answerto the question of “what really happened” as thetwo managers interacted in ComDan’s Shanghaioffice, the narrative approach does show the shiftsand differences in their projects, alliances, opposi-tions and views of themselves as these appear intheir accounts. The study of the two managers’stories tells us about their mutual learning experi-enced in the course of their collaboration – not justthrough their explicitly telling the interviewers thatthey had learned something, but also through theways they constructed and developed their plots. InJan’s case, for instance, this becomes clear when hechanges from seeing Danny as an opponentobsessed with micromanagement to seeing him as

a helper and mentor. He also modifies his object-actant (in Greimas’s terms) when he no longer aimsat implementing the headquarters’ strategy andmanagement ideas uncompromisingly. Rather, hewishes to balance global and local needs, taking thesubsidiary’s preferences more into account.

It seems that to the extent that a manager has anethnocentric perspective, that is, sees his ownmodel of the world as the only correct one, he tellsstories where people of other cultural backgroundsare presented as strange, and as opponents of hisown projects. The stories indicate that such a frameof mind heightens the risk of contributing toconflicts and misunderstandings when interactingwith culturally different others, but also thatethnocentrism needs not be a permanent state.The managers’ emerging reflexive understanding ofcultural embeddedness – their own as well as thatof their collaboration partner – made it easier forboth to bridge cultural differences. This was thecritical step in creating a common ground in a worksituation where intercultural collaboration wasessential – both to their goals as individuals andto the goals of the multinational enterprise.

Narrative interviewing and narrative analysishave something to offer in other areas of interna-tional business besides intercultural businesscollaboration and cultural learning processes ofindividual managers. Often, when reading inter-national business studies, one wonders whosevoices are heard in accounts of companies’ successand failure. It is probably safe to say that manycontributions are biased toward the perspectives ofthe management and the headquarters (Jack, Calas,Nkomo, & Peltonen, 2008), and thus may wellmarginalize many voices while privileging others.Narrative interviewing offers international businessscholars more perspectives on organizational reali-ties, and gives voice to a wider range of actorsshowing the ways in which their interpretationsof certain actions and events may correspond anddiffer.

Analyses of managers’ and employees’ stories arerelevant, for instance, in studies of internationalmergers and acquisitions. Here, stories compete todefine the new organization and make sense of thechallenges faced in the complex organizationalchange processes following a merger or an acquisi-tion. Such an approach has been used, for example,by Gertsen and Søderberg (2000) in a longitudinalstudy of a series of international acquisitions of acompany, and by Søderberg (2006), who studiedtop managers’ power struggles and sensegiving to

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certain post-merger integration initiatives throughtheir rivaling stories of an international merger.Studies of entrepreneurship in an internationalbusiness context, for example in born-global SMEs,can also benefit from a narrative approach. Here,the research focus might be on what kind offounding stories entrepreneurs in born-global com-panies tell in conversations with actual and pro-spective partners, customers and investors in orderto build legitimacy. Inspiration can be found in arich qualitative study by O’Connor (2004) basedon thorough participant observation in a start-upcompany. O’Connor’s analysis of the foundingstories told shows how they are gradually reshapedand retold in various transitional versions todifferent audiences in the course of internal andexternal change. Finally, narrative analysis isapplicable to studies of the cross-cultural executionof global strategies. A narrative approach to anMNE’s stories about its global strategy and theirreception by managers and employees located indifferent societal and cultural contexts would offeran understanding of the challenges headquartersmeet when trying to build a common understand-ing of the global strategy and a commitment todevelop it into new practices. Likewise, a study ofstories told about the culture(s) of an MNE wouldprovide valuable insights into various individualinterpretations of corporate culture, a perspectivethat headquarters surveys and researchers’ struc-tured interviews often miss.

Stories are an underutilized source of data ininternational business research, where quantitativeapproaches are dominant. With our analysis ofplots, turning points and mutual learning in twomanagers’ stories of intercultural collaboration wehave demonstrated how a narrative approach,applied systematically to data collection and analysis,

is able to offer insights not easily captured by otherapproaches. We have offered one example of a setof narrative concepts, among numerous alter-natives, applied to an area of international businessresearch, but as touched upon above, other areasare equally relevant to explore in this way. Thus, wehope to have inspired some of our readers toembark on narrative interviewing and analysis inorder to experience the challenges and opportu-nities of this methodology themselves.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThis article draws upon data from a research projecton “Cultural intelligence as a strategic resource”.The project is funded by the Strategic ResearchCouncil in Denmark, and is carried out by a team ofresearchers at Copenhagen Business School in colla-boration with five MNEs headquartered in Denmarkand operating, among other locations, in the emer-gent markets in Asia. The empirical material has beencollected by Lisbeth Clausen, Liv Egholm Feldt,Martine Cardel Gertsen, Michael Jacobsen, Anne-Marie Søderberg, Verner Worm, and Mette Zølner.The interviews analyzed in this article have beenconducted by Anne-Marie Søderberg and VernerWorm. However, the authors alone are responsiblefor the analysis, reflections, and perspectives presentedin this article.

NOTES1In accordance with a large part of the literature we

use the words “narrative” and “story” interchangeably.2We have changed the company name, the names

of individuals and some of the locations in order toprotect the interviewees’ anonymity.

3The interviewee’s English is somewhat unidiomatic,but in the quotes that follow, we have normalized it inorder to make it more readable.

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APPENDIX

Table A1 Overview of key concepts

Definitions and examples

Key concepts of narrative structure

Plot A plot is the part of a story that survives when it is retold in a very brief form. A plot

is the narrative structure of actors and events, consciously selected by the author/

narrator and related to each other with cause and effect.

Actantial model

Developed by Greimas (1966) based on

analyses of the morphology of folktales

carried out by Propp (1968; first Russian

edition 1928)

A model of plot structure with six actants arranged as pairs in binary opposition:

subject–object, helper–opponent, sender–receiver (see definitions below).

An actant is defined as a function, often represented by a person, but sometimes by

an institution or an abstraction.

The actantial model describes fundamental patterns in stories. It is widely applied in

analysis of plot structures, because the actantial pairs are useful in clarifying projects

and relationships. In other words: what does the protagonist want and who/what

helps or hinders him/her reach this goal?

The subject–object actants The relation between subject and object is characterized by desire, search and

action.

The subject aspires towards a goal, or aims at achieving a desired state (the object).

Example: An expatriate managing director wants to align the subsidiary with

headquarters’ global strategy.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORSMartine Cardel Gertsen has an interdisciplinarybackground and holds a PhD in business economicsas well as a PhD in literary history. Her researchinterests include cross-cultural collaboration, orga-nizational identification and recontextualizationof corporate values. She is currently employedas a researcher at Copenhagen Business School,Denmark, where she participates in the researchproject “Cultural intelligence as a strategic resource.”

Anne-Marie Søderberg is a professor of Cross-Cultural Communication and Management atCopenhagen Business School, Denmark. She iscurrently director of the interdisciplinary researchprogram “Cultural intelligence as a strategicresource.” With a focus on multiple cultures,identity constructions, sensemaking and commu-nication, she has conducted multiple field studiesof organizational change processes, for example ininternational mergers and acquisitions.

Accepted by Mary Yoko Brannen, Guest Editor, 27 February 2011. This paper has been with the authors for four revisions.

Table A1 Continued

The helper–opponent actants The helper-actant represents auxiliary support, whereas the opponent-actant

represents forces of opposition that the subject must overcome to reach his/her

goal.

Example: Respect for local knowledge and work habits function as the expatriate

managing director’s helper, and ethnocentrism as an opponent.

The sender–receiver actants The relation between sender and receiver is about communication and

transmission.

The person to whom the object is given is the receiver.

The sender might be a person actively intervening, but it might also be an

abstraction, for example, fate, bourgeois society or globalization.

Example: The corporate CEO (sender) offers a subsidiary (object) as a playground

to a career-oriented expatriate managing director (subject) with the intention of

letting him develop it so it contributes to making the MNE more globally oriented

(receiver).

Key concepts describing the course of a story

Peripeteia (Greek) A notion referring to the turning point/pivotal point in a story.

The term was first used by Aristotle in Poetics about a sudden change of events or

reversal of circumstances (e.g., from happiness to tragedy, from poverty to wealth).

Example: An expatriate manager loses his temper and insults his local CEO by

hanging up the phone when the CEO calls him at home on a Sunday morning to

discuss a matter that the manager finds insignificant.

Anagnorisis (Greek) The change from ignorance to knowledge that may accompany peripeteia or the

turning point. The term was first used by Aristotle in Poetics about a moment in a

play when a character recognizes his true identity – or someone else’s identity or

nature.

Example: The expatriate manager realizes that he needs to establish a better

working relationship with his local CEO in order to carry out his job and makes an

effort to create mutual understanding and bridge their differences.

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