Implicit communication challenges
in culturally diverse workplaces
A qualitative study on challenges employees in a culturally diverse
organization face and how these challenges are dealt with
BACHELOR THESIS PROJECT THESIS WITHIN: Business Administration NUMBER OF CREDITS: 15
PROGRAMME OF STUDY: International Management AUTHOR: Caroline Reinisch and Niousha Karimi JÖNKÖPING June 2020
Acknowledgments
The completion of this study would not be possible without the assistance of many people who have supported us in the process. First, we would like to express our gratitude to our tutor, Michal Zawadzki, who has provided us with constructive support and feedback along the way and his insight has helped us to be on the right track with the thesis. We would also like to thank Husqvarna Group, Jonas Florvik, and the employees for their participation despite the current situation with Covid-19. Conducting this research would have not been possible without their valuable insights and reflections. Finally, we would like to thank our families and friends for supporting us in many ways during the process.
Thank you!
Bachelor Thesis Project in Business Administration
Title: Implicit communication challenges in culturally diverse workplaces Authors: Caroline Reinisch and Niousha Karimi
Tutor: Michal Zawadzki Date: 2020-05-18
Key terms: Cultural diversity, Culturally diverse organizations, Implicit
communication, Diversity management
Abstract
Background: In an organization where members share a similar culture, implicit
communication is normally used to get messages across. When using implicit communication, it is assumed that the receiver of the message has the same understanding and perceptions of what something means and, therefore, extensive explanations are avoided. However, as people from different backgrounds have different values, beliefs, and perceptions, using implicit communication can increase uncertainty and ambiguity in culturally diverse organizations and lead to challenges instead.
Purpose: This study aims to discover what challenges the employees in culturally diverse
organizations face when implicit communication stops working and how these challenges are dealt with.
Method: A twin-slate approach to grounded theory was chosen as the basis for this research.
The method is qualitative and uses an interpretative paradigm with an abductive approach. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with 1 manager and 5 employees from Husqvarna Group. The final results were reached through open, axial, and selective coding.
Findings: The research indicates the main challenges are miscommunication,
misunderstandings, inability to communicate efficiently, ambiguity regarding responsibilities, and lack of employee involvement. The last three challenges tie in with the employees’ perceptions of the hierarchical system in the company. These challenges can be handled through implementing appropriate diversity management tools and practices as well as establishing a good work culture. The work culture needs to contain the elements of openness, inclusion and accessibility, and transparency.
Table of Contents
ABSTRACT ... 3 1 INTRODUCTION ... 6 1.1 BACKGROUND ... 6 1.2 PROBLEM ... 7 1.3 PURPOSE ... 9 2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ... 10 2.1 AN OVERVIEW OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY ... 10 2.2 WORK CULTURE ... 11 2.2.1 Hierarchy ... 12 2.3 DIVERSITY PERSPECTIVES ... 12 2.4 BENEFITS OF A CULTURALLY DIVERSE WORKFORCE ... 14 2.5 CULTURAL DIVERSITY CHALLENGES ... 15 2.6 DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT PRACTICES ... 16 2.7 COMMUNICATION IN CULTURALLY DIVERSE ORGANIZATIONS ... 17 2.8 COMMUNICATION IN HIGH CONTEXT AND LOW CONTEXT CULTURES ... 18 2.9 IMPLICIT COMMUNICATION ... 192.10 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK SUMMARY ... 20
3 METHOD ... 22 3.1 METHODOLOGY ... 22 3.1.1 Research philosophy ... 22 3.1.2 Research approach ... 22 3.1.3 Research method ... 23 3.2 DATA COLLECTION ... 24 3.2.1 Selection process of the primary data ... 24 3.2.2 Process of literature review ... 25 3.2.3 Interview guide construction ... 25 3.2.4 Semi-structured Interviews ... 26 3.3 GROUNDED THEORY ... 27 3.4 RESEARCH PROCESS ... 28 3.5 RESEARCH QUALITY ... 30 3.6 METHOD SUMMARY ... 31 4 EMPIRICAL FINDINGS ... 32 4.1 COMPANY’S BACKGROUND ... 32 4.2 CULTURAL DIVERSITY ... 32 4.3 WORK CULTURE ... 33 4.4 HIERARCHY ... 34 4.5 DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AND TOOLS ... 35 4.6 COMMUNICATION ... 37 4.7 IMPLICIT COMMUNICATION CHALLENGES ... 39 4.8 IMPROVING COMMUNICATION IN THE ORGANIZATION ... 40 5 ANALYSIS ... 42 5.1 OPEN CODING ... 42 5.2 AXIAL CODING ... 42 5.3 SELECTIVE CODING ... 44 5.4 RESULTS ... 46
6 CONCLUSIONS ... 51 7 DISCUSSION ... 53 7.1 IMPLICATIONS ... 53 7.1.1 Theoretical contributions ... 53 7.1.2 Practical contributions ... 54 7.2 LIMITATIONS ... 54 7.3 SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH ... 55 REFERENCES ... 57 APPENDICES ... 62 APPENDIX A ... 62 Interview Guide for employees’ interviews ... 62 Interview guide for manager’s interview ... 63 APPENDIX B ... 65 APPENDIX C ... 66
1 Introduction
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This chapter familiarizes the reader with the topic of implicit communication in culturally diverse organizations and presents an overview of relevant information that will be discussed more in-depth further on. Moreover, the section introduces the reasoning of the area that needs to be further researched.
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1.1 Background
Rapid internationalization, growth in immigration, and increased opportunities to work and study abroad have resulted in culturally diverse societies among western countries. According to Eurostat (2019b), in 2017, there have been 4.4 million immigrants, of which around 2 million were citizens of a non-EU country. Furthermore, the statistics show that in 2017 around 1.7 million students from abroad were studying across the EU-28 countries at the tertiary level (Eurostat, 2019a). These factors along with firms striving to become more internationally involved and recognized have resulted in the workforces’ cultural diversity. Besides, businesses tend to have diversity among their employees as it is associated with benefits such as enhancing creativity, positive effect on creative performance (Leung, Maddux, Galinsky & Chiu, 2008), and creating broader sources of knowledge that can be valuable for businesses (Lauring, 2009; Martin, 2014). It can also contribute to a greater tendency towards the internationalization of the firm and expanding the business to other countries (Martin, 2014). Attracting minority talents as well as innovation can be the other advantages that a diverse organization can achieve (D'Netto, Shen, Chelliah & Monga, 2014).
On the other hand, diversity can be two-edged and create some challenges for the organization (D'Netto et al., 2014). One of the frequently seen issues observed in diverse workforces is miscommunication (D'Netto et al., 2014; Lauring & Selmer, 2012; Podsiadlowski, Gröschke, Kogler, Springer & van Der Zee, 2013). Miscommunication can be caused, for example, because two individuals misinterpret each other due to cultural differences. Something can have one meaning in one culture and a different meaning in another, which causes misunderstandings to happen (Lauring & Selmer, 2012). As organizations become more culturally diverse, communication can become harder. Nevertheless, effective communication and coordination is an important success factor for most organizations (Butchibabu, Sparano-Huiban, Sonenberg & Shah, 2016). Therefore, it needs to be managed in a way in which
communication is not hindering task completion, nor causing misunderstandings (Isotalus & Kakkuri-Knuuttila, 2018; Tange & Lauring, 2009; Trittin & Schoeneborn, 2017). In other words, even though cultural diversity brings multiple benefits to a company, in order to take advantage of those benefits, diversity needs to be managed and diversity management practices need to be implemented. This helps the organization to overcome miscommunication issues (Kreitz, 2008; van Knippenberg, van Ginkel & Homan, 2013). Kreitz (2008) argues that “an organization must manage diversity strategically: with data-driven planning, carefully articulated goals, judiciously applied organizational changes, and soundly gathered and ruthlessly analyzed metrics” (p. 106). Even though many organizations follow distinct principles to ensure equality and practice diversity management strategies, observations show that in some cases, there is a gap between what companies are trying to achieve and the actual results in the organization (Soldan & Nankervis, 2014). Therefore, there is more insight needed on how organizations can overcome the challenges and implement the diversity management practices in a practical manner.
1.2 Problem
Starting with looking into the subject of diversity, we came across different aspects of it such as age, culture, ethnicity, and educational background. Since we had previous experiences associated with culturally diverse groups and shared a personal interest in the subject, we decided to focus on cultural diversity. Moving on to the challenges faced by culturally diverse groups and organizations, miscommunication was identified as one of the main challenges (D'Netto et al., 2014; Lauring & Selmer, 2012; Podsiadlowski et al., 2013). This specific issue has caught our attention. The reason for this is that studying in an international school and the experience of living in foreign countries has put us in multiple situations where we needed to work with people from diverse cultures. We have observed that in these situations, miscommunication is common, as different cultures have different ways of communicating and transferring information. Thus, competences and skills need to be developed to be able to have effective intercultural communication (Isotalus & Kakkuri-Knuuttila, 2018). Therefore, we got curious to see how this challenge is perceived and managed in organizations with a culturally diverse workforce. Considering that effective communication in companies, especially when the members of the organization do not come from the same culture and have different backgrounds, is a very significant aspect (Isotalus & Kakkuri-Knuuttila, 2018; Oosthuizen, Tonelli & Mayer, 2019). Moreover, Isotalus and Kakkuri-Knuuttila (2018) pinpoint that for businesses to have successful diversity management and reap the advantages, dialogical
communication is significant and intercultural communication needs to be learned by the members.
Taking the mentioned aspects into consideration, it can be seen that one of the critical success factors for diverse organizations is intercultural communication. Reflecting on our experiences and investigating this topic more, we came upon the subject of implicit communication. It is observed that when sharing a mutual culture, members of an organization will use implicit communication to get their messages across (Meyer, 2015). The concept of implicit communication is defined as a way for people to communicate and align with each other through previously existing understandings. In other words, people who share the same culture need fewer explanations and fewer words since the way of communicating is familiar and they are used to picking up on non-verbal cues. These previously existing understandings are related to culture and the behaviors learned when growing up and the integrated ways of working together that have created mutual understandings (Chang, Lin, Chen & Ho, 2017; Santos, Seixas, Brandão & Moutinho, 2012). For example, in Japanese culture silence is seen as mutual understanding and a way of showing respect. Japanese people are aware of this, but many western cultures interpret silence as uncertainty. Therefore, when Japanese people work with westerners, misunderstandings can arise as a result since the understanding of how silence is interpreted is not shared (Jun & Muto, 1995). This means that the members of the same culture often avoid extensive explanations and clarification, assuming that the receiver of the message can interpret it based on their mutual pre-existing understanding. This reduces the need for direct communication, hence; people will act on the previously learned assumptions rather than explicit requests (Jun & Muto, 1995; Meyer, 2015). However, as organizations become more diverse, due to the differences in the ways of communication among the members of different cultures, implicit communication does not work anymore and leads to ambiguity and uncertainty instead (Meyer 2015). When implicit communication stops working, there is no mutual understanding and people fail to understand each other, resulting in the need for more explicit communication (Meyer, 2015). This will result in misunderstanding and miscommunication, as well as reduced efficiency among the employees (Böhm, 2013).
In previous studies, a huge emphasis has been put on how cultural diversity benefits the organization and what issues can be associated with it (Chiappetta Jabbour, Gordono, Caldeira de Oliveira, Martinez & Gomes Battistelle, 2011; Cox,1993; D'Netto et al., 2014; Ely & Thomas, 2001; Van Knippenberg et al., 2013). Furthermore, different diversity management
approaches and practices have been discussed (Cox, Lobel & Mcleod, 1991; Kreitz, 2008; Moore, 1999; Shen, Chanda, D'Netto & Monga, 2009). However, cultural diversity and communication has only been focused on from specific aspects such as language (Tange & Lauring, 2009). Therefore, the subject of implicit communication in culturally diverse organizations has not been studied thoroughly in previous literature. Thus, the focus of this study will be on the subject of implicit communication challenges in culturally diverse organizations. It is assumed that this topic is worthy of study since miscommunication is one of the main challenges of culturally diverse workforces (D'Netto et al., 2014; Lauring & Selmer, 2012; Podsiadlowski et al., 2013). Hence, a study in this field can help the organizations become more aware of potential issues, which will help them to manage cultural diversity more effectively.
1.3 Purpose
This study attempts to deepen the understanding of the phenomenon of implicit communication challenges in culturally diverse organizations. The purpose is to, firstly, discover what challenges the employees in culturally diverse organizations face when implicit communication stops working. Then, the management practices that are used to minimize the challenges will be analyzed to get an in-depth insight into how to deal with these challenges. Based on the purpose of the study, the following research question was formulated:
What are the challenges of implicit communication in culturally diverse organizations and how to manage them efficiently?
2 Theoretical Framework
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The theoretical framework presents key concepts from previous literature and deepens the readers' understanding of topics related to culture, diversity, diversity management, communication in culturally diverse organizations, and implicit communication. The section is concluded with a short summary of the literature review and discusses what will be further researched.
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2.1 An overview of cultural diversity
Diversity and its definition depend on the context (Moore, 1999). From a general standpoint, it is defined as differences among individuals that distinguish them from one another (Kreitz, 2008; van Knippenberg et al., 2013). Diversity can have many different aspects; however, the studies have focused mostly on gender, race, ethnicity, culture (Ely & Thomas, 2001; van Dijk, van Engen & van Knippenberg, 2012), educational background (Ogbu, 1992), and functional background (van Knippenberg et al., 2013). The focus of this study will be on cultural diversity. In the context of this study, culture can be seen as an identity for people, where the same belief systems are shared, as well as a common understanding of certain ideas and traditions exists (Cox et al., 1991; Stahl, Maznevski, Voigt & Jonsen, 2009). Since culture can be an important aspect of identity and be a strong factor of differences and similarities among people, the double-edged effect of diversity is more noticeable when it comes to cultural diversity (Van Knippenberg et al., 2013).
Cultural diversity helps the organization to access markets that were previously not reachable (Ely & Thomas, 2001; Martin 2014), but is also beneficial for the organization’s core as the primary tasks in the organization can be rethought and can provide chances for cross-cultural learning (Ely & Thomas, 2001). Companies can benefit from a culturally diverse workforce if the teams are managed correctly by the organization’s management and leaders. Employees from different cultures can learn from each other and it is an opportunity for the company to gain new knowledge and skills. Although there are a variety of benefits from multi-cultural work teams, they have to be managed in order to be beneficial. When people with different backgrounds work together, it can happen that the individual values and beliefs are not aligning with the colleagues’ and cultural clashes occur (Oosthuizen et al., 2019). There are both individual cultures and organizational cultures and oftentimes they intertwine. Individual
cultures are based on beliefs and values whilst organizational cultures can help these culturally diverse people to work together and function. Organizational cultures have created a common way for employees to coordinate and share common factors such as principles, goals, and beliefs. The organizational culture should build a good environment for diversity in order to bring out the benefits from culturally diverse workforces. Organizational cultures are often not created around individuals’ cultures but rather on the people who are in charge, which means that cultural diversity is being ignored in some aspects (Pless & Maak, 2004). On the other hand, Mazur (2010) claims that cultural diversity is used in organizations to improve the company’s image and gain better opportunities in the marketplace and does not have any other significant benefits. Ely and Thomas (2001) discuss diversity through different perspectives and an access-and-legitimacy perspective is one of them. Within this view, a diverse workforce can be beneficial for the organization to be able to reach niche markets and gain legitimacy in those markets. However, this is not the only benefit of diversity. Unlike what Mazur (2010) claims, diversity can have other benefits than improving the companies’ image, which can depend on various factors such as the organizational and managerial perspectives towards diversity (Podsiadlowski et al., 2013), as well as the desired outcomes from diversity (Kreitz, 2008; Moore, 1999).
2.2 Work culture
Each corporation has a unique work culture. It embodies the values and leadership style of an organization but also the way employees are expected to act and treat other colleagues. The company identifies itself through the culture and is important in helping employees to have the right mindset and make decisions according to the company’s interests (Schneider, González-Romá, Ostroff & West, 2017; Tellis, Prabhu & Chandy, 2009). The culture is learned and understood over time and becomes clearer the longer an employee works for the company. Also, oftentimes the specific aspects of the culture are not written down but are mutually understood, similar to unwritten rules. The culture is also seen as a factor influencing the success of a company and a good internal culture can be part of the reason why a company is successful (Guiso, Sapienza & Zingales, 2015). Moreover, leaders play a large role in creating the work culture and develop the environment in which employees work (Guiso et al., 2015). According to Guiso et al. (2015), the culture within a company can also be seen as a way for the leadership to control employees without being physically present. Culture guides
employees to do what is in the company’s best interest and therefore results in positive outcomes (Guiso et al., 2015). According to Pilch and Turska (2015), a company can have a culture that supports harsh managers who push employees because it is believed to aid in reaching goals quicker. On the other hand, there are also work cultures which encourage innovation and support employees with new and creative ideas (Tellis et al., 2009). Lastly, hierarchy is closely connected to work culture and will be discussed more closely next. 2.2.1 Hierarchy
Work culture is not the only aspect that needs to be considered in an organization. Hierarchy plays a large role in how employees work together as well and it can be seen that the presence of hierarchical systems is stronger in some countries than in others (Miyamoto et al., 2018; Spreitzer, Perttula & Xin, 2005). That means that countries that follow a hierarchy see the managers and leaders as superior and other employees that have a lower rank oftentimes do not directly interact with the top management layer (Miyamoto et al., 2018; Spreitzer et al., 2005). The leaders are in charge and their opinions and actions set the tone for the rest of the company. Miyamoto et al. (2018) argue that hierarchy and culture are closely related and that depending on the country’s culture, the hierarchy can be more or less dominant. This idea is supported by Spreitzer et al. (2005) who further explain that Asian countries that follow Confucian beliefs are more prone to have hierarchical systems in the workplace. The Confucian beliefs are less focused on individuality and more on family, recognition of people in power and have more traditional views on men being in charge (Spreitzer et al., 2005). The different ranks in a hierarchy are highly dependent on factors such as gender, income, age, and status (Miyamoto et al., 2018). Cultures with a more traditional view on leadership and management put leaders at the top where everyone working for him or her is expected to listen and execute tasks given (Spreitzer et al., 2005). Work environments that have hierarchical systems are oftentimes much more formal and there is less interaction between people of high and low positions. Everyone has a specific place in the work and operations are more regulated than work environments without hierarchical views (Pilch & Turska, 2015).
2.3 Diversity perspectives
Companies can prioritize diversity differently and have different approaches and perspectives towards it (Dass & Parker, 1999; Ely & Thomas, 2001; Podsiadlowski et al., 2013). The study by Podsiadlowski et al. (2013) analyzes the use of a diversity perspective questionnaire (DPQ)
to evaluate the organization’s approach to diversity as well as any gaps between the desired approach and the actual practices. This approach includes five perspectives of reinforcing homogeneity, color-blind, fairness, access, and integration and learning (Dass & Parker, 1999; Ely & Thomas, 2001; Podsiadlowski et al., 2013). According to Podsiadlowski et al. (2013), the first perspective refers to organizations that prefer a homogeneous workforce, as it can be easier to work in a group where everyone is similar and have common values. The color-blind perspective focuses on skills and qualifications rather than the person’s background. Within this dimension, whoever meets the specific requirements for the job can be hired regardless of background. Next is the fairness perspective, which reflects on equal opportunities for everyone and provides support for specific groups so that they are able to develop further. In the access dimension, the diversity of the workforce is matched with the customers, considering that this will increase the overall quality of the organization’s performance. Lastly is the integration and learning perspective, where it is assumed that diversity will result in a wider range of skills, ideas, and knowledge and helps the organization to become more innovative and can be beneficial to the whole organization as well as the employees, as they can develop new skills and learn from each other. Organizations can use DPQ to further investigate and measure the explained perspectives (Podsiadlowski et al., 2013).
As seen in figure 1, the study by Dass and Parker (1999) suggests a framework for managing diversity that ties in with the mentioned perspectives. According to this model, the internal and external pressure against and in favor of diversity can influence the organizational responses and strategies towards it. For instance, the management can have a resistant view towards a diverse workforce or one that encourages diversity and is closer to the learning perspective. This also depends on how the leaders prioritize diversity. Depending on which perspective the organization has and the internal and external pressures, there can be proactive or reactive strategic responses to diversity. Accordingly, an episodic or systematic implementation of diversity can take place, where it is decided to either link diversity to the core processes and activities of the organization, systematic approach, or take a disjointed and episodic approach (Dass & Parker, 1999).
Figure 1, A Framework for managing diversity
Source: Dass and Parker (1999)
2.4 Benefits of a culturally diverse workforce
One of the main benefits of diversity, if managed effectively, is enhanced creativity (Shen et al., 2009; Tang, 2019). A recent study by Tang (2019) discusses a model to help increase the team creativity in diverse organizations called the VICTORY model. This model emphasizes seven factors that enhance team creativity. Each letter stands for an enabler which are V: Vision, I: Ideation, C: Combine, T: Team, O: Openness, R: Risk-taking, and Y: Yes-I-can. This means that with having a vision of mutual valued goals, a process of generating, evaluating, and selecting opinions and ideas among individuals and the whole team, combining and connecting these ideas, having a “team” mindset with shared responsibilities and goals, as well as being open to the different opinions and perspectives, and lastly having a “Yes I Can” mindset, the creativity can be improved among intercultural team members.
Other advantages include improvement of innovative performance (van Dijk et al., 2012), the positive influence of diversity on performance (Homan, van Knippenberg, Van Kleef & De Dreu, 2007; Moore, 1999; Van Knippenberg et al., 2103), and creation of informational diversity, which is the various perspectives and knowledge that each member brings to the team (Homan et al., 2007). It is seen that group performance improves when the members have a
pro-diversity belief (Homan et al., 2007). There are some moderators for the relationship between diversity and performance. Van Knippenberg et al. (2013) identify three main mindsets in regard to this moderating effect. The first moderator is accuracy which means “the extent to which goals and associated actions capture an understanding of diversity as an informational resource” (p.183). The next two aspects are sharedness, which means how similar are the organization’s members in their mindsets, and the third factor is their awareness of this sharedness. These two aspects strengthen the moderating effect. Besides these factors, Cox et al. (1991) discuss that cooperative behavior in the organization can be affected by cultural and ethnic differences. The study discusses further that groups or organizations that contain Hispanics, Asians, and Blacks can improve their cooperative approach to work. However, this cooperative response seems more rational when the members of the organization are working towards maximizing the mutual outcome and goal of the organization rather than the personal outcome.
2.5 Cultural diversity challenges
People from different cultures and backgrounds normally hold different values and belief (Stahl et al., 2009) and as a result challenges such as lower cohesion (D’Netto et al., 2014) loss of productivity (Martin 2014) lack of companionship, and lack of empathy can arise within culturally diverse organizations (Chiappetta Jabbour et al., 2011). These differences can also be sources of conflict among the members (Chiappetta Jabbour et al., 2011; Cox, 1993; Martin 2014; Stahl et al., 2009). As mentioned before, communication breakdown and less effective communication are also among major challenges associated with cultural diversity (D’Netto et al., 2014, Martin, 2014; Padsiadlowski et al., 2013). When it comes to communication, an important factor can be language (Chiappetta Jabbour et al., 2011). The study by Tange and Lauring (2009) illustrates that even though a company can have a corporate language, there will still be a language diversity in the organization due to the variety of cultures. The findings of the study show that language diversity can result in thin communication and language clustering. Thin communication means that the employees might avoid informal conversations due to being uncomfortable with using the corporate language. For instance; if English is used as a corporate language in a Swedish company, employees might limit their communication to only professional conversations, as they might not be as comfortable with speaking English as much as they are with their native language. In this case, employees tend to talk more to colleagues that share the same language as them, resulting in the establishment of language
clusters. This will further result in a disturbance in the transformation of information (Tange & Lauring, 2009). In addition, as people from the same cultures normally share more similarities, it is perceived that their attitudes towards the members with the same background could be more favorable and cooperative and the employees that share similar cultures can trust each other easier (van Dijk et al., 2012). As a result of the mentioned challenges, diversity needs to be managed to be able to achieve the best outcomes from it (Cox et al. 1991). Some of the effective diversity management practices will be further discussed.
2.6 Diversity management practices
Diversity management refers to the way diversity is managed in an organization to bring out the benefits of diversity and to integrate employees into a functioning workforce. It creates a company culture where the diversity of employees is seen as valuable and it is encouraged to create value to the organization through diverse thinking (Cox et al., 1991; Patrick & Kumar, 2012; Tang, 2019). The rise in workforce diversity increases the need for companies to manage the differences between the employees and ensure that there are no issues (Cox et al., 1991). Diversity practices need to be implemented at a strategic, tactical, and operational level to reach the desired outcomes from diversity (Shen et al., 2009). Some ways suggested by Moore (1999) for improving diversity in an organization are having supportive policies that hinder discrimination and contribute to an equal atmosphere, taking into consideration that in today’s world people have different lifestyles, and having supporting networks and mentors. Furthermore, Kreitz (2008) suggests “data-driven planning, carefully articulated goals, judiciously applied organizational changes, and soundly gathered and ruthlessly analyzed metrics'' (p. 106), as effective ways for managing diversity. It is also discussed that the diversity initiatives should be supported by the managers in the organizations and the required resources should be allocated to achieve the diversity goals. Furthermore, successful diversity is incremental and evolves from the day to day actions the organization takes to achieve these goals (Kreitz, 2008). Other important aspects when it comes to diversity training is to be aware of the challenges that the different people might face in the organization, basing the training on competencies and skills, and paying attention to the context that the diversity is being addressed in (Moore, 1999).
The US Government Accountability Office (GAO, 2005) also presents a number of leading diversity management practices to enable organizations to benefit from a diverse and dynamic
workforce. Firstly, the top management needs to show commitment by creating a diversity vision that is communicated to all levels of the organization and incorporate diversity into the company’s strategic plans. Also, an atmosphere that encourages openness among employees can be another approach that team leaders can use (Böhm, 2013; GAO 2005). Furthermore, understanding the benefits of diversity and linking it to better performance as well as measuring the effects of diversity to observe the improvements can be helpful. Accountability is also considered as an important factor, which is “the means to ensure that leaders are responsible for diversity by linking their performance assessment and compensation to the progress of diversity initiatives” (GAO, 2005, p.4). Other practices include diversity training (Sharma, 2016), recruiting a diverse workforce, involving the employees, as well as succession planning (GAO, 2005). As communication challenges are central to this study, analysis of communication literature is further presented.
2.7 Communication in culturally diverse organizations
Butchibabu et al. (2016) state that teams that have a good way of communicating and are used to working together are more successful in the work than teams who do not communicate well. Communication between people of the same national background comes naturally but companies are employing people from all over the world today and are expanding beyond original borders. This means that leaders have to find ways to communicate with and manage people from different cultural backgrounds (Butchibabu et al., 2016; Tange & Lauring, 2009). Communicating and coordinating can become difficult and as explained by Butchibabu et al. (2016), the ability to coordinate in a good way is one of the key reasons for successful work teams. Therefore, it is part of the managers’ responsibility to manage the team in such a way that communication is not hindering task completion, nor causing misunderstandings (Isotalus & Kakkuri-Knuuttila, 2018; Tange & Lauring, 2009; Trittin & Schoeneborn, 2017). Moreover, the larger the group is, and the more different languages are spoken within the group, the greater the difficulties can be for managers to find a good communication system. It can also be seen that language is not the only factor to consider when looking at communication. More personal aspects such as culture, beliefs, social groups, and backgrounds also determine how one communicates within a group (Tange & Lauring, 2009). According to Feely and Harzing (2003), a solution to this problem could be to implement a common language like, for example, English. This would put everyone on the same level and create an organizational language where everyone can partake. Although, it is important to note that not everyone can easily adapt
to such a system and some might struggle to use a language other than one’s native language (D'Netto et al., 2014; Feely & Harzing, 2003).Tange and Lauring (2009) support this with their findings that the use of a common and homogenous way of communicating can hinder the full context to go through and result in thin communication. Furthermore, some context can get lost in translation, which makes communication less efficient.
As already stated, organizations can greatly benefit from a culturally diverse workforce, but to do so, cross-cultural communication has to be functioning. Only being diverse is not enough and the organization has to manage communication to be able to utilize the benefits of cultural diversity (Trittin & Schoeneborn, 2017). Different forms of communication can be used within an organization and be more or less effective depending on how the employees work. It is also explained that communication between groups and people can lead to greater innovation. This is especially true in culturally diverse groups since everyone has a different background and contributions. In order to do so, management needs to create an environment where communication flourishes so that innovation and creativity are possible (Tang, 2019). Since people from different backgrounds are working together and have been brought up with different cultures, authors believe that an open communication system is important and helpful for organizations. This could help the group to overcome some of the potential diversity issues that can appear and help employees work better together (D'Netto et al., 2014). Moreover, Pekerti (2005) believes that for communication to function, both managers and workers have to understand each other’s backgrounds and be aware of the different cultures. This makes it easier to coordinate since a better understanding of the colleague is at hand. The way people translate information differs to a great extent and is also dependent on cultural aspects (Pekerti, 2005).
2.8 Communication in high context and low context cultures
It is argued that communication and culture are closely linked to each other. This means that oftentimes cultures use a distinguished and specific way of communication, which is characteristic of that culture (Jun & Muto, 1995; Pekerti, 2005). For example, researchers have studied Japanese culture and found that words can have different meanings when used alone or put in a full sentence. It can be difficult to comprehend the whole meaning since a single word can be used to explain something, that would require other nations to use multiple sentences. Also, this means that not a lot needs to be said in order to get a complex point across. The resulting silence can be seen as something negative by cultures using more expressional
language but is, in reality, a powerful and purposeful part of the Japanese culture. Furthermore, nonverbal communication is also common and body language or eye contact can be enough to coordinate (Jun & Muto, 1995). If people are unaware of these cultural differences, misinterpretations, and false assumptions are inevitable (Jun & Muto, 1995; Pekerti, 2005). With this in mind, there are low-context cultures and high-context cultures, which heavily affects the way people interact and coordinate. This also plays a role in how people chose to handle information and how much information is needed (Pekerti, 2005). Low-context cultures need much more explanation and words are used as the main form of information transmission. This makes communication more explicit. On the other hand, high-context cultures require less spoken communication and rely more on the underlying meaning and message of the discussion. The communication form is implicit and is based on cultural understandings and the overall context of the discussion (Darling & Heller, 2011; Pekerti, 2005).
2.9 Implicit communication
Implicit communication is defined as a way for people to communicate and align with each other without using language but through previously existing understandings. The previously existing understandings are either related to culture and the behaviors learned when growing up, or the integrated way of working together creating mutual understandings (Chang et al., 2017; Entin & Serfaty, 1999; Santos et al., 2012). The importance of communication in a diverse organization has been highlighted by multiple authors (D'Netto et al., 2014; Kreitz, 2008; Tang, 2019; Tange & Lauring, 2009). Different cultures have different ways of doing things, which can become challenging when people with different backgrounds are put in the same group (Butchibabu, et al, 2016). The success of a team is highly dependent on the effectiveness of its communication strategies (Butchibabu et al., 2016; Chang et al, 2017). Diversity management is therefore crucial in order to improve communication and find ways to coordinate and integrate people (Patrick & Kumar, 2012). A risk factor identified in the research was that if diversity communication is not functioning, conflicts can arise or an increase in communication difficulties can develop (Homan et al., 2007).
Employees in an organization use different ways of coordinating with each other and to get a message across. The coordination focuses on the integration of the team, as well as the work task coordination. Human behavior plays a large role in the success of communication and the researchers have highlighted the use of implicit and explicit communication. Explicit
communication is intentional and more direct, whereas implicit is indirect and uses less obvious communication (Rico, Sánchez-Manzanares, Gil & Gibson, 2008). The literature uses different definitions for implicit communication, but the authors agree that this kind of communication is often used within work teams. It is explained that organizations can benefit from implicit communication since it can be more efficient and does not use an overflow of information (Butchibabu et al., 2016; Rico, Gibson, Sánchez-Manzanares & Clark, 2019). It has been shown that implicit communication is also more commonly used in situations where workgroups only have a short amount of time to finish a task and are working under great pressure. Furthermore, the workgroup can normally use explicit forms of communication but goes over to use implicit communication instead because it is more effective under these circumstances. The team can anticipate each other’s steps without having to explicitly articulate it. This implicit communication is less conscious and enables team members to work quickly without spending time on explicit explanations of the work and coordination. It is also argued that even though employees spend less time directly communicating with each other, using an implicit approach does not have a negative effect on the work and is directly seen as a reason for the success of work teams in stressful situations (Entin & Serfaty, 1999). This idea is also supported by Butchibabu et al. (2016) who explain that teams are oftentimes already aware of each other's anticipated steps and use this information in hectic situations to focus on solving a task in the best way possible without wasting time. However, implicit communication breaks as the organization becomes more diverse and can lead to different issues such as conflicts, ambiguity, and misunderstandings (Meyer, 2015). Hence, diversity management practices need to be put in place in order to minimize the challenges and be able to benefit from diversity (D'Netto et al., 2014).
2.10 Theoretical Framework Summary
The theoretical framework familiarizes the reader with the topic of culture and cultural diversity and presents the expected benefits cultural diversity should bring to organizations. Culture and cultural diversity are further discussed to gain a deeper understanding of how cultural differences can affect the work. This is important since cultural diversity is most commonly seen as a benefit (D'Netto et al., 2014), but can on the other hand also cause challenges in the organization (Oosthuizen et al., 2019). To minimize challenges, the framework brings up the concept of diversity management and the different strategies suggested by the literature to properly manage cultural diversity. The importance of work
culture is recognized since it creates the environment in which employees are working and greatly influences the way employees interact with each other (Guiso et al., 2015). The leaders should introduce policies hindering discrimination, as well as focus on diversity training measures (Moore, 1999). Since the thesis uses a twin-slate approach to the grounded theory, the theories of existing literature will be taken into consideration in the analysis and the development of the final discussion. Since communication is a key to success in a company (Butchibabu et al., 2016) and communication differs between cultures (Tange & Lauring, 2009) it is important to further explore how the differences are managed in a company and how organizations are able to benefit from differences in employees' cultural background.
3 Method
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This chapter discusses the methodology and research method of the study and provides motivation to why the specific methods were chosen. Moreover, the chapter includes a section about data collection, how the literature review was conducted, and an interview guide. The chapter is concluded with a summary of the main aspects of the process.
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3.1 Methodology
3.1.1 Research philosophy
Research paradigms are philosophical guidelines that help the researchers frame their work based on beliefs about the world as well as assumptions regarding the nature of knowledge (Collis & Hussey, 2013). This study lies towards an interpretative paradigm, which considers reality as “a social construction”. (Collis & Hussey, 2013, p. 49). The social reality is subjective in the interpretivism paradigm with a humanistic approach rather than a scientific one. Research conducted within an interpretive paradigm is an attempt to understand a phenomenon within a specific context. On the opposite side is the positivist paradigm which is based on the idea of the objectivity of social reality. This paradigm assumes that a social phenomenon is not affected by investigation and the research is done to be able to develop theories that will contribute to a better understanding of the phenomena. In other words, positivism views reality with an objective and factual structure (Collis & Hussey, 2013). The subject of this study can be affected by the context it is studied within and it is attempting to generate theories rather than testing hypotheses. Furthermore, the interpretative paradigm will allow the researchers to get a deeper insight into the topic and have a closer interaction with the topic being studied (Collis & Hussey, 2013). Thus, it is believed that interpretivism is a suitable paradigm for this study.
3.1.2 Research approach
There are different approaches when it comes to conducting research. Deductive research is when a theoretical framework is developed and the propositions drawn from the theoretical background are then examined in the real world using empirical observations (Collis & Hussey, 2013; Dubois & Gadde, 2002). Whereas in an inductive study, theories are generated based on the data collected throughout the research process (Collis & Hussey, 2013; Dubois & Gadde, 2002). Some studies might be a mix of inductive and deductive approaches, which results in
an abductive approach (Dubois & Gadde, 2002). According to Czarniawska (2014) “abduction is a form of a logical inference that goes from a minute description of some event to a hypothesis. [...] This explanation is then tried out ("tested") on the next observation” (p. 40). To determine which approach fits the current study better, it can be said that the theories and final assumptions will mostly be based on the empirical findings and the collected data. This is a characteristic of an inductive study. However, the theoretical framework in this study will help the authors to find the direction of the study and be able to articulate valid theories. Hence, it can be said that the study has an abductive approach where both empirical findings and the previous literature will contribute to the process of generating new theories and ideas. Also, as this study is based upon the grounded theory method, which will be thoroughly explained later, an abductive approach will allow going back and forth between the previous literature and emerging data, which is an important feature in grounded theory (Czarniawska, 2014). Thus, an abductive approach is found suitable for the study as it will support the “logic of discovery” (Czarniawska, 2014, p. 40) as well as the method of analysis of this research.
3.1.3 Research method
As this study is based on an interpretivism paradigm, the suitable method would be to conduct a qualitative study. A qualitative study allows researchers to obtain an in-depth understanding and provides data with high validity (Collis & Hussey, 2013). Furthermore, it will enable the authors to be able to collect rich information within a specific context (Collis & Hussey, 2013). This is done by conducting a case study. Czarniawska (2014) refers to case studies as “a study of the occurrence of a phenomenon” (p. 35). A case study allows the researchers to investigate the phenomenon in a natural setting and gather in-depth knowledge about it (Collis & Hussey, 2013). In this paper, the phenomenon being studied is implicit communication challenges in culturally diverse organizations. Interviews were chosen as the data collection method as they are greatly reliable compared to other methods such as surveys (Allan, 2003). Due to the restrictions of the Covid-19 pandemic, skype and Microsoft team interviews had to be used instead of face-to-face ones. The interviews were semi-structured which made it possible for the researchers to have a guide, but also come up with questions during the interview, based on the discussions, and therefore be more flexible. Semi-structured interviews provide the authors with real-time and retrospective information from people experienced in the phenomenon, which is also considered to be a good fit for the grounded theory method (Gioia, Corley & Hamilton, 2012). One interview was carried out with the manager and 5 were conducted with
the employees. The number of interviews fulfilled the process of theoretical saturation which will be further explained in the research process section.
3.2 Data collection
3.2.1 Selection process of the primary data
To select the companies, firstly, the criteria for the selection were identified. Through looking at previous studies, it was detected that diversity enhances creativity (Leung et al., 2008), creates a broader knowledge base, (Lauring, 2009; Martin, 2014), and can contribute to innovation in the organization (D'Netto et al., 2014). Therefore, it was decided to focus on companies that value these features in selecting their employees. The industries were not limited. The reason for this is that we think the criteria mentioned above will provide us with more beneficial information rather than focusing on one industry. To check if the company meets the factors, the companies’ information, mission, and objectives were examined through their websites.
The geographical scope of the study was narrowed down to Sweden. The reason for this choice is threefold. Firstly, the statistics from the Swedish Immigration agency shows that Swedish society is becoming more culturally diverse. A general overview of the total number of residents permits granted between the years of 1980 to 2019 shows a growth trend, with 12669 permits in 1980 to 119450 in 2019. The specific permits for the labor market show a drastic increase since 2007, reaching to 43242 in 2019 (migrationsverket, 2020). Furthermore, it can be seen that the diversity in the labor market is quite recent as there is no data on the number of permits up until the year 2000 (migrationsverket, 2020). This growth, especially in the labor market, illustrates that the workforce is becoming more diverse, which will be a good fit for this study. Secondly, the work opportunities in Sweden are based on the discrimination act (2008:567). “The purpose of this Act is to combat discrimination and in other ways promote equal rights and opportunities regardless of sex, transgender identity or expression, ethnicity, religion or other belief, disability, sexual orientation or age” (Government Offices of Sweden, 2015, para. 1). The equality in the work opportunities will allow diverse labor in organizations, which is another reason Sweden will be a good fit for the study. Lastly, as the researchers are located in Sweden, it would be easier to access the companies and there would be fewer limitations, for instance, there would be no language barriers.
After classifying the criteria and the scope of the study, the companies that would be a good fit were selected. Thereafter, the selected companies were contacted by email and the purpose of the study was discussed. Companies that showed initial interest in the topic were then provided with more detailed information about the research as well as the desired number of interviews. It was also mentioned that it is preferred to have interviews with employees from different cultural backgrounds.
3.2.2 Process of literature review
To conduct the literature review, the following keywords were identified: “diversity management”, “communication”, “culture” and “cultural diversity”. A basic search was carried out in the Scopus database. The search included articles, reviews, and book chapters and the date range was not limited. The first search consisted of the following keywords: “diversity management” AND “communication*” AND “culture*” that resulted in 21 articles. To get a broader overview, the next search was conducted using the keywords “diversity management” AND “communication*” and limited to the business, management and accounting subject area, which resulted in 45 documents. Lastly, to identify the main diversity management studies, the keyword “diversity management” was used and the results were sorted by “high to low cited”. From the last search, the relevant and highly sourced documents were identified which resulted in approximately 20 articles. The total 86 results of these searches were thoroughly analyzed to examine the credibility and relevance to the current study. A table with the main ideas of the literature and the relevant details was developed to help the authors classify the themes in the previous studies. These articles were then thoroughly studied and analyzed, and the theoretical framework was built upon them.
3.2.3 Interview guide construction
The interview questions were designed to provide us with some background information about the interviewed person and to discuss topics found in the literature review. It also helped in the interview process to see what topics have already been discussed and to avoid asking similar questions. At the beginning of the interview, the person was asked to introduce him- or herself and tell us where he/she is from, the position in the company, how long he/she has been in Sweden if relevant. By asking the person to present him- or herself, a better understanding of the person's background and culture could be gained. This helped us to draw connections between culture, personal experiences, and literature. Also, from the literature review, it can be
seen that there is a clear connection between cultural background and communication (Jun & Muto, 1995; Pekerti, 2005), which is another reason why the background question is relevant for our work. Other than cultural background, topics of cultural differences, communication, diversity management, and miscommunication were identified. These questions were geared towards the employee’s perspective and were designed to provide better insights. To get an understanding of the leadership’s perspective, questions geared towards the management's responsibilities were constructed. The questions asked were also related to the factors mentioned above but from the manager's perspective. More questions were included to address diversity management, communication issues, as well as areas of improvement for the company. The guide to the interview questions is provided in appendix A.
3.2.4 Semi-structured Interviews
Interviews were conducted with 5 different employees and a manager from Husqvarna Group. The interviews were held over the time period of two days and lasted for about 6 and a half hours in total. The sample group was culturally diverse and originated from areas such as India, Italy, the Philippines, and Sweden. Each interview started with the question if the interview could be recorded and proceeded after the permission was given. The manager was also provided with a consent form indicating the purpose of the research as well as some general terms for the interviews (Appendix B). It was agreed upon to mention the name of the company in this paper. However, the interviewees’ names are not used to ensure their anonymity. The interviews were semi-structured where some initial questions had been prepared to help initiate the conversations. Open-ended questions were used since these cannot be shortly answered with yes or no. The advantage this brings to the study is that interviewees give more complex answers with reflections and personal viewpoints (Collis & Hussey, 2013). This contributes to more extensive data that can be analyzed and evaluated. The semi-structured method was chosen to give the interviewee the opportunity to talk freely and provide open-ended answers. This helped to not steer the results in a certain direction and keep it free from bias. The method was also chosen because it would provide more insights into the topic and result in qualitative data, which could be further analyzed and compared (Collis & Hussey, 2013). Having semi-structured interviews made it possible to ask follow-up questions and explore other areas brought up by the interviewee if relevant. Throughout the interview, notes were taken as well to ensure that nothing was forgotten, and important thoughts were written down. The interviews
were finished, and the interviewee was asked to be available for follow up questions later on if needed.
3.3 Grounded theory
The subject of the study, implicit communication challenges in culturally diverse organizations, is a topic that has not been focused on in the previous studies and is understudied, therefore, the grounded theory approach is thought to be suitable for the analyses. Grounded theory is an approach that is used when a phenomenon is underdressed or is new in the field of study (Murphy, Klotz & Kreiner, 2017). According to Murphy et al. (2017), there are four stages involved in grounded theory, which include emergence, constant comparison, theoretical sampling, and theoretical saturation. Emergence means that the researchers are open to new data that emerge in the course of research and analysis. Constant comparison implies that researchers constantly compare the emerging data with previous data existing literature. Next is theoretical sampling, which is when data sources are chosen based on their relevance and usefulness and can help the researchers to extend, validate, or correct the theory that is being created. Lastly, the researchers keep collecting and analyzing the data until the theories that are emerging from the data are saturated, meaning that the depth of the data is comprehensive, and the new data will be non-redundant. To increase the quality of the grounded theory method, Fendt and Sachs (2008) suggest making constant comparisons and extending the use of memos, previous literature, and data in the comparisons. Memos, which are documentations of the researchers’ thoughts and clues during the process of analyzing and comparing the data, can be helpful during the process of analysis (Murphy et al., 2017).
There are different approaches to grounded theory, which include the Gioia approach and Tabula Geminus or twin slate approach. The Gioia approach has more emphasis on creating a visual data structure (Gioia et al., 2012; Murphy et al., 2017). In this approach, interviews are a common method of data collection, and the data is constantly coded and categorized. These themes are evolved and redefined over time (Gioia et al., 2012; Murphy et al., 2017). A central aspect of this approach is to have a “blank state”, meaning that the researcher’s mind should be free of the previous theories and literature. After the first stage of coding and analysis of the data and creating a data structure, a process of comparing among different categories, themes, emergent data, and previous literature takes place to understand the relationships and find out if any new concepts are being developed. In the last stage, the data analysis is finalized, and main assumptions and final interpretations are agreed upon (Gioia et al., 2012). The other
approach is the twin slate approach, which is in many ways similar to the first one. However, in this approach, the integration between the existing literature and collected and emerging data happens earlier in the analysis process. This approach is known to be more efficient and effective, as the researchers can identify the areas that have been covered in previous studies faster and allows the authors to focus on aspects that have more potential for theory creation (Murphy et al., 2017). The approach that will be used for this study will be the twin-slate approach. As mentioned, twin-slate allows the authors to start the analysis between collected and emerging data with previous literature from the beginning. This will be more suitable since it will enable the authors to focus on undiscovered dimensions in a more time-efficient manner.
3.4 Research process
The first step in conducting the study is designing the research and formulating a well-defined research question. When using the grounded theory method, it is important to investigate the previous literature thoroughly to see the potential of discovering new insights and theories within the topic (Gioia et al., 2012). In this study, after the initial interest in cultural diversity, diversity management, and the subject of communication was formed, the relevant literature was thoroughly studied. In previous studies, a huge emphasis has been put on how cultural diversity benefits the organization and what issues can be associated with it (Chiappetta Jabbour et al., 2011; Cox, 1993; D'Netto et al., 2014; Ely & Thomas, 2001; Van Knippenberg et al., 2013). Furthermore, different diversity management approaches and practices have been illustrated (Cox et al., 1991; Kreitz, 2008; Moore, 1999; Shen et al., 2009). However, cultural diversity and communication have been only focused on from specific aspects such as language (Tange & Lauring, 2009). Therefore, a full picture of what miscommunication challenges are faced by the employees in culturally diverse organizations and how these challenges are handled is missing. Furthermore, different approaches towards communication such as explicit and implicit communication have not been researched in relation to culturally diverse organizations. Thus, a gap regarding implicit communication challenges was identified. Then, the research question was formulated based on the spotted gap.
Next is the process of data collection where a theoretical sampling is done to purposefully target organizations and/or individuals on the basis of how useful they can be for the study in regard to validating, expanding, and correcting the emerging theory (Murphy et al., 2017). This was done by identifying the criteria for organizations and individuals that would be a good fit
for data collection. The participants in the interviews should be considered as knowledgeable experts in the field who are able to inform the researchers about the phenomenon being studied. Interviews with them should provide the flexibility of possible adjustments based on the responses (Gioia et al., 2012). To fulfill this, the data collection process was done by conducting semi-structured interviews with the selected employees and the manager. The criteria were explained to the contact person prior to interviews to ensure that the employees who are selected for the interviews are knowledgeable in the subject being studied. Furthermore, the analysis was done simultaneously during data collection. According to Corbin & Strauss (1990), the interrelated process of analysis and data collection is very significant as it allows the researchers to be able to capture the most relevant data. Thus, the process of coding and identifying the categories began with the first interview. As explained before, the main feature of the grounded theory method is the constant comparison among data and the literature to make sure that the theory being created is supported by past and present data (Murphy et al., 2017). Therefore, the theoretical background section was constantly revised to be able to add new information related to emerging themes. Furthermore, as the twin-slate approach has been chosen for this study, constant comparison started early in the procedure. The comparison was made between the previous literature and emerging data to identify what has been discussed previously in the literature and what new theories are emerging from the data. Data collection continues until reaching theoretical saturation, which is when no new categories emerge and the existing categories are comprehensively in-depth and saturated (Murphy et al., 2017). This was seen during the last two interviews with employees, in which no significant new information was obtained.
The process of analysis in this study has been based on the coding paradigm developed by Corbin and Strauss (1990), which includes open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. Open coding helps the authors to thematize the data into categories and subcategories based on the differences and similarities among them. Axial coding contributes to making a better sense of the data by connecting the categories and subcategories together. The selective coding will happen towards the end of the study, where the weaker categories will be identified and all the other categories will be connected to a core category (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). A helpful procedure during the analysis process has been memo-writing, to be able to elaborate on the existing and emerging data and integrate the information. A more thorough clarification of the analysis process is further discussed in the analysis chapter.
In the last stage of the research, grounded theory articulation is done where the data structure formed in the analysis is transformed into a grounded theory model (Gioia et al., 2012). When creating the theory, a balance should be considered between “telling” and “showing”, meaning that “telling” the audience what has proved to be true and “showing” them by demonstrating different examples and relationships that were found in the data (Murphy et al., 2017). Initially, the data from the first stage of coding and analysis was a lot and created confusion for the authors. However, as the process of analysis progressed, a clear connection was seen among the findings. With the help of memo-writing and the information gathered throughout the analysis, final conclusions were drawn.
3.5 Research Quality
Throughout the qualitative research, the credibility, dependability, transferability, and confirmability of all information were taken into consideration in order to support the reliability of the study (Murphy et al., 2017). This assures that the presented findings from the research are representative and in alignment with the truth of the concept of implicit communication challenges in culturally diverse workplaces. To confirm the credibility of the findings, the validity and truthfulness of the information presented has to be assured (Murphy et al., 2017). This was achieved by conducting interviews with employees and a manager who were both experienced in the field and well informed about the topic of discussion. Moreover, the sampling of the subjects was made in a purposeful manner and specific criteria had to be met in order to be suitable for the research, which further supports the credibility (Murphy et al., 2017). To achieve dependability of the study the research was done by considering and carefully comparing a variety of authors and research. Multiple sources were used and research that was consistently and often cited was used to further confirm the dependability. This allowed the results to be interpreted and evaluated in an unbiased way (Corbin & Strauss, 1990; Murphy et al., 2017). Regarding the transferability, the possible areas for further research were considered and presented to give other researchers a base for future research. This was done by explaining the discussed topics and results and giving the reader a clearer picture of how these results can be useful for others as well (Murphy et al., 2017). Finally, the confirmability was taken into consideration by creating a very clear structure of how the research was conducted. This not only allows others to reproduce the study, but also creates a transparency of every process and how the findings were made. To further strengthen the confirmability, additional information was added in the appendix. Moreover, figures and a clear explanation of the
