About
26
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Introduction
Associate Professor at the department of Professional and Intercultural Communication at NHH.
Research interests: business communication, cross-cultural management, language issues applied to business settings, discourse analysis of leaders, and research on student-centered teaching methods.
I have substantial experience in working across disciplines and cultures.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
October 2016 - January 2017
August 2011 - October 2016
September 2010 - May 2011
Publications
Publications (26)
Westerners are often depicted in intercultural communication literature as direct and Asians indirect when they communicate. If their communication styles are so different, however, how can they understand each other and collaborate in the workplace? The present article looks at internal e-mail communication in the workplace. More specifically, the...
The aim of the paper is to critically describe and discuss the concept of power distance developed by Hofstede.It is divided into two parts: the first one focuses on the definition and discusses its extent and its implications. Italso examines the questions used by Hofstede to calculate this dimension and shows that the formulation of thequestions...
Successful communication among employees working in the same company is essential but difficult. However, it can become even more challenging when employees are from different national and linguistic backgrounds and are required to interact in English (used as a lingua franca for business purposes or BELF), in which they may be less competent than...
Future global leaders need to develop global leadership competencies (GLCs) to tackle the complexities of globalisation, not just to learn about them. While most programmes in university settings focus on study-abroad or out-of-classroom experiences to develop these competencies, it is argued that well-designed on-campus learning methods can develo...
Whereas many scholars criticize the traditional approach to teaching intercultural communication and suggest new theoretical orientations in research, little has been said on how the subject should be taught and what activities should be implemented in response. In this paper, we make suggestions based on experiences of implementing and reflecting...
Students often perceive working in multinational teams as challenging, and differences in cultures, language proficiency and working styles may affect their collaboration. Therefore, what can students do to make their teams work? The article describes students’ perceptions and reflections over a semester and examines their strategies to foster effe...
Making a good impression by email is an essential skill for future leaders to collaborate and get the job done in international settings. The present chapter describes two intercultural email activities and their implementation in the classroom. While many business students have only been exposed to the positivist approach to culture, these activit...
In Norway, over 40% of highly skilled migrants (HSMs) are overqualified for their position, according to a recent report published by Statistics Norway (Statistics Norway, 2022). Norwegian employers claim they lack qualified candidates, but at the same time, they are reluctant to hire HSMs because they do not trust their qualifications and claim th...
Companies that nurture a shared corporate culture based on specific corporate values can improve their performance. However, when companies expand globally, communicating and transferring these values can be challenging, particularly when there are significant linguistic and cultural differences. This qualitative study examined the case of a small...
Effective foreign language learning requires students to be engaged and to interact with the teacher and peer students in the target language during class. How can this be achieved effectively when the course is suddenly moved online? This chapter reports on the implementation of a Business French course in a business school in Norway using the fli...
Presented at the ABC (Association for business communication) international conference in Vienna 26-28.08.2021.
The presentation gives a summary of the paper published in French: Redéfinir le dirigeant d’entreprise: le retravail de l’ethos collectif dans le discours de remise de
diplômes de Faber, Argumentation et Analyse du Discours [En ligne],...
Presented at the ABC (Association for business communication) international conference in Vienna 26-28.08.2021.
Part of the panel presentation: Learning, research and practice in business communication: a careful balancing act on the road to success. Convenors: Astrid Vandendaele &Geert Jacobs
Companies that nurture a shared corporate culture based upon corporate values can drive companies towards high performance. However, when companies go global and establish subsidiaries in foreign countries, transferring these corporate values may be challenging. This process is particularly challenging when there are significant linguistic and cult...
In 2012, I was contacted by a Norwegian company that operated internationally. Over the years, misunderstandings and tensions had arisen among employees from Northern Europe and Asia and created challenges in the work collaboration among these colleagues. I was asked to help. Given the existing theories on national cultural differences, the tension...
Cet article analyse la manière dont Emmanuel Faber, PDG de Danone, redéfinit l’image du dirigeant d’entreprise dans son discours de remise des diplômes à HEC en 2016. Faber fait la promotion de la justice sociale et invite son auditoire à agir pour un monde meilleur. La force de ce discours réside dans la manière dont il construit son message. L’an...
This chapter addresses the issue of identity and positioning while conducting fieldwork on foreign turf. Addressing one’s subjectivity is particularly important when collecting data on foreign turf. The purpose of this chapter is to share and reflect upon our experiences and strategies of communicating common grounds and building trust from two dif...
Le management interculturel est une discipline relativement récente qui s’est développée à partir des travaux menés en communication interculturelle, en management comparé et en comportement organisationnel. Ce chapitre évoque d’abord mon parcours avec le management interculturel et présente les cadres théoriques dominants de la discipline, avant d...
The present paper examines the narratives of a company leader in internal social media. More specifically, it looks at how the leader discursively constructs, communicates and reinforces the organisation’s corporate values.
The investigated case is a Norwegian IT company that has, since its inception in 2005, had two corporate values: “varme” (warm...
The present chapter explores the way Chinese and Scandinavian (Norwegian and Swedish) engineers working together on transnational projects in an international company perceive and make sense of their work collaboration with regards to cultural differences and communication practices (Vaara in M@n@gement, 3(3):81–110, 2000; Weick in Sensemaking in o...
This chapter aims to provide a critical review of two methods commonly used to collect language data in the workplace — naturally occurring data and interviews — and to argue in favour of role enactment to generate reliable and representative data.
Dans cet article, nous nous proposerons d'étudier le rôle du langage dans l'évocation d'un événement international, COP15, la Conférence sur les changements climatiques organisée à Copenhague en décembre 2009 par l'ONU. Nous examinerons d'une part la manière dont l'événement est construit linguistiquement en amont, et nous analyserons, d'autre part...
Recent years have witnessed the European Union struggling to keep Europe together in increasingly difficult economic and political circumstances. Communication within and about European institutions has become more challenging in this perplexing political environment, demonstrating the complex nature of EU political discourse. In order to highlight...
L'article propose d'identifier et d'analyser les métaphores liées au climat et au changement climatique dans deux débats autour de la Conférence sur les changements climatiques de Copenhague (COP15) au Parlement européen. L'étude part de l'idée que les métaphores structurent notre pensée et notre perception du monde (Lakoff &Johnson). Le choix du d...
