A study of the attitude of generation z to cross-cultural interaction in business

Abstract

Background and Purpose: In a digitally globalized world cross-cultural interaction in social and business environment has become more widespread than ever before. The purpose of this paper is to explore the attitude of Generation Z representatives to different aspects of cross-cultural interaction.
Design/Methodology/Approach: We used an online questionnaire to collect data for our study. A sample of 324 young adults from three countries: Germany (n=113/34.9%), Romania (n=107/33.0%) and Ukraine (n=104/32.1%) participated in the online survey. The sample consists of university students aged less than 23 years to match the criteria of being representatives of Generation Z. Different statistical tools were used to check the hypotheses.
Results: The results of the study indicate that Generation Z representatives consider cross-cultural communication skills as highly important both in their private and business life. The main motivation factors to work in a multicultural business environment have been identified as well as major barriers for effective cross-cultural interaction.
Conclusion: This paper illustrates that Gen Zers are willing to work in a multicultural business environment; moreover it can give them additional motivation. This trend along with ongoing processes of globalization and digitalization fosters further interconnection of countries and regions of the world, making cross-cultural communication and cross-cultural management techniques even more important.

Full text

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Received: 10/09/2019. Accepted: 06/11/2019
Copyright © 2019 Denys Lintsev, Cristina Fleșeriu, Wanja Wellbrock. Published by Vilnius University Press. This is an Open Access article
distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Informacijos mokslai ISSN 1392-0561 eISSN 1392-1487
2019, vol. 86, pp. 41–55 DOI: https://doi.org/10.15388/Im.2019.86.25
A study of the attitude of Generation Z to
cross-cultural interaction in business
Denys Lintsev, PhD
Kyiv National Economic University named after Vadym Hetman, Kyiv, Ukraine
denfcdk@gmail.com
Cristina Fleșeriu, PhD
Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
cristinaeseriu@gmail.com
Wanja Wellbrock, PhD
Heilbronn University of Applied Sciences, Heilbronn, Germany
wanja.wellbrock@hs-heilbronn.de
Abstract. Background and Purpose: In a digitally globalized world cross-cultural interaction in social and business
environment has become more widespread than ever before. The purpose of this paper is to explore the attitude of
Generation Z representatives to different aspects of cross-cultural interaction.
Design/Methodology/Approach: We used an online questionnaire to collect data for our study. A sample of 324 young
adults from three countries: Germany (n=113/34.9%), Romania (n=107/33.0%) and Ukraine (n=104/32.1%) partici-
pated in the online survey. The sample consists of university students aged less than 23 years to match the criteria of
being representatives of Generation Z. Different statistical tools were used to check the hypotheses.
Results: The results of the study indicate that Generation Z representatives consider cross-cultural communication
skills as highly important both in their private and business life. The main motivation factors to work in a multicultural
business environment have been identied as well as major barriers for effective cross-cultural interaction.
Conclusion: This paper illustrates that Gen Zers are willing to work in a multicultural business environment; moreover
it can give them additional motivation. This trend along with ongoing processes of globalization and digitalization
fosters further interconnection of countries and regions of the world, making cross-cultural communication and
cross-cultural management techniques even more important.
Keywords: globalization, multiculturalism, Generation Z, cross-cultural management, cross-cultural communication.
1 Introduction
Our world has always been more or less globalized. But every day it becomes more inter-
connected, and the pace of this process grows dramatically. Comparing the second decade
of 21st century and early 1980s, when Harvard professor T. Levitt popularized the term
“globalization” (Levitt, 1983), is like comparing the Space X Falcon rocket to a bicycle.
Contents lists available at Vilnius University Press

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ISSN 1392-0561 eISSN 1392-1487 Informacijos mokslai
The key driver of such a high-rocketing speed of globalization processes is another
phenomenon of our age – digitalization. A “digitally globalized” environment has changed
people’s everyday life. Social networks, low-cost airlines, digital payment systems allow
millions of individuals to enjoy a truly cosmopolite way of living.
The scale of digital economy is really impressive. Global production of ICT (informa-
tion and communication technologies) goods and services amounts to an estimated 6.5%
of the global gross domestic product (GDP), and some 100 million people are employed
in the ICT services sector alone. The world’s top four companies by market capitaliza-
tion are all linked to the digital economy: Microsoft, Amazon.com, Apple and Alphabet
(Google). Worldwide e-commerce sales in 2015 reached $25.3 trillion with cross-border
B2C (“business-to-customers”) e-commerce worth about $189 billion, with some 380
million consumers making purchases on overseas websites (UNCTAD, 2017).
Decades ago global business was a privilege of corporations with multimillion budgets.
Nowadays you can operate “globally” just using your smartphone. Digital platforms and
social media connect billions of individuals across the globe, providing fantastic op-
portunities to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). About 21% of internet users in the
EU engage in cross-border e-commerce (European Commission, 2017). Digitalization
has signicantly simplied tasks for human resource managers and job-seekers’ search
processes. LinkedIn and similar platforms are great timesavers for both sides.
Digitalization seriously inuenced deep changes in the mentality of new generations.
Young people (Millennials – born in 1980–1995, and Generation Z – born after 1995)
growing up in the age of social media, internet of things, advanced robotics, articial
intelligence etc. are highly dependable on ICT. It denes their way of thinking, decision
making, working and living.
These social and business environment megatrends foster the need of cross-cultural
communication and cross-cultural management skills. Goods, services, nance, people
and data ows are much faster and easier every year. More companies tend to form mul-
tinational teams and, at the same time, even small and medium enterprises are trying to
operate on a global market dealing with local customers and partners.
Main aim of the paper is to explore the attitude of Generation Z representatives to
different aspects of cross-cultural interaction.
We hypothesized that cross-cultural communication and interaction skills are highly
important for the young people (Generation Z). They are mobile, digitally educated, and
open for new incentives and projects no matter in their own countries or abroad. On the
other hand, there are some serious obstacles on the way to effective cross-cultural interaction
(and primarily language barriers). We also decided to check some of the stereotypes regard-
ing national and gender differences, i.e. “men are more likely to take a chance travelling
abroad” and “people from low-income countries are more willing to work in a globalized
business environment mostly because it can give them an opportunity to earn more money”.
We summarized our thoughts in the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: Generation Z representatives (Gen Zers) consider cross-cultural com-
munication and interaction skills as essential due to their “digitally globalized”
lifestyle .

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Denys Lintsev, Cristina Fleșeriu, Wanja Wellbrock.
A study of the attitude of Generation Z to cross-cultural interaction in business
Hypothesis 2: The majority of Gen Zers (more than 50%) would like to work in a
multicultural environment.
Hypothesis 3: The majority (more than 50%) of Gen Zers are ready to move abroad
for a business project for a period of one to two years.
Hypothesis 4: Men are signicantly more likely than women to move abroad for a
business project for a period of one to two years.
Hypothesis 5: Gender and country of origin are associated with the reasons for work-
ing in a multicultural business environment.
Hypothesis 6: There are signicant differences in the perception of communication
barriers depending on country of origin.
Hypothesis 7: There are signicant differences in language barriers depending on the
experience of cross-cultural communication.
2 Literature review
The growing pace of globalization processes fosters the researchers’ interest to cross-
cultural issues in business and management. G. Hofstede’s fundamental study of value
orientation in different cultures (Hofstede, 1980) is, maybe, still the most inuential work
in this eld. The Hofstede’s model of national culture (Hofstede, 2001; Hofstede et al.,
2010; Minkov et al., 2017; the ofcial G. Hofstede centre website, 2018) consists of six
dimensions: power distance (expresses the degree to which the less powerful members
of a society accept that power is distributed unequally); individualism / collectivism
(distinguishes the cultures where people are more concerned on personal goals and
achievements from the cultures where people feel more comfortable working in teams);
masculinity / femininity (illustrates the domination of traditional “male” or “female”
values in different cultures); uncertainty avoidance (shows the attitude of society’s
members to uncertainty); long-term orientation / short-term orientation (illustrates how
“long-term oriented” the society is); indulgence / restraint (denes the role of rules in
people’s behavior). The relative positions on these dimensions are expressed in a score
on a 0 to 100 point scale.
Setting the scores for countries was an outstanding idea to simplify the understand-
ing of basic assumptions regarding national cultural peculiarities. Despite some fair
critique concerning limitations (McSweeney, 2002), Hofstede’s theory is still play-
ing a monumental role in further cross-cultural research. Along with E. Hall’s theory,
that illustrates the role of context in cross-cultural interaction (Hall, 1989), Hofstede’s
ndings are very popular among scholars and practitioners. The measurement of culture
through cultural dimensions is still highly widespread among cross-cultural management
researchers (Taras et al., 2009). However, we agree with Gerhart that “signicant degree
of intra-country variation in culture variables may make national culture mean scores less
useful” (Gerhart, 2008).
Another great contribution to cross-cultural management studies was made by N. Adler
who explored the impact of culture on different organizational functions. According to
Adler cross-cultural management is pointed to describe and compare organizational

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behavior in different cultures seeking to improve the interaction between co-workers,
partners, clients, managers etc. from different countries or cultures (Adler, 1983, 1991).
In a globalized business world cultural diversity is an opportunity to nd original
solutions (Hoecklin, 1995). A shift toward forming multicultural teams not only in
multinational corporations, but even in local businesses fosters the interest to effective
diversity management techniques (e.g., DiTomaso and Hooijberg, 1996; Jehn, Northcraft
and Neale, 1999; Kodydek and Hochreiter, 2013). Companies have to deal with the rep-
resentatives of different cultures to get access to new markets, or searching for cheaper
resources abroad, forming global multinational supply chains (Wellbrock and Hein,
2018), and cultural differences are treated by international companies as a competitive
advantage (Luo, 2016) helping them “leverage the benets of cultural differences in a
wide range of contexts, such as the development of strategic capabilities, foreign direct
investment and entry mode decisions and synergy creation in cross-border M&A” (Stahl
& Tung, 2015). Multicultural teams are potentially more creative in problem solving
than national homogenous teams (Watson et al., 1993). The heterogeneity of national
cultures of team members can improve their performance if cultural diversity is properly
used (Shachaf, 2008). Companies can benet by identifying the professionals for interna-
tional business assignments considering their level of cultural intelligence (Velez-Calle
et al., 2018) which can be dened as “an individual’s capability to function and manage
effectively in culturally diverse situations and settings” (Ott & Michailova, 2018). On
the other hand, diversity “increases the ambiguity, complexity and confusion in group
processes, thus being potentially devastating for the effectiveness of the team”, so the
impact of national cultures on the functioning of multinational teams depends on the
quality of cross-cultural management processes (Chevrier, 2003). Language barriers,
differences in values and standards of behavior, lack of experience, lack of trust, and
lack of knowledge about other cultures or stereotypical thinking are among the most
widespread obstacles for cross-cultural communication (Lintsev & Canavilhas, 2017,
Lintsev & Wellbrock, 2019).
Indeed, in a globalized business environment, a manager’s cultural intelligence (CQ)
is highly important (Earley and Ang, 2003, Velez-Calle et al., 2018). Using special cross-
cultural techniques helps to act efciently in heterogeneous working cultures (Primecz et
al., 2011) and to negotiate successfully across cultures (Søderberg and Romani, 2017).
The Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) research
program ndings illustrate the importance of culture for organizational and leadership
effectiveness (House et al., 2004).
In this study we emphasize the special role of a new generation entering the labor
market right now – Generation Z. Exploring generational differences is a highly popular
trend nowadays. A generational cohort is dened as an “identiable group that shares
birth years, age, location and signicant life events at critical developmental stages”
(Kupperschmidt, 2000). One of the most widespread approaches (Pew Research Center,
2014, Bencsik et al., 2016) classies the generations as follows: Silent Generation (years
of birth: 1928 to 1945), Baby Boomers (1944 to 1964), Generation X (1965 to 1980),
Millennials or Generation Y (1981 to 1995), Generation Z (1996 to 2010).

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Denys Lintsev, Cristina Fleșeriu, Wanja Wellbrock.
A study of the attitude of Generation Z to cross-cultural interaction in business
From the childhood, Gen Zers (Generation Z representatives) experienced globaliza-
tion, digitalization and cultural diversity (McCrindle, 2014; Kirchmayer & Fratričová,
2018). Internet and new technologies inuenced many aspects of their lives. The norms
and standards of behavior of Gen Zers are different from the norms of the previous genera-
tions. They use a lot of different words, slangs and expressions which can cause serious
misunderstandings with their parents (Bencsik et al., 2016).
While Generation Z shares some characteristics with Millennials, it is a different gen-
erational cohort (Seemiller, C., & Grace, M., 2017). If Millennials were the rst genera-
tion that has been characterized as “digital natives” (Prensky, 2001) or “net generation”
(Tapscott, 1998), Generation Z might be called a “living-online” one. The dependence of
these “digital age kids” on information and communication technologies in both personal
and business issues is maybe highest ever. Being “technologically uent” (Fratričová &
Kirchmayer, 2018) they have some competitive advantages over previous generations.
Integrating technology (Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram etc.) into many areas
of their lives Generation Z became truly “globally focused” (McCrindle, 2014). They are
more likely to travel, to migrate across borders than any previous generation (Broadbent
et al., 2017, Fleseriu et al., 2018). Indeed, having connections with the representatives of
different cultures and backgrounds via social media (Kirchmayer & Fratričová, 2018) the
Gen Zers themselves are making the environment more globalized and culturally diverse.
The results of a global research conducted by Universum with some 49,000 members
of Generation Z across 47 countries, throughout America, Europe, Asia, South America,
and the Middle East participating, illustrated that these young people are curious (“Cu-
riosity is the strongest motivator for choosing a course of study”), eager to start career
without formal education (“They are interested in entering the workforce without higher
education, but fear actually doing so”), very entrepreneurial (“More than half of Gen
Zers around the world indicated an interest in starting their own company”), interested in
security and work-life balance (“Despite their entrepreneurial nature, work-life balance
and job security are the two career goals most important to this generation”), pragmatic
(“Gen Zers may be less optimistic than Millennials about their work opportunities”) and,
obviously, willing to get new information instantly (Dill, 2015).
Numerous studies have been conducted in different countries to describe (and forecast)
the behavior of the Generation Z representatives at the workplace. The results illustrate
many similarities among young people from different regions of the world. The Gen
Zers are called pragmatic, driven by money, willing nancial security (The Wall street
journal, 2018), motivated by positive corporate culture and exibility (Deloitte, 2018).
This generation chooses a career of their own interest, at the same time trying to nd the
work-life balance (Bencsik et al., 2016).
Due to a similar “globalized background” (Gen Zers all around the world are deeply
connected by using same social media and other information sources) Generation Z sur-
veys regarding their attitude to motivation give similar results in different countries and
illustrate strong correlation with global studies. A research conducted in Romania proved
that Romanian Gen Zers have very realistic views on their future career (e.g., their “ex-
pected salary at rst job” is less than average monthly salary across country) (Iorgulescu,

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2016). Polish Gen Zers are also pragmatic: they do not expect fast career; prefer good
planning and expect constructive feedback from managers (Dolot, 2018). Slovakian Gen
Zers are motivated mostly by interesting work, reward and achievements (Kirchmayer,
Z. & Fratričová, J., 2017; Kirchmayer, Z. & Fratričová, J., 2018). Czech Gen Zers show
themselves as pragmatic ones, too. For example, they would prefer personal communica-
tion with colleagues and managers while using ICT (which they love so much in everyday
life), mostly seeking for information and learning (“developing skills”) (Kubátová, 2016).
Being the most globally connected and most formally educated generation (McCrindle,
2014) Gen Zers are most likely to work in multicultural business environments. Diver-
sity is common for Generation Z in everyday life so is not a real obstacle for them at the
workplace. On the other hand, they are concerned with equality which should be taken
into consideration by managers and colleagues from other generations (Lanier, 2017).
3 Research methodology
We used an online questionnaire to collect data for our study. A sample of 324 young
adults (male: n=135/41.7%, female: n=189/58.3%) from three countries: Germany
(n=113/34.9%), Romania (n=107/33.0%) and Ukraine (n=104/32.1%) participated in
the online survey. We have chosen these three different countries (see table 1) to have a
broader perspective regarding the aim of our research.
Table 1. Some basic social and economic indicators of the analyzed countries
Country Population,
mln, 2017*
EF English Procien-
cy Index, 2017**
GDP per capita,
PPP, USD, 2017*
Average annual
wage, EUR, 2017
Germany 80.7 62.35 (high) 50638.9 39446***
Romania 21.6 59.13 (high) 25840.8 8467****
Ukraine 44.2 50.91 (low) 8666.9 2842*****
Source: *https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.ZS, **https://www.ef.com/epi/,
***https://stats.oecd.org/ Index.aspx?DataSetCode=AV_AN_WAGE, ****www.insse.ro,
*****http://www.ukrstat.gov.ua/
The sample consists of university students aged less than 23 years to match the criteria
of being representatives of the Generation Z. The survey was conducted during the period
October 2018 to January 2019 in Heilbronn in Germany (Heilbronn University of Applied
Sciences), in Cluj-Napoka and Suceava in Romania (Babeș-Bolyai University and Stefan
cel Mare University) as well as in Kyiv and Lviv in Ukraine (Kyiv National Economic
University named after Vadym Hetman and Lviv Polytechnic National University).
We collected opinions of respondents from nations with different cultural dimensions’
indicators (Table 2) which is important to compare the opinions of Gen Zers from different
cultures. We used the data from the ofcial website of Geert Hofstede centre (2018) to
illustrate cultural differences between the selected countries.

47
Denys Lintsev, Cristina Fleșeriu, Wanja Wellbrock.
A study of the attitude of Generation Z to cross-cultural interaction in business
Table 2. Cultural dimensions in analyzed countries (G. Hofstede 6-D model)
Country Power
distance Individualism Masculinity Uncertainty
avoidance
Long-term
orientation Indulgence
Germany 35 67 66 65 83 40
Romania 90 30 42 90 52 20
Ukraine 92 25 27 95 55 18
Source: https://www.geert-hofstede.com
Our sample consists of countries with different expressions of the cultural dimensions’
indexes. Countries as Ukraine and Romania have very high PDI (power distance index)
while Germany represents a group of lower power distance countries. German society
is more individualistic, especially comparing to Romanian and Ukrainian collectivistic
cultures. Germany has a masculine society, while Ukrainian and Romanian cultures are
feminine. The uncertainty avoidance index is above 50 for all three nations, but Ukrainians
and Romanians have extremely high indicators here. German culture has the highest long-
term orientation index in our sample. All the three nations are rather restricted by rules.
The respondents were given three statements regarding the aim of the research:
1. Cross-cultural communication is an essential skill in our globalized world (the
skills of cross-cultural communication (dealing with the representatives of different
cultures) can help you in both personal and business issues).
2. I would like to work in a culturally diverse environment.
3. I am ready to move abroad for a business project for a period of one to two years.
In our effort to achieve higher quality data (Revilla et al., 2013) we offered the res-
pondents an agree/disagree scale with ve answer categories, from strongly disagree (1)
to strongly agree (5).
Given the number of possible answer categories in each statement of our survey (ve),
we considered the answers receiving more than 20% of responses as dominant. The sta-
tement can be considered as conrmed if “agree” and “strongly agree” categories receive
more than 40% of responses in total.
The questionnaire contains two more questions to identify major motivators of the Gen
Zers to work in multicultural environment and main barriers for effective cross-cultural
communication and interaction.
First, the respondents had to share 100 points between ve major motivators to work
in a multicultural environment:
1. Opportunity to earn more money comparing to local businesses.
2. Experience of cross-cultural communication.
3. Opportunity to travel the world.
4. Opportunity to learn, to improve their professional level.
5. Opportunity to be a part of global projects.
Then, the respondents had to share 100 points between ve main barriers for effective
cross-cultural communication and interaction:

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1. Language barriers.
2. Stereotypical thinking.
3. Differences in values.
4. Differences in standards of behavior.
5. Lack of trust (to the representatives of other cultures).
4 Results
The questionnaire was randomly handed out and the results showed that more than 88% of
the respondents agree or strongly agree that cross-cultural communication is an essential
skill in the globalized world. In respect with the country of origin, in all three countries
the youngsters agree with this skill. Also, both females and males consider cross-cultural
communication as being very important. Based on the results, it is proved that the Gen
Zers consider cross-cultural communication as a very important skill nowadays (H1) due
to their “digitally globalized” lifestyle.
The majority (almost 70%) of the respondents would like to work in a culturally di-
verse environment (H2) (Figure 1), and more than 50% of them (61.4%) stated that they
are ready to move abroad for a period of one to two years (H3).
Agree
49,1%
Disagree
5,6%
Neutral
24,4%
Strongly
agree
19,8%
Strongly
disagree
1,2%
Figure 1. Willingness to work in a culturally diverse environment (Source: made by the au-
thors)
In order to test if men would like more than women to move abroad for a business
project for a period of one to two years (H4), a Mann-Whitney test was conducted. The test
indicated that men (Mdn=4) are signicantly more likely than women (Mdn=4) to move
abroad for a business project for a period of one to two years (U=10,624.5, p=.008, r=-
0.148). Although the difference is statistically signicant, the effect is small. The equality
of variance was conrmed by the Leven’s test (F(1,319.071)=.460, p=498).
Also, from the total number of respondents, the highest percentage considers that
the opportunity to earn more money comparing to local businesses is the best motivator

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Denys Lintsev, Cristina Fleșeriu, Wanja Wellbrock.
A study of the attitude of Generation Z to cross-cultural interaction in business
to work in a multicultural business environment. The smallest percentage says that the
opportunity to be a part of global projects is the best motivator (Figure 2).
27.50%
20.20%
23.70%
18.90%
9.70%
Opportunity to
earn more money
comparing to
local businesses
Experience of
cross-cultural
communication
and interaction
Opportunity to
travel the world
Opportunity to
learn and to
improve the
professional
level
Opportunity to
be a part of
global projects
Figure 2. Motivators to work in a multicultural business environment (Source: made by the
authors)
Because the two samples are not normal distributed, a Mann-Whitney two independent
sample test was run. The results indicate that men (Mdn=30) are signicantly more likely
than women (Mdn=24) to regard going abroad as an opportunity to earn additional money
(U=9383, p<.001, r=-0.226). Although the difference is statistically signicant, the effect
is small. The equality of variance was conrmed by the Leven’s test (F(1,311.504)=2.785,
p=096).
Another Mann-Whitney test indicates that women (Mdn=25) are signicantly more
likely than men (Mdn=20) to regard going abroad as an opportunity to travel (U=9210.5,
p<.001, r=-0.237). Although the difference is statistically signicant, the effect is small.
The equality of variance was conrmed by the Leven’s test (F(1,313.553)=1.323, p=251).
Thus, we see that men are more willing to work abroad and they are more driven by
money comparing to women. While men are more motivated to earn extra money during
business projects abroad, women are more likely to be motivated by travelling itself.
Gen Zers from countries with lower economic living standards (Ukraine, Romania)
are more interested in cross-cultural interactions because a global business environment
is nancially more attractive for them comparing to a domestic one.
Because the samples are not normally distributed, an independent-samples Kruskal-
Wallis test was performed. A Dunn post-hoc test revealed that Ukrainians (Mrank=185.75)
are signicantly more likely to view traveling abroad as an opportunity to make more
money than Germans (Mrank=142.62), (chi^2= 11.549, df = 2, p=.003).
On the other side, a Dunn post-hoc test revealed that Germans (Mrank=178.42) are
signicantly more likely to view traveling abroad as an opportunity to experience cross-
cultural communication than Ukrainians (Mrank=141.76), (chi^2= 8.523, df = 2, p=.014).

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We found a correlation between a country’s average income (Table 1) and motivation
factors to work in a global business environment. The lower average domestic income
(salary) is the more important role material motivation is playing. While Ukrainians
(the country with the lowest average income in our sample) are mostly driven by the
opportunity to earn extra money working in global companies, the Germans (country
with the highest average income in our sample) have the highest interest to experience
interaction with other cultures. Obviously, this trend cannot be considered as typical
only for Gen Zers: Millennials and some of Generation X representatives from countries
with lower living standards are motivated to work abroad mostly because of material
motivation reasons.
When analyzing the barriers for effective cross-cultural communication, almost 1/3
from the respondents consider the language barrier as the biggest one, followed by the
stereotypical thinking, the differences in values and behavior standards and the lack of
trust in the representatives of other cultures (Figure 3).
30.1%
21.5%
18.7%16.7%
13.0%
Foreign language Stereotype
thinking
Differences in
values
Differences in
standards of
behavior
Lack of trust
Figure 3. Barriers for effective cross-cultural communication and interaction (Source: made
by the authors)
In order to see if the country of origin can inuence the way young people see the
barriers for an effective communication (H6), some statistical tests were used. Because
the samples are not normally distributed, an independent-samples Kruskal-Wallis test was
performed. A Dunn post-hoc test revealed that Ukrainians (Mrank=187.46) are signi-
cantly more likely to perceive language barriers as being important than both Germans
(Mrank=149.36) and Romanians (Mrank=152.11), (chi^2= 10.944, df = 2, p=.004).
We noticed a correlation between the level of English language knowledge in a country
and the importance of a language barrier as an obstacle for effective cross-cultural com-
munication. The higher the English Prociency Index (Table 1), the less of an obstacle
language barriers are being treated.
In addition, a Dunn post-hoc test revealed that Ukrainians (Mrank=140.21) are
signicantly more likely to perceive stereotype thinking as a barrier than Romanians
(Mrank=179.44), (chi^2= 9.678, df = 2, p=.008), and Germans (Mrank=179.92) are

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Denys Lintsev, Cristina Fleșeriu, Wanja Wellbrock.
A study of the attitude of Generation Z to cross-cultural interaction in business
signicantly more likely to perceive differences in values as a barrier than Romanians
(Mrank=150.27), (chi^2= 6.238, df = 2, p=.044).
Related with the experience that the respondents already have with cross-cultural
communication, in Ukraine, 38% of them do not have it. In Romania, 23% do not have
an experience while in Germany the percent is even smaller (15%). From those that have
a cross-cultural communication experience in all the analyzed countries, the majority has
it from private life (Figure 4).
26
17 17
53
19 25
16
47
19
40
12
33
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Both in private life and
at work
No
Work
In private life
Both in private life and
at work
No
Work
In private life
Both in private life and
at work
No
Work
In private life
GermanyRomania Ukraine
Figure 4. Experience of cross-cultural communication in the analyzed countries (Source:
made by the authors)
To analyze if there is a signicant difference in language barriers depending on the
experience of cross-cultural communication (H7), an independent-samples Kruskal-
Wallis test was performed. A Dunn post-hoc test revealed that people with no experience
of cross-cultural communication perceive the language barrier as being more important
(Mrank=182.77) than people with experience in both work and private life (Mrank=139.5),
(chi^2= 8.634, df = 3, p=.035).
4. Conclusions and discussions
Comparing the results of our survey with the global studies aimed to describe the behavior
of Gen Zers in business (Deloitte, 2018; the Wall street journal, 2018) we found a lot of
things in common. On the other hand, our study was focused on the specic attitude of the
Gen Zers to cross-cultural interaction in business, and the ndings illustrate that these young
people are not only open and tolerant to diversity in everyday life and in ofce. Moreover,
a multicultural environment itself gives them additional motivation at the workplace.

52
ISSN 1392-0561 eISSN 1392-1487 Informacijos mokslai
Our sample consists of representatives of three quite different nations with specic
cultural backgrounds and different levels of average income. Despite such differences,
the majority of young people show a similar attitude to work in a multicultural busi-
ness environment. The respondents proved they are mostly driven by money, giving
the “opportunity to earn more in global business” the highest rank in their motivation
hierarchy, which correlates with other studies (the Wall street journal, 2018; Kubátová,
2016; Kirchmayer, Z. & Fratričová, J., 2018 etc). “Opportunity to travel the world” is the
second strongest motivator for the respondents from all of the three countries from our
sample. Thus, we can describe Gen Zers as open-minded, global-oriented people who are
ready and willing to work in a multicultural business environment, highly motivated to
earn extra money using opportunities provided by globalization. In the same time, among
the biggest threats for effective cross-cultural interaction, in their opinion, are language
barriers and stereotypical thinking.
Gen Zers from different nations have a lot of things in common nowadays due to their
“digitally globalized” lifestyle. Indeed, due to globalization and digitalization, young
people from almost all over the world are inuenced by the same trends through the
Internet, social media and popular culture (McCrindle, 2014). This is why their attitude
to cross-national differences in values and standards of behavior as possible obstacles
for cross-cultural communication is moderate comparing to the fear of language barriers.
Considering the growing pace of globalization, a rising interdependency among
countries (Verbeke et al., 2018) and the emerging role of digital technologies along with
the growing share of Gen Zers in the working force worldwide (Deloitte, 2018), we can
forecast a further interest in cross-cultural interactions and cross-cultural management.
Small and medium enterprises entering the global market as well as large multinational
corporations rely always more on young professionals, giving them international as-
signments. In general, being physically well-prepared for business trips abroad due to
their young age, the Gen Zers are additionally motivated with such a kind of activity.
Another possible trend is the emerging role of young professionals from the develo-
ping countries. Among the key factors fostering their motivation are simple access to
education (including self-education), easiness to get a job in almost any country, and
signicant differences in incomes between developed and developing countries. Indeed,
in a modern society, when intellectual capital becomes dominant (Lazarenko, 2014),
companies do not care about the nationality of their workers. On the other hand, their
soft skills, including cultural intelligence (Earley and Ang, 2003; Velez-Calle et al.,
2018), are playing a signicant role.
Of course, our study has some limitations. We focused only on three European
countries and our sample consists of only university students. While we are certain that
university students are most likely to form the majority of the future working force in-
volved in cross-cultural interaction, the number of countries chosen for our research is
not sufcient to make global conclusions. Further research may include larger sample
of cultures (nations), including a cross-continental comparison. We are also interested in
intra-country investigations that may help to compare regional differences mentioned by
some of Hofstede’s approach critics (e.g., McSweeney, 2002).

53
Denys Lintsev, Cristina Fleșeriu, Wanja Wellbrock.
A study of the attitude of Generation Z to cross-cultural interaction in business
This paper shows that Generation Z representatives are willing and ready to work in
a multicultural business environment, making the world even more interconnected and
globalized. The new face of the working force worldwide is probably the most globally
oriented ever. Such a mentality of the Gen Zers, along with further processes of globali-
zation and digitalization, fosters cross-cultural interaction and communication and makes
cross-cultural management skills and techniques even more important for managers not
only in transnational corporations, but in small and medium local businesses as well.
Acknowledgments
We are sincerely grateful to our friends and colleagues for their help with the online-sur-
vey: Dr. Prof. Olha Melnyk for conducting the survey in Lviv, Ukraine; Dr. Prof. Carmen
Nastase, Dr. Mihaela State for conducting survey in Suceava, Romania.
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