Making sense of cultural distance for military expatriates operating in an extreme context

• Published date: 01 August 2013
• Author: Kelly Fisher,Kate Hutchings
• Date: 01 August 2013
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.1882

Making sense of cultural distance for military

expatriates operating in an extreme context

KELLY FISHER

1

*AND KATE HUTCHINGS

2

1

College of Business Administration, Texas A&M University–Kingsville, Kingsville, Texas, U.S.A.

2

Department of Employment Relations & Human Resources, Griffith University, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia

Summary This research examines the relationship between cultural distance (CD) and intercultural adjustment for

Australian military advisers who trained and lead foreign soldiers during the Vietnam War. Situated cognition

is used to identify six salient attributes of CD for the military advisers, and a conceptual framework is pro-

posed on the basis of shared mental models (schemata) that illustrate the relationship between CD and expa-

triate adjustment in an extreme context. The findings highlight the significance of professional and ethical

differences between the Australians and Vietnamese, foreignness, language, political and social milieu, and

face management. The research is significant in the following: extending the literature on CD and expatriate

adjustment from an erstwhile overwhelming focus on adjustment in a mundane environment to the extreme

context in which poor intercultural collaboration can have potentially life-threatening effects; highlighting

the role of “boundary spanners”in intercultural collaborations and negotiations; and providing insights into

human behavior in a complex, dynamic context for other organizations operating in an extreme context.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: cross-cultural; expatriates; extreme context; military; sensemaking

Introduction and Contextual Background

Intercultural collaboration and boundary spanning in extreme contexts

When and how culture matters is a serious concern to expatriates who act as “boundary spanners”(Aldrich & Herker,

1977; Isbell, 2012) when facilitating collaboration within and between organizations that routinely deal with danger-

ous, life-threatening situations (characterized as extreme) across the globe. Boundary spanners are defined as the in-

dividuals in an organization who perform two basic functions: external representation and informat ion processing

(Aldrich & Herker, 1977). As exchange agents, the communicative interactions “create and shape the collaborative

form”(Isbell, 2012, p. 160). Collaboration has been described as a “messy, contradictory, dynamic process”

(Huxham & Vangen, 2005) that involves interdependence, dealing constructively with differences, ownership of de-

cisions, and shared responsibility that recognizes that collaboration is an emergent process (Gray, 1989). The chal-

lenges and importance of effective intercultural collaborations are thus amplified in an extreme context, as death or

injury may result from poor communication, misunderstandings, or interpersonal conflict (Elron, Halevy, Ben-Ari,

& Shamir, 2003; Fisher, Hutchings, & Sarros, 2010; Wong, Bliese, & McGurk, 2003). Extreme contexts are differ-

entiated here from a crisis context by the “intolerable magnitude”(e.g., life or safety) of an event as compared with

“high priority”(Osborn, Hunt, & Jauch, 2002) as commonly used in the literature. Hannah, Uhl-Bien, Avolio, and

Cavarretta (2009) stated that an extreme context is an environment characterized by

*Correspondence to: Kelly Fisher, College of Business Administration, Texas A&M University–Kingsville, Kingsville, Texas, U.S.A. E-mail:

Kelly.Fisher@tamuk.edu

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 26 December 2011

Revised 4 June 2013, Accepted 11 June 2013

Journal of Organizational Behavior, J. Organiz. Behav. 34, 791–812 (2013)

Published online 4 July 2013 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/job.1882

Special Issue Article

events that are occurring or are likely to occur that may exceed the organization’s capacity to prevent and result

in an extensive and intolerable magnitude of physical, psychological, or material consequences to—or in close

physical or psycho-social proximity to—organization members (p. 898).

Research also suggests that the impact of culture on organizations is context dependent (Leung, Bhagat, Buchan,

Erez, & Gibson, 2005). Although there is a comprehensive body of literature on the impact of national culture on

negotiating processes and outcomes (Adair & Brett, 2005), much of this research has been conducted in a mundane

context. As such, our research, which is based on a case study of military expatriates operating in an extreme envi-

ronment, responds to the call to “meaningfully examine”intercultural aspects of collaboration through field-based

empirical studies that reflect real work contexts (Hinds, Liu, & Lyon, 2011).

Research on expatriates working globally in mundane settings has highlighted the potential problems of poor

intercultural collaborations and resultant misunderstandings as leading to situations including early return of expa-

triates from assignment, through psychological damage to expatriates, to damaged relations with host country na-

tionals and organizations, and lost future investment opportunities (Harzing & Christensen, 2004). Yet a focus

purely on the mundane context is a limitation in the extant literature given the prevalence, and real-world organiza-

tional and human consequences, of intercultural collaborations and negotiations that take place in catastrophic, life-

threatening settings (Hannah et al., 2009; James, 2011). Although the dynamics of an extreme context incur distinct

demands on organizations and their members, these unique demands also suggest that research in this area may ex-

tend critical scientific and practical knowledge to other organizations (Hinds et al., 2011; James, 2011) as was

highlighted in a report issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Humans Services on the emergency response

system to Hurricane Katrina. According to the report, poor intercultural interactions were identified as a key contrib-

utor to the shortcomings of the heavily criticized humanitarian assistance effort (Andrulis, Siddiqui, & Gantner,

2007). Nonetheless, there have been few empirical studies of extreme organizations in general because of the

unpredictability of the environment and limited access (Wong et al., 2003). To our knowledge, our research is the

first scholarly examination of the micro-processes of intercultural collaboration in an extreme context and hence

adds value to extant understanding of human intercultural behavior of expatriates globally, which is important given

that extreme contexts demand effective intercultural collaboration both domestically (Andrulis et al., 2007) and

when working abroad (Harvey & Novicevic, 2001; Pfeiffer, 2003).

Boundary spanners—The role of Australian military advisers in the Vietnam War

The current research focuses on a case study of intercultural collaboration by Australian military advisers with the

Republic of South Vietnam Armed Forces (RVNAF) during the Vietnam War. A historical analysis approach pro-

vides not only much needed insight into a contemporary issue (Smith, 2004) but also a viable alternative to the chal-

lenging issues associated with conducting field research in situ in an extreme context (Wong et al., 2003). The

Australian advisers were deeply involved in the decision-making processes of the South Vietnamese forces; thus,

the ability to collaborate and negotiate effectively across cultural boundaries was the cornerstone to an adviser’s ef-

fectiveness (Ramsey, 2006). As a pivotal player in military alliances, an adviser is routinely tasked to manage and

build inter-organizational relationships. In this role, the adviser is generally tasked to “train, equip, and advise indig-

enous forces; deploy and engage with partner nations; conduct irregular warfare; and support security, stability, tran-

sition, and reconstruction operations”(Ramsey, 2006, p. 1). Frequently, they conduct their work in a hostile,

unforgiving environment and must balance personal survival needs with the broader aims of the organization.

Organizationally assigned expatriates are individuals deployed by organizations to complete a time-based task or

achieve an organizational goal in a countryof the organization’s choice(Tharenou, 2009) and work closely withforeign

nationals. So defined, although military personnel may give their lives for their country, they are nonetheless also

expatriates. Yet the roleof military advising is distinct from the typical expatriate experience in important ways. First,

advisers spend long periods in the field training foreign forces, and living and sleeping like the locals. For example, in

792 K. FISHER AND K. HUTCHINGS

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 34, 791–812 (2013)

DOI: 10.1002/job