‘The cultural stuff around how to talk to people’: immigrants' intercultural communication during a pre-employment work-placement

Abstract

This paper reports on a small in-depth study of 16 immigrants' intercultural communication experiences as they enter the workforce in New Zealand through a volunteer work-placement scheme. The key research questions are: What intercultural communication challenges do immigrants face during work-placement with (1) co-workers and (2) employer(s)? How is intercultural communication facilitated/constrained in intercultural encounters in the workplace? The findings highlight how cultural, social, economic, political and contextual factors support immigrants' intercultural communication and work experience in their respective organisation. The outcomes provide important feedback to employers, immigrant communities, funders and other voluntary organisations, community workers, and politicians on the value of work-placement programmes and the intercultural communication challenges immigrants face when entering the workplace.

本研究以跨国移民为调研对象，选取了十六位由某志愿服务组织引荐到新西兰工作的移民，对他们的跨文化交流经历进行了深入的调研。本文主要探索了他们在工作期间与同事、老板进行跨文化交流时遇到的挑战，以及在跨文化的工作环境下如何促进或阻碍跨文化交流。根据研究结果，本文概述了文化、社会、经济、政治及环境等因素如何助力移民的跨文化交流和工作。这为雇主、移民团体、相关的慈善基金会和志愿服务组织、社区工作者、以及执政者提供了重要的反馈信息，从而为更好地发挥这些移民工作实习项目的价值，并为移民减少跨文化交流带来的挑战提供借鉴。

Keywords:

• social constructionism
• immigrant employment
• intercultural communication
• workplace communication
• intercultural encounters
• capabilities

Acknowledgements

The contributions of many have made this study possible. I thank the immigrant interns, employers and coordinator for their support and time in contributing to this study. I sincerely thank the student researcher, Vera Spratte, for her careful work with the participants and data management and student researcher, Charlie Gillard, for his literature review contributions. I thank Dr Hongbo Dong, Durham University, for the translation of the abstract into Chinese.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on contributor

Prue Holmes is a reader in the School of Education, Durham University. She is the pathway leader of the MA Intercultural Communication and Education, and she researches and supervises doctoral students in intercultural communication and its links to education, languages, competence and dialogue. She is Co-Investigator on the AHRC-funded project ‘Researching Multilingually at the Borders of Language, the Body, Law and the State’, and on the Erasmus Mundus-funded project ‘Intercultural Education Resources for Erasmus Students and their Teachers’. She is a chair of the International Association for Languages and Intercultural Communication (IALIC).

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Summer Research Scholarship Scheme (2009–2010), University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.