The research goals and aim of this study was to better understand what a group of managers moving to Finland from different cultural backgrounds are able to understand from the 12 companies operating in Finland, mainly based on their online presence. The method chosen for this study is a form of empirical research known as the narrative approach.
Introduction
- Subject
- Study material
- Earlier research and theoretical framework
- Goal of the study and some minor assumptions
- Study questions and limits
- Structure of the study
As the selected group for this study is based solely on individual cases that my firm has worked with, it will limit the liability of this study. The aim of my study is to better understand what information about basic services online a person coming to Finland to work can get.
Understanding Online Communications as Business Communication
- Defining Business Communication
- Commercial Internet in a nutshell
- Understanding Websites
- Making a First Impression Online
At the same time, the role of the website within the corporate communication strategy must be defined. Askehave and Nielsen (2003, p.19) describe a homepage as “a condensation of the key information on the site” that serves as a scannable introduction to the site.
Cross Cultural Communication
Defining Cultural Differences
Low uncertainty avoidance cultures, on the other hand, accept and feel comfortable in unstructured situations or volatile environments and try to have as few rules as possible. People in these cultures tend to be more pragmatic and tolerant of change. The values of masculine cultures are competitiveness, assertiveness, materialism, ambition and power, while feminine cultures place more value on relationships and quality of life.
In masculine cultures, the differences between gender roles are more dramatic and less fluid than in feminine cultures, where men and women have the same values, emphasizing modesty and caring. Due to the taboo on sexuality in many cultures, especially male ones, and due to the obvious gender generalizations implied in Hofstede's terminology, this dimension is often renamed by users of Hofstede's work. Although it gives an impetus to intercultural communication, it does not provide solutions for it.
Hofstede's theory of intercultural communication helps understand why we need to focus our messages and communicate differently when we encounter different cultures. Because my research is based on the first impressions of executives moving to Finland, I believe that understanding the important role of translation in this context is crucial.
Significance of translation
But Business English is a type of English for specific purpose, and it is more professional. Since Business covers a wide range from commerce, marketing to law and tourism, it makes Business English rich in vocabulary (Xiangyue 2011). Since most of the websites in Finland are first in Finnish and then translated to English, the role of Lexis becomes huge.
Its basic meaning is a move to a more important job or rank in a company or organization, while its meaning in Business English is activities done to increase sales of a product or service; a series of advertisements for a particular product or service (Xiangyue 2011). Closing the literature review and mapping the theoretical framework Here is the theoretical framework I introduced in Chapter 1.
Concluding the Literature Review and Mapping the Theoretical Framework
Business communication as a whole has become a colossal sum of many ongoing events online, as well as inside and outside the company. My study involves 10 executives moving to Finland and seeks to explain their first impressions of services in Finland through 12 websites offering basic services in Finland. And with the sheer number of choices available online, it's more than important to make a stunning impression on anyone who visits your site.
To understand online presence in terms of my research, it is necessary to understand the elements of a good site, as well as how the information is presented online. Theories suggest that the amount of information and the way it is presented are essential for decision making. After all, the question is how well a group of people who are not Finnish can understand sites aimed at Finns and later translated into English.
Theories suggest that words have no contextual value outside of the person's coherent cultural context. Theories suggest that translators should be more familiar than ever with the cultural context of the language into which they must translate the original text.
Methodology
Participants
The participants were selected by the real business cases I was working on at that moment. Participants were instructed to visit 12 websites that are Finnish companies providing services in the following categories: Housing, Employment, Healthcare and Banking. The service areas were chosen to reflect the basic need of a person migrating to a new live-in resident.
According to Maslow, the lower levels of the pyramid, Physiological and Safety, reflect basic survival needs (Maslow). Each participant then had to answer the following questions and assess whether they would purchase these services if necessary. In addition to answering the questionnaire, I also interviewed each participant to better understand his or her motives.
To better understand if perceptions of the services these companies provide differ depending on the culture the person represents. To better understand how the perception of added value from a service varies among participants.
Companies
Osuus Pankki: The cooperative ideology, which underpins OP-Pohjola's operations and strategic objectives, is also emphasized in the Group's core values: people first, responsibility and thriving together. The Group's mission is to promote sustainable prosperity, security and safety. and the well-being of its member-owners, customers and operating regions through its local presence. FIM has the most experienced team of portfolio managers in Finland: a combined 250 years of experience in asset management. Our clients can make direct investments through a personal broker or through FIM Direct, the most efficient online trading service on the market.
SATO owns a total of about 23,000 rentable houses in Finland's largest centers of urban growth and St. SATO has set the goal of being the most efficient and progressive player in the market, facilitating the constant improvement of customer services and generating added value for its shareholders. A good example of this is BaronaCV, i.e. the use of videos in job applications and recruitment.
The Mehiläinen Group is the most recognized and respected provider of private healthcare and social services in Finland. Mehiläinen is part of the Ambea Group, which is the largest private provider of healthcare and nursing services in the Nordic countries.
Results
Starting with Survey
Manpower does not have an English site and thus participants were unable to indicate how well Manpower's products relate to them. Orton ranked best and had four more grades (8) than any other company. Apart from Sato, Vuokraturva, Huoneistokeskus and Orton, none of the other companies had prices on their websites.
According to the interviews conducted after the questionnaire, however, each of the participants stated that Nordea and OP's banking service would probably be affordable. During the interviews, the respondents pointed out that accommodation and housing are the most important issues for them. As far as employment is concerned, the question seemed bizarre and irrelevant, since most of the participants already have a good international position in their companies.
Narratives about Websites
To be honest, I was actually surprised that almost all the sites had at least English and Swedish subsites.” “In addition to English, most companies even had Russian and Estonian sites. The linguistic diversity of the Finnish sites surprised most participants in a good way. It seemed that there is a practice in web design where localized sites are placed in the top right corner of the sites.
But none of that was visible on the websites." “The website had too much information on them. To be honest, I don't even remember the sites you asked us to go to, I just remember images here and there." "Honestly, tell them to illustrate what they're doing and build a story around it." Storytelling as part of attracting customers and building a personal relationship seems to be lacking in the Finnish context.
I was surprised to see how well you translated the sites." "I had a hard time understanding the meaning." "I felt like the Finnish pages were just translated without any real context." "Can someone explain IT staff outsourcer None of the participants felt that they could have even remembered but told another person what these companies do.
Conclusions
- Findings
- Conclusions
- Discussion
- Further research
My study showed that the selected companies mainly had poor English websites that were either translated from Finnish without a context or were too informative. The study showed that these companies were poor at telling their customers in English what they were selling and why this person should buy any of these products. The real question to be discussed in this section is whether there is a need for better Business Communication skills in English for companies in Finland that operate mainly locally.
Will there be a large enough group of potential customers that would actually make this effort worthwhile financially. I strongly feel that even if we do not experience large immigration, we should still make sure that our services are available to this e who may find us from the other side of the globe. One point of view could be to compare what the company wanted their customers to understand through their online presence and what the potential customers understood from their communication.
Also another research topic can study and find Finnish companies that are outstanding in their business communication skills in English.
Bibliography
Four levels of loyalty and the central role of trust: A study of the dynamics of online services. A comparative analysis without familiarity on travel destination websites: What is the first impression that national tourism organizations try to make?, International Journal of Tourism, published online at Wiley InterScience. A theory of human motivation, Psychological Review 50(4):. pääkaupunkiseudun säläkukunta, http://www.hel2.fi/taske/Paras/PKS_Vapa.pdf Quelch, J.A. The Internet and International Marketing, Sloan Management Review.
Entering Business: Toward a Research Agenda for Business Communication, San Diego, CA: Association for Business Communication.