Post-Merger Intercultural Communication in Multicultural Companies. A Linguistic Analysis

The current globalization processes have brought together individuals from different countries and cultural backgrounds who need to interact and communicate between them regularly. Although English has become the most common lingua franca for people all over the world, in their daily practice, professionals come across not only linguistic but also cultural barriers which often generate problematic misunderstandings that are at the heart of their business relations failure. Consequently, nowadays, in economic and pedagogic contexts, there is a significant awareness about the relevance of intercultural competence which has fostered the demand for research on the field of cross-cultural pragmatics. Christina Burek, with her book Post-Merger Intercultural Communication in Multicultural Companies has made an undoubtful contribution to this field of study. This academic work “focuses on how cultural differences can be treated as an explanatory variable in cross-cultural pragmatic studies ” (page 13). Burek discusses the principles that underlie successful intercultural communication and those which cause communication disorder resulting in pragmatic failures and misunderstandings that lead to non-cooperative behaviours within a multicultural working environment. More specifically, the author analyses the post-merger integration-phase of a cross-border company acquisition as an intercultural communication process, placing the emphasis on the different politeness strategies applied by the managers of different cultures to maintain face. The data and examples collected for the analysis revolve around different reactions, attitudes and communication aspects that frequently occur in the workplace interactions. The information was provided by senior executives and managers from the four different cultura