Intercultural Organizational Communication : A contrastive study on intercultural communication in German and Swedish companies

Germany and Sweden are important business partners. In business it is important to be aware of different organizational cultures. Sweden and Germany are in many aspects alike, but at the same time there are cultural differences. In this study, research was conducted to compare part of the Swedish-German organizational communication as well as the meaning of intercultural communication in different companies. Online questionnaires were answered by 18 respondents. They included Swedes at a company in Sweden, which was bought by a German company and Germans at a company in Germany, which was bought by a Swedish company. Interviews with two executive directors, one at a Swedish company and one at a German company were made as well. The results of this study show that Germany has a strong hierarchal structure in comparison with Sweden. Sweden has a flatter structure, where meetings are a big part of the community within the organization. The most striking difference between the organizational cultures in both countries is the hierarchy