April 1999

Editorial

The misuse of wording

Beverley Platt-Higgins, Programme Director, Net Expat U.K.   In a world where dual career partnerships are becoming commonplace, we feel that the term "trailing spouse" has unfortunate and outdated connotations. Indeed, "trailing spouse" implies an inferior role to that of the partner who is being assigned abroad. Often the spouse or partner is leaving a demanding and fulfilling job too, and certainly would not want to be identified as a "trailer" ! We believe that "co-expat" or "expat partner" describes more fairly and honestly the equal importance of the career of the partner who is being asked to go along with the transferee's posting to foreign climes.

Jim Platt-Higgins, Programme Director, Net Expat U.K.

Trends

Culture and Globalization

Paul Cejas, US Ambassador to Belgium The title of this article manages to pull together some of the most sensitive words in today's political vocabulary "culture, global, and free market". And like most politically-charged discussions around such topics, it has the potential to yield more smoke than light. My interest, however, is to take a longer-term view to reflect on how our individual sense of cultural identity is likely to be affected in the future by the twin phenomenons of globalization and rapid technological change. Like all of us, of course, I approach this topic with my own cultural baggage and history. I am, of course, an American but that by itself tells you relatively little about how I view the world. Because, again like all of us, I am a product of multiple cultural influences. I am, for example, a part of America's Hispanic community - a community which makes America the world's 5th largest Spanish speaking nation. Third, I have spent much of my adult life within the community of America's business entrepreneurs - a community of extraordinary dynamism, and which has an astonishing record of creating jobs and economic growth. Fourth, my personal cultural identity also owes much to my home state, Florida's culture, which has melded particular traits from its New York, Southern, and Hispanic immigrants to create a young, vibrant and totally unique cultural identity of its own. In short, like all Americans, I am the product of not one, but several, cultures - all of which I am immensely proud, and all of which have had a profound impact on how I view the world around me. It is therefore with some bemusement that I listen to people assert with great confidence that they know precisely what American culture is, a culture that usually they define as everything they dislike: a commercial world of MacDonalds, Coke, Nike Shoes, Levis, and Hollywood movies. Moreover, many worry that this cultural juggernaut is riding the wave of economic globalization and will, if nothing is done to stop it, overwhelm the rest of the world with its Disneyland ../images. This could indeed be frightening for some, but is it true? I think not, because this vision is based on false premises, not only about what America is today, but also about the effect that economic globalization is likely to have on culture in the future. Today, we see more books, on more topics, with more different points of view, being published than ever before. The nature of technological change suggests that in our global future, all of us will have far more cultural choices available to us than ever before. The real revolution in cultural choice will be in distribution, and that, thanks to the Internet, is just beginning. The Internet is in the process of turning the very nature of information distribution upside down. Think about it : for the last 200 years, the role of new technology - the newspaper, radio, TV - has consistently moved us toward mass, single-direction communication. The power of mass communication shifted our intellectual center from the rural to the urban, from the local to the national. The Internet makes it possible to create new communities - communities based not on their proximity to a town, a TV transmitter, or a newspaper distribution area, but purely based on common interests. With technology, we will escape the confines of mass communication, and, in a sense, we will be returning to the world of the village that our grandparents knew. The difference will be that the village of the future will be based on interest, not geography. And we will be able to be members of not just one village, but as many villages as interest us, and as we have time for. The array of choice that this future offers will inevitably result in an explosion of cultural diversity and dynamism such as the world has never seen before. For political leaders, this can be an unsettling trend. It makes it harder for governments to retain the dominance of public opinion that they enjoyed during the era of mass communication. And it suggests that, just as globalization has reduced governments' control of economic trends, so it will reduce their ability to influence our cultural choices. Nobody, least of all I, would look forward to living in a one-size-fits-all global culture. Diversity is the spice of life. (This article is based on a speech given last February to the A.E.C.A. at the European Parliament)

Testimonial

Even Europeans need assistance !

This interview with a French woman highlights the importance of support in effectively addressing the Belgian job market despite a common language You have made a conscious decision to combine a responsible job and family life. What is your recipe for the successful handling of both ? - Mrs. Claude Maurel: In my case the successful harmonising of both tasks stems from two things: on the one hand, a strong motivation for my work and on the other, a meticulous organisation in my home life. This has led me to implement a permanent system of priorities. So I always ask myself what is essential, secondary or superfluous before making the appropriate choice. Moreover, that is why women are often very organised: they have to cope with two tasks simultaneously. A short time ago you started work in an extremely multicultural environment. What are the elements of this cultural diversity which have particularly caught your attention or amused you ? - I work for an American company where about fifteen nationalities from all corners of Europe mix together. In some ways, you have to look beyond American behaviour - they don't shake hands, casual Fridays - into the individual background of each person. Therefore, it is important for me to know about everyone's nationality and the paths their careers have taken. You are French and you work now in Belgium. Can you tell us in what ways these two employment markets differ, and why help in looking for a job is also necessary for close nationalities? - I've been in Belgium since July 1998. I started to look for a job in November. On 1st February 1999 I started working in marketing, which is exactly what I was looking for. So everything happened quite quickly. As far as professional transition is concerned, the Belgian employment market is more official than in France. In my country, many people are taken in via unsolicited applications or through family connections. In general it's a more complicated approach, but one learns to cultivate a "network". I found recruitment methods in Belgium to be very clear and very professional. It's quite reassuring. With Net Expat's collaboration, I found a professional position suited to my needs more quickly than otherwise. My questions were answered immediately. This was both a moral support and a way to see myself through someone else's eyes; two very important things in the search for productive employment.

Company's view

Let's take the best of what we have

Missak Vehouni, Human Resources Director at KPN Orange   Missak Veloumi is what you might call a world citizen. Of Armenian origin, he is himself the child of expatriates. he's traveled the world in all directions, lived in seven countries, speaks six languages fluently, and up to now, hasn't even contemplated putting his bags down for one last time. Mobility is a subject close to his heart, and hard on his heels! Missak Vehlumi feels that mobility is becomming one of the key elements in our culture.  A fervent defender of proactive integration Missak Vehouni is totally against "cultural ghettos". He strongly recommends being as open as possible towards the host country: "Meet people by joining in their daily lives, while not denying your origins or distancing yourself from your compatriots. One of the most essential things is to make a real effort to speak the language". On arriving in Belgium, Missak Vehouni spoke French but not Dutch, and true to his word, he learned the language of Vondel in a very short time. "I also decided to send my children to a school where Belgian and expat children mix freely. It's an incredibly enriching experience for all concerned and provides a direct contact with Belgium and its people. Belgium, and Brussels in particular, are real windows on the world and its varied facets. I feel that expatriates should be encouraged to take full advantage of it". Mobility: the employer's point of view Like most international organisations, KPN Orange seeks to take on mobile employees to best serve a frontierless market. However the general tendency to cut costs also affects HR departments, and doesn't spare policy for supporting expatriates. As HR director, Missak Vehouni completely fulfills his role. His aim is to put all employees on an equal footing. "I think that the days of "golden expat packages" where firms were extremely financially generous are coming to an end. Firms will need to encourage employees' mobility by helping and supporting them in more practical ways". The solution: An unobtrusive helping hand The traditional way of things has gone, where the man was sent abroad by his company, taking with him a wife who was forced to give up her own career plans. Today, when they follow their husbands, most women want to remain professionally active, and are no longer content to be simply a "trailing spouse". In any case, more and more women are expatriated and are accompanied by husbands who have great motivation in continuing to work in the new host country. "I recognise that dual careers can pose problems for which we must find solutions. In some cases the moving of a particular person can be deemed to be of such importance for the firm that if there is a dual career problem, no effort is spared in encouraging the "trailing spouse" to follow". Faced with this problem of dual careers, we discover in Missak Vehouni's vision one of the Net Expat's main principles: an unobtrusive helping hand.

Tools

The Art of Intercultural Interviewing

Richard Hill is an intercultural consultant, trainer and author of "We Europeans", "EuroManagers & Martians" and other books on intercultural understanding.  One of my first encounters with the sometimes kafkaesque world of intercultural dynamics came when I was working with a British export organisation in the 1960s. We were recruiting people for the company's new German subsidiary and were using an English-language application form (today we might know better). One of the questions was "What position are you applying for?" and one candidate's answer was: "Preferably next to a window." Being British we assumed he was either being literal-minded, which seemed likely as he was German, or being humorous, which seemed unlikely for the same reason. One of the worse traps in intercultural human relationships is the stereotypical assumption that, because one comes from a particular culture, one is likely to behave in a particular way. German people can be literal-minded (not always a bad thing either) but they can also be very inventive. Yet the truth is that culture intrudes in all sorts of ways in job-seeking situations, even in terms of the non-comparability of academic regimes. After all, educational systems tend to reflect national cultural attitudes and values. Sometimes I think they are expressly designed to reinforce them. Recruiters find that people from some cultures tend to be more reticent about their achievements than others. The Dutch, perhaps surprisingly for some, can be excessively modest at times, the Germans tend to shun any form of hype (though, as the joke goes, when writing their CVs they often go back as far as Charlemagne) and even the British can, at times, be self-effacing. This poses the first problem for the interviewer. But, as he or she goes deeper into the candidate's qualifications for the job, the interviewer gets into hotter water. One problem is getting the candidate to open up. Where a Dutchman will be assertive, despite his professed modesty, a Belgian may remain passive and a Finn uncommunicative. A Spaniard will be happy to talk, but will keep any personal pretensions within the limits of honourable behaviour, not wanting to demonstrate excessive ambition or competitiveness. If you find yourself interviewing people from other nationalities - even within the European context - you will do well to brush up on cultural idiosyncrasies before you start. Be prepared for the fact that, while you should very definitely avoid interrupting a German or a Nordic, you must be prepared for constant interruption, or at the very least what the sociologists call 'conversational overlap', from an Italian, maybe even a French person. Plus, in the Italian's case, vigorous gesturing and, depending on the size of the desk between them, a possible invasion of the interviewer's 'intimate zone'. If it comes to testing candidates, both sides may be in for surprises. Most European recruiters tend to limit themselves to psychometric and personality tests, whereas French PDGs have been known to call on the services of graphologists, numerologists, clairvoyants, astrologers and morphopsychologists (who look at your face) to confirm their choice of candidate. But, if all that weren't enough, you still have the hazards of language when people of different cultures are trying to assess one another. Take the example of the British recruiter who went to Paris to interview candidates for a job. "Did you have any trouble with the language?" his colleagues asked him on his return. "No", said the recruiter, "but the French did!"

Investments

The Region of Brussels-Capital : the heart of Europe

Jos Chabert, Minister of Economy of the Brussels-Capital Region   Net Expat has been asking Minister Jos Chabert for his views on the present and future role of Brussels on the international scene. The Brussels-Capital Region has been quite active in attracting foreign investors. Here are some examples of recent initiatives: 1. The creation by the federal government of a specific tax regime for service centres, including call centres 2. Creation in 1997 of ECOBRU, the Brussels-Capital Region's one-stop-shop. The existence of such a central help desk where potential investors can obtain information and assistance when setting up in Brussels is a key element of the strategy to attract foreign investors. 3. Adaptation of the legislation on economic expansion so that it can apply to telecom services with high added value 4. Creation in 1997 of a training centre for call-centres operators (within Teleport Brussels) so as to increase the number of potential multilingual call-centre operators 5. Creation in April 1997 of Brucall, the first call- centre hotel (with the support of Belgacom and the Brussels Regional Investment Company). Indeed, the international business world has always been important for Belgium and Brussels. In 1996 33,085 companies were established in the Brussels-Capital Region, of which 1800 were either international or foreign companies. This represents around 60% of the foreign companies with business interests in Belgium. Foreign companies come from far beyond the E.U., proof of the interest that world business has in the Region (see graph below). A large number of foreign companies come from the service sector which already represents more than 83% of the regional product and which is expanding further. Brussels is also a technological capital. Over the last decade, there has been a change in Brussels with high value-added products increasingly coming to the fore. Many small and medium-sized businesses involved in what are usually called "high-tech" sectors epitomise this dynamism. The Brussels-Capital Region is home to major IT companies (with a recent boom in the telecom sector) and to major research centres. There are 4 science parks, the fruit of exemplary synergy between industry and universities, and some of these innovative companies are here. Another facet of Brussels' activity is the major presence of co-ordination centres and service centres. About half of the 249 co-ordination centres active in Belgium are located in Brussels. They employ 4,000 people and represent 176 million BEF in operating expenses. Indirectly this sector is assumed to generate additional 2,000 jobs. In 1998, 31 service centres were located in Belgium, the majority of them (mainly call-centres) in the Brussels-Capital Region. To this type of company, the potential of telecommunications and the availability of staff are of the utmost importance Brussels is well known for the many positive attributes that have convinced thousands of foreign companies to locate their European business operations there: - a favourable tax climate (especially for expatriates, for headquarter activities, distribution and service centres); - a skilled, multilingual, flexible and highly productive workforce; - a gateway to the European markets; - a neutral position in the European market; - an international business atmosphere; - a superior quality of life.