Intercultural Competence in Work: A Case Study
in Eastern Finnish Enterprises
Pirkko Pitkänen
This paper presents the research results of a study that focused on inter-
cultural interaction issues in private sector workplaces in Eastern Fin-
land. The results show that the current challenges caused by the glob-
alisation pressures in the realm of economics behoves work communi-
ties to review their personnel training and management practices: the
work communities as a whole should be helped to deal with increasing
cultural diversity. Although the number of workers with foreign back-
grounds has increased in Eastern Finland, so far, there have been only
a few attempts to restructure the working practices in an effort to take
into account the demands of increasingly diverse working contexts. In
all participating companies the mainstream people were the norm. It
was common that Finnish language proficiency was seen as a necessary
but not yet sufficient qualification for work. In addition, knowledge of
the practices of Finnish working life, as well as training and working
experience acquired in Finland were desired.
Key Words: cultural diversity, intercultural competence, private sector
work, East Finland
jEL Classification: f, a
Introduction
It is obvious that the large-scale international movement of labour is one
of the future challenges caused by the globalisation pressures in the realm
of economics. Peter Koehn (2006, 22) writes: 'Looking forward the fu-
ture, the most likely population scenario will involve more people, more
population movement, more displacement - both internally and inter-
nationally ...' (see also Helton 2002,14). Labour migration, in particular,
is becoming increasingly global due to the economic restructuring which
is making hanging onto a job everywhere precarious (Portes, Guarnizo,
and Landolt 1999, 227). On the other hand, in many Western countries,
an ageing population means that there will be a shortage of labour. A
cross-border movement of labour provides many opportunities but it
also entails many challenges. In work communities, the emergence of na-
tional and cultural diversity may lead to divergent working practices and
Dr Pirkko Pitkänen is a Professor in the Department of Education,
University of Tampere, Finland.
Managing Global Transitions 5 (4): 391-408
provoke confusing or even conflicting interaction situations. This paper
seeks to provide empirically validated knowledge that is needed to en-
hance prerequisites for successful intercultural interaction in culturally
diverse workplaces.
The everyday experiences of intercultural work will be reported by
the managers and personnel of ten Eastern Finnish private sector en-
terprises. Eastern Finland represents a traditionally ethno-culturally ho-
mogeneous region currently characterized by increasing multinational
economic collaboration and international mobility of labour: today the
companies are finding themselves more and more involved in situa-
tions where people from diverse national and/or cultural backgrounds
and speaking different languages are working side by side. Demographic
pressures have an important part to play here. It is expected that by the
end of the current decade an insufficient work-force will be a real prob-
lem in Finland as the baby boomer generations born after World War ii
reach the age of retirement (Forsander 2002; Forsander et al. 2004). It is
anticipated that this generational shift will take place in Finland earlier
than in other European countries, and in eastern (and northern) parts of
Finland earlier than in the rest of the country.
Even now, many Eastern Finnish companies are increasingly seeking
qualified professionals from abroad in order to replace ageing employees.
According to a survey focusing on the experiences of intercultural work
among private sector managers (Pitkänen and Atjonen 2002; 2003),1 al-
most half of the Eastern Finnish managers estimate that there will be
a need for targeted foreign labour force recruitment by the end of the
present decade. The survey also revealed that today the Eastern Finnish
private enterprises are typically rather monocultural by nature. It was
quite uncommon for a company to employ foreign personnel. On the
other hand, quite a number of enterprises did have diverse and extensive
international co-operation.
At the same time as the recruitment of foreign labour is seen as a par-
tial solution to finding qualified workers, about 40 percent of the immi-
grants living in the eastern parts of Finland, especially refugees and so-
called ethnic return migrants from the former Soviet Union,2 are unem-
ployed (Pitkänen and Atjonen 2002; Pitkänen and Hacklin 2005). More-
over, it has been observed that if immigrants do find employment, they
are likely to be placed in the lower echelons of the labour market hierar-
chy. Advancing to a job that corresponds to one's education and work ex-
perience is especially difficult for first generation immigrants who suffer
from a lack of Finnish language proficiency and the cultural competen-
cies needed in Finnish working life. (Forsander and Alitolppa-Niitamo
2000; Forsander 2002; Pitkänen and Hacklin 2005.)
Despite the increase in the number of foreign residents in Finland,
very little is known about how to learn to work together with people
from other countries (and cultures), and how the employees of foreign
origin can be helped to adapt to their new work environments. The way
intercultural interaction and collaboration succeeds is of central impor-
tance in striving to alleviate the impending labour shortage by making
use of the human potential, both of the foreigners who are already in the
country and of those recruited from abroad. It has become apparent that
the increase in cultural diversity is giving way to work environments in
which the training and management practices of the past no longer func-
tion. This paper presents a study focusing on the recognition of cultural
diversity in working contexts, and on the current needs for personnel
training in enhancing intercultural competence in work. The key ques-
tion addressed was as follows: What kind of experiences and attitudes
are there among private sector managers, human resource management
(hrm) personnel, and employees of foreign or Finnish background to-
wards cultural diversity in the work community? I will start by introduc-
ing the context of the study and by discussing the different dimensions
of intercultural competence. Then I will introduce the research proce-
dure and the main research results. Finally, the discussion section will
summarise the paper.
The Context of the Study
In order to understand the research context, it is crucial to remember
that when other Western European countries, from the 1950s to the 1970s,
attracted labour migrants to their factories and later on into the service
sector, Finland was virtually untouched by immigration. However, since
the 1990s, the relative number of immigrants has increased in Finland
more rapidly than in any other Western European state. (Paananen 1999,
46; Lepola 2000,23-24.) While in the middle of the 1970s the total num-
ber of foreign citizens living in Finland was around 10,000, at the end
of 2006 the number was almost 122,000. Only eight percent of all the
foreign residents in Finland are living in the eastern provinces (North
and South Karelia, North and South Savo, and Kainuu), whereas around
half of them have settled in or near the Helsinki area. Accordingly, while
the percentage of foreign citizens in the whole population in Helsinki is
eight, in the eastern regions it is only one (in the whole country the per-
centage is almost three). (Pitkänen and Hacklin 2005; see the Population
Register Centre web site, http://www.vaestorekisterikeskus.fi.)
Not only has the number of immigrants changed but also the policy
regarding their reception. Until the late 1990s, the predominant ideol-
ogy underlying the Finnish immigration policy was assimilationist, with
the expectancy that members of ethnic minority groups should become
culturally absorbed and be indistinguishable from the mainstream of
Finnish social and cultural life. In recent years, the general principles
of the Finnish system for receiving immigrants have undergone a signifi-
cant change. In 1997, the Finnish government ratified the Programme on
Immigration and Refugee policy. According to the programme, plural-
ism is being viewed as the goal for integrating foreign newcomers. This
implies that while sharing the values and norms of the mainstream cul-
ture foreign residents should have an opportunity to maintain and de-
velop their own cultural characteristics. At the same time, they should
have equal opportunities to participate in the economic and social life of
the host society. (Matinheikki-Kokko and Pitkänen 2002, 48-73; see the
Finlex web site, http://www.finlex.fi.)
So far, immigration to Finland has mainly come through marriage,
humanitarian reasons, or the so-called ethnic return migration, whereas
labour migrants have made up a significantly smaller group than in most
other industrialized countries. However, an ageing population means
that there are demands for labour force which can partially be met by
work-related migration. This has created a need to revise Finnish im-
migration policy. In October 2006, the Finnish Government approved a
new Immigration Policy Programme. The purpose of the programme is
to actively promote work-related immigration, in particularly from out-
side the European Union and European economic area. The programme
also emphasises the utilisation of the existing labour force in conjunc-
tion with the development of work-related immigration policy. More-
over, politics of difference have been introduced in which people's rights
to their ethnicity, cultural heritage and language are part of everyone's
human rights. The aim is to promote the development of a pluralis-
tic, multicultural and non-discriminatory society (see the Ministry of
Labour web site, http://www.mol.fi).
Likewise in Eastern Finland, targeted foreign labour recruitment is ar-
riving on the public agenda (see the Regional Council of Pohjois-Savo
region web site, http://www.pohjois-savo.fi). All the eastern provinces,
North Karelia, South Karelia, North Savo, South Savo and Kainuu, are
located near the Russian border. Accordingly, the largest group of im-
migrants consists of people of Russian background; more than half of
the foreigners living on the area are Russian-speaking. Most of them
have come to Finland for family reasons, or they are Ingrians and thus
regarded as returnee migrants. Other newcomers are of Estonian and
Swedish origin (mostly returnees), or humanitarian migrants coming
mainly from Iraq, Bosnia-Herzegovina, or Afghanistan. (See the Register
Office web site, http://www.maistraatti.fi; Pitkänen and Hacklin 2005.)
Regarding the forthcoming demographic shift in Eastern Finland, the
age structure among the foreigners living in the area is very auspicious:
the share of working age population (15-64 years) is almost 80 percent.
Besides, their educational background is in many cases very good: many
of them have university degrees or intermediate grade qualifications.
Even so, almost half of them are unemployed. Immigrants of Russian
origin form the largest group of jobseekers: in 2004 more than half of all
job applicants were Russian-speaking immigrants. (Pitkänen and Hack-
lin 2005.)
According to Pitkänen and Atjonen (2002) the main stumbling blocks
in the employment of foreigners can be found at the attitudinal level. The
above-mentioned survey among Eastern Finnish managers showed that,
although the managers' experiences of foreign employees were mainly
positive, negative experiences and attitudes were also expressed, mainly
with reference to Russian-speaking employees. The most favoured groups
of foreigners for employment include migrants from Scandinavian or
Western European countries, Estonia or the us, while employees with
Russian or African backgrounds were the least welcome. (Pitkänen and
Atjonen 2002,37-43.)
Learning to Become Interculturally Competent
In studying the challenges caused by cultural diversity at work, we need
to be able to understand what processes come into play when people with
different cultural backgrounds interact with one another. It is obvious
that intercultural interaction as an everyday experience requires special
competence to manage anxiety caused by cultural differences in inter-
action with people who see the world from perspectives which may be
different or even in conflict with one's own personal values and beliefs.
Firstly, a necessary, though insufficient, ingredient of intercultural com-
petence is the acquisition of cultural3 knowledge. Knowledge is a form
of cultural capital, and its possession empowers. One of the greatest re-
sources and sources of empowerment is access to the kind of knowledge
that is culturally accurate and has instrumental value when put into prac-
tise.
Further, in a culturally diverse environment, there is a need for criti-
cal self-reflection. This entails familiarity with foreign cultures, but also
an awareness of one's own cultural starting points. Culture can be re-
garded as a mental set of windows through which all of life is viewed. It
varies from individual to individual within a cultural context, but shares
important characteristics with its members. In particular, culture is not
something we are born with, but rather it is learned. If culture is learned,
then it is also learnable. Much of what is learned about one's own cul-
ture is stored in mental categories that are recalled only when they are
challenged by something different. But how do the windows differ from
culture to culture? The following question arises: How can an outsider
learn to recognise what is essentially transparent to the individual mem-
ber of a culture? (Beamer and Varner 2001,3.)
Jack Mezirow (1991) states that a process of questioning basic cultural
assumptions and habitual expectations is possible by examining why and
how we constrain the way we see ourselves and other people. This self-
reflection can result in altered meaning perspectives. This kind of change
or revised interpretation of cultural ways is often the result of efforts
to understand different cultures with customs that contradict our own
presuppositions. When we have an experience which cannot be assimi-
lated into our meaning perspectives, either the experience is rejected or
the perspective changes to accommodate the new experience. When we
change significant meaning structures, i. e., our meaning perspectives,
we change the way we view, and act toward, the world. Mezirow believes
that this process may lead to a more inclusive world view. (Mezirow 1991,
168; see also Taylor 1994.)
Although necessary, the awareness of cultural multiplicity and diver-
sity is not yet sufficient for true intercultural competence, but these skills
have to be underscored by ethical consideration and cultural sensitivity.
To achieve all this, there is a need for intercultural dialogue in which the
reasonableness and validity of different life forms are being judged and
examined. (Bennett 1995,259-265.) Intercultural encounters are by their
nature phenomena which contain numerous variables and are difficult
to predict. These often include the ability for managing anxiety caused
by cultural differences in interaction with colleagues who see the world
from perspectives which may be different from or even in conflict with
one's own personal values and beliefs.
Research Procedure
The study presented here focused on ten Eastern Finnish private sector
enterprises with personnel from different ethnic backgrounds.4 The gen-
eral character was a qualitative case study approach to attain an under-
standing of the characteristics of intercultural encounters in work. The
group of respondents consisted of managers and hr managers (n = 13),5
as well as of employees of foreign origin (n = 14) and their Finnish col-
leagues (n = 11). The relations between employees and their supervisors
were a focus of examination, along with peer relations among employees.
The research data were gathered in 2003-2004 through semi-structured
interviews in two large, five middle size and three small companies.6 The
participating workplaces represented industrial and service branch en-
terprises (catering business, supermarkets). The foreigners working in
the companies were mainly of Russian origin. The list of other countries
of origin included mainly European (Poland, Romania, Ireland, Italy,
the Netherlands) and African (Ghana, Somalia) countries. The number
of foreign personnel in the companies taking part in the study varied
between 1 and 7.
The interviewing style was structured when answers were sought to
common questions covering the experiences, attitudinal engagement
and activities of the respondents. The respondents, however, were en-
couraged to express themselves freely while the general direction and
shape of the interviews was maintained. The key questions addressed
were as follows: What are the goals and prevailing practices of the com-
pany's strategy for managing cultural diversity? What are the experi-
enced and expected advantages and challenges related to the increase
in national/cultural diversity? Further, in order to find out how differ-
ent actors in the work environments can learn to become interculturally
competent, I aimed to discover what kind of culturally based concep-
tions and practices the participants of diverse intercultural encountering
situations adhere to. Have they experienced culturally conflicting situ-
ations? What are the origins of these conflicts? How have the conflict
situations been (or should have been) solved? The final aim was to find
out what kind of personnel training would be needed in order to attain
the intercultural competence relevant in culturally diverse private sector
workplaces.
Experiences of Intercultural Work
In this present study, language difficulties and communication issues in
general appeared to be the factors most clearly complicating the daily
interaction and collaboration in culturally diverse companies, especially
in small and middle size customer services. Some managerial respon-
dents were also afraid of intercultural misunderstandings, as customers
had complained of the poor Finnish language skills by employees of for-
eign origin. On the other hand, they appreciated the ability of foreign
personnel to use their mother tongues; e. g., the employees of Russian
background were used as interpreters and translators. Moreover, for the
service branch, questions like politeness, etiquette, hierarchy, and so on,
appeared to be the major challenges (cf. Hofstede, 1997), while in the
large industrial companies used to operating in wide international con-
texts the workers' familiarity with foreign countries was seen as an en-
tirely valuable asset. These companies had lots of experiences of foreign
personnel and were used to dealing with intercultural communication
issues in their day-to-day work. As the following quotation shows, eti-
quette or other formality issues did not cause any major problems:
What comes to mind is that often your first association on
these multicultural issues is the etiquette. Are you allowed to
bow now and nod and shake hands and what kind of flowers
and everything, so all that has like lost its meaning.
Male hr manager, large industrial enterprise
Still, among employees of foreign background, politeness and hierar-
chy were felt to be confusing in the relations between managers and their
subordinates. Knowing when it was appropriate to address the managers
formally was especially difficult for many newcomers; they were not used
to calling their superiors by their first names. A position where the su-
perior was a female person was embarrassing to those male employees
originally from countries with different gender roles than in Finland. In
some cases, male employees had felt it was difficult to work under female
managers.
Although in some cases the use of religious symbols had caused con-
fusion, most respondents estimated that different religious backgrounds
did not have any special effects on the everyday collaboration. Instead,
headaches often mentioned were the adherence to given schedules and
the conceptions of time in general (cf. Hampden-Turner and Trompe-
naars 2000, 295-343; Trompenaars 1995, 21-28). Further, the employees'
attitudes towards hygiene had caused trouble for managerial respon-
dents; in some cases, foreign employees were characterized as untidy. On
the other hand, those managers who had been living abroad might eval-
uate the excessive cleanliness among Finnish personnel very critically. A
manager (catering business) who had been working abroad for several
years was disturbed by the excessive cleanliness of employees of Finnish
origin: 'In Finnish restaurants we have some kind of cleaning mentality.
Like, I should clean this place! So I have said that Finnish people are too
much dish-oriented while they should be client-oriented.'
Almost all the managerial representatives of the participating compa-
nies highlighted the importance of adapting the proficiency of foreign
labour to fit into Finnish working life. Many of them seemed to have
suspicions of foreign qualifications and exams. As a consequence, in al-
most all companies taking part in the study the employees of foreign
origin were over-qualified for their present tasks. Some kind of mistrust
indicates the fact that, in almost all cases, the foreign workers had started
their work as trainees. These research results concur with earlier studies
conducted in Finland. According to the studies carried out by Paana-
nen (1999), Forsander and Alitolppa-Niitamo (2000), Forsander (2002),
and Pitkänen and Atjonen (2002), the market-value of work experience
and education acquired abroad is rather low in Finland. Instead, work-
ing experience attained in Finland is very valuable when trying to con-
vince an employer of the adequacy of a foreigner. Thus, as Forsander and
Alitolppa-Niitamo (2000) stress, training jobs and other 'entry jobs' are
very important first steps in the career of a foreigner: in order to obtain
employment that corresponds to his/her education and previous work
experience a foreigner needs to acquire working experience attained in
Finland.
However, there is a high risk that these 'entry jobs' will become per-
manent. Also in the present study, some employees of foreign origin
reported such experiences. Some of their comments were very critical;
especially employees originally from Western European countries were
very dissatisfied with their careers. These persons had come to Finland
for family reasons, and were not different from Finns in external appear-
ance. Nevertheless they had experienced discrimination or even racism
either in their workplaces or in Finnish society. A male employee from
the Netherlands characterised his experiences as 'racism you cannot see
but you can feel'. His frustration was exacerbated by the fact that the
company had hardly ever utilised his language skills, education or pre-
vious work experience. Another male respondent, originally from Italy,
complained that after working in the same company for twenty years
he advised and counselled his younger Finnish colleagues, but still got a
lower salary than those youngsters who just had graduated. He was bitter
when a Finn, who had been working in the company for a much shorter
time than he, was chosen as his new boss. Actually, it appeared that in
many cases a Finnish worker was seen as a model for a good employee,
and a foreign employee was supposed to be like a Finn (cf. Paananen
1999,127; Alasuutari and Ruuska 1999,199-214; Anttonen 1998). No won-
der that some newcomers tried to be more Finnish than their Finnish
colleagues. This was especially common among Ingrians, who often look
like Finns and can speak Finnish. Further, these respondents believed
that also other foreigners should assimilate into the Finnish way of life.
When the managerial respondents assessed foreign personnel they of-
ten accentuated 'proper' [oikea] personal characteristics and a 'proper'
attitude toward the work. When they used the word 'proper', they re-
ferred to an ethnically Finnish person: to something normal and natural,
to something that required no further explanations:
The attitude must be proper. Must be properly oriented at at-
titudinal level, meaning that you truly want to work.
Male manager, medium-sized department store
Edward Hall points out in his book Beyond Culture (1977) that the
closer something is to seeming true, the less aware we probably are of its
cultural origin. Our own culture seems normal to us; it is just the way
things are. Here seems to be hidden a major challenge for the participat-
ing companies: Finnishness is implicitly seen as a norm. The role of cul-
tural self-evidences is of crucial importance here. It is extremely difficult
for a person who has immigrated to Finland to identify such culturally
based self-evidences. It is also possible that the mainstream personnel do
not see these difficulties at all; they do not understand that people with
different cultural backgrounds may see issues in different ways. As long
as everything goes in a traditional way, the familiar daily routines do not
call for any change and, thus, for additional mental resources. (Lehtonen,
Löytty and Ruuska 2004,142.) The situation is different when cultural di-
versity increases in the work community. Not only newcomers but also
the mainstream people are involved in an acculturation process which
may be felt to be more or less stressful. A common reason for this stress
is that, due to the change, there is a need for both learning and discarding
learning: 'learning off' what one has learned during the initial encultur-
ation process (Pitkänen 2005,141-144).
In fact, one new member of the community with a different cul-
tural background already creates a need to review the traditional work-
ing practices. Some colleagues may consider foreign newcomers trouble-
some for this very reason: the newcomers disturb the easiness which their
cultural self-evidences entail. If these familiarities are shaken one can try
to bear up by clinging to the old and familiar (Lehtonen et al. 2004,142,
175-176). One way of asking questions is to notice that another culture
goes about things differently from the way we expect. Sometimes a new-
comer with a marginal point of view may help the mainstream people to
perceive and interpret a phenomenon in a way which helps to see their
blind spots (see Forsander et al. 2004, 47-48,71; Hall 1997).
In order to intervene in puzzling situations, there is a need to per-
ceive, and maybe anticipate, the circumstances that may cause stumbling
blocks for intercultural interaction. It seems that if the participants in
interaction situations come from very different cultures, there is a high
likelihood that their initial understanding of that event will differ. As a
consequence, the behaviours evoked by these situational representations
are likely to differ, so that the participants' responses to the same be-
haviour setting may disconfirm one another's expectations. Coordinat-
ing behaviour effectively becomes difficult, and attention must be shifted
towards negotiating shared meanings about the situation if the relation-
ship is to continue. (Smith and Bond 1993,176.) The first step in effective
intercultural learning is the understanding and acceptance of differences.
This does not mean we have to agree with another's cultural viewpoint,
or that we have to adopt the values of another culture. Rather, it means
that we need to examine our priorities and determine how we all can best
work together, being different. (Hall 1977; Beamer and Varner 2001, 5.)
Nonetheless, we should not ignore the persons' own responsibility for
their performance. We are both similar and different: we share several
capacities and needs, but different cultural backgrounds as well as indi-
vidual characteristics define and structure them differently. Thus, people
do not fail in their work because of mere cultural differences or succeed
because they share the culture or language of the dominant group. Indi-
vidual factors are also important. Some representatives of the participat-
ing companies pointed out that immigrants or ethnic minorities do not
comprise any homogeneous groups, rather when assessing people's per-
sonal characteristics one should take into consideration the similarities
and differences both between and within the groups (cf. Lehtonen and
Löytty 2003, 7-13). Besides, when talking about national backgrounds
some respondents mentioned that personal characteristics are not deter-
mined by national or ethnic borders. An hr manager of a large industrial
enterprise stated that foreign workers are individuals just like Finnish
workers. He said:
Sometimes they might be considered as personal characteris-
tics. Saying that he is from there, labelling him according to
his background, even if as a Finn he could be the same, who
knows. But if the person is a bit extraordinary, people say that
it's because he is from there.
Some hr managers assumed that the foreign employees have, and
should have capacities and characteristics they felt were missing among
Finnish staff, like a positive attitude and language skills. Asked what kind
of foreigner he should employ, the manager of a supermarket answered:
'Well, I would expect and demand the same qualities as from a Finn, an
employee of Finnish origin. And then, what else he can offer in addition
to that is of course, his language skills.' Ethnically and culturally diverse
personnel could also be seen as a valuable resource. The research showed
that some managers had experienced that an ethnically and culturally
diverse staff can, at its best, function as a primus motor for innovative
processes, as different practices and habits can open their eyes for new
kinds of opportunities. The hr manager of a large industrial company
was convinced that the recruitment of culturally diverse staff had resulted
in an increased number of innovations:
I would see that it's just a big advantage having people who
think in a different way. Automatically it gives like a positive
opportunity to learn something new, to get something devel-
oped or something like that to be done. Already the fact of
calling into question the job we're currently doing. Often these
kinds of things start new development projects.
Especially in those large companies which were operating internation-
ally, multinational personnel was seen as a resource to develop the pre-
requisites for international activities. The managerial respondents also
mentioned other benefits due to the increasing foreign staff. It was men-
tioned that language skills and cultural awareness had improved among
the whole personnel. Some said that service-mindedness had increased
with the growing multinational and multicultural personnel. Especially
in the service branch, the multicultural personnel were primarily as-
sessed from an image-centred perspective. The manager of a middle-size
supermarket which characterized itself as 'youthful, fresh and reformist'
was convinced that, in the eyes of their customers, foreign personnel
were 'such a great asset'. Instead, according to the representative of an-
other unit of the same company the attitude towards foreign staff was
clearly more doubtful. The following quotation shows that the working
context and potential focus groups were seen as crucial points:
If we're thinking about the fact that we are living in an area
with high unemployment rates, one can be thinking that I am
unemployed here and there's a that kind of person working,
a foreigner. Has he taken my hours, my bread [...] What are,
like, the clients' slants on foreigners and so their, like, bitter-
ness towards them, caused by the high unemployment rates of
the area.
It is obvious that the increase in cultural diversity is giving way to new
work environments in which the management practices of the past no
longer function. In their daily work, managers and hrm personnel need
to give additional support to foreign and ethnic minority personnel. This
may be necessary in order to equalise them with the rest and to inte-
grate them into their work organisations as well as into the host society.
Training is also a strategically important sphere in the work of providing
people with equal opportunities for their future. But first of all, success-
ful intercultural collaboration presupposes goodwill: a real motivation to
make the collaboration function. One Eastern Finnish hr manager sum-
marised this philosophy as follows: 'It can be said that a certain philoso-
phy of goodwill is closely linked to our working culture and [...] that we
are trying to create the atmosphere of trust and solidarity. Sometimes it
works, sometimes not.'
Discussion
On the basis of the study presented it can be said that in the most of
the participating Eastern Finnish companies the human resource pol-
icy was rather assimilative while, in Finland, in the last decade the gen-
eral tendency has been towards an integrative policy implying cultural
diversity and pluralism. In no participating enterprise has the increase
in national and/or cultural diversity led to real institutional changes. In
particular, the managers of the small companies estimated that working
in a conventional way is the only real option. Instead, the managerial re-
spondents of the large internationally oriented companies stressed that
an ability to recognize and manage a diverse workforce is a precondi-
tion for successful multinational operations. In those enterprises, it was
estimated that an attainment of intercultural competence is becoming
increasingly indispensable.
Changes in the world economy have made business not just more in-
ternational but also more interdependent. A key issue is how the train-
ing and management practices should be reshaped in response to the
increasing globalisation pressures. It has become apparent that global
companies may play a pioneering role in this process. The research re-
sults show that diversity management issues have remained rather alien
to the realities of Eastern Finnish working contexts (cf. Trux 2002). In
particular, the small and middle size companies are only awakening to
the fact that they could benefit from the foreign employees' competences
on intercultural issues, and that positive diversity management, which
enables each employee to give his or her best, is vital for achieving an
overall productive and competitive workforce (see Richardson 2005, 63-
75). This means that ignoring diversity is no longer an option.
In all working contexts the mainstream people were the norm. It is
evident that this kind of human resource strategy fails to provide the
representatives of minority cultures with equal opportunity and, thus,
to prevent their exclusion. In a culturally diverse environment it is not
enough that all people are to be treated the same, rather the achieve-
ment of equal opportunities for the representatives of ethnic minorities
presupposes culturally responsive treatment. Thus, the management of
diversity should become an issue of concern. A common belief among
the managerial respondents was that equal treatment can overcome the
inequalities that exist in the work organisation. This may be true in a
culturally homogeneous environment where people share broadly simi-
lar norms, motivations, social customs and patterns of behaviour. Equal
rights here mean more or less the same rights, and equal treatment in-
volves more or less identical treatment. The principle of equality is there-
fore relatively easy to define and apply, and discriminatory deviations
from it can be identified without much disagreement. This, however, is
not the case in a culturally diverse context. Equality consists in equal
treatment of those judged to be equal in relevant respects. In a culturally
diverse environment, people are likely to disagree on what respects are
relevant in a given context, what response is appropriate to them, and
what counts as their equal treatment. Thus, once we take cultural differ-
ences into account, equal treatment does not mean identical but differ-
ential treatment, raising questions as to how we can ensure that it is really
equal across cultures and does not serve as a mask for discrimination or
privilege. (Parekh 2000, 242, 261-62; Pitkänen 2003; 2006, 92-115.)
In a culturally diverse work environment, significant culturally based
differences may exist, not only in the relationships between managers
and employees, but also among majority and minority employees. There-
fore, the work communities as a whole should be helped to deal with
increasing cultural diversity. This perspective defines a work organ-
isation as a set of practices which define individuals as more or less
competent community members. In addition to linguistic competences,
intercultural competence includes other dimensions, such as cultural
awareness and cultural sensitivity. Although day-to-day interaction and
collaboration at work can provide a good context for learning for be-
coming interculturally competent, personnel training practices should
also be reshaped. In this present study it was common that, although
Finnish language proficiency and cultural knowledge were seen as nec-
essary prerequisites, they were not yet seen as sufficient qualifications
for work. Training and working experience attained in Finland were de-
sired, whereas qualifications acquired outside Finland were assessed very
critically.
Finally, attitudinal changes are needed: instead of ethnocentric short-
term policy there is a need for rethinking of the ethical basis of today's
world. A change from an ethnocentric worldview to global awareness
requires significant attitudinal changes (Hall 1977; Beamer and Varner
2001, 5). In order to avoid ethnocentrism, we should, in one way or an-
other, step outside our own cultural circle to see our systematic blind-
ness. If we succeed in doing this, it may help in relating our thinking
to the fact that our way of life does not represent the one and only way
of living or world of values and norms, but only one among many. The
ultimate aim is to make an emotional commitment to the fundamental
unity of all human beings and, at the same time, accept and appreciate
the differences that exist between people of different cultures. The fact
however is that intercultural interaction is not easy; we are all cultur-
ally based and culturally biased. Often there is a need for some kind of
intercultural transformation. According to Taylor (1994), a person who
is successful at working through and learning from daily intercultural
interaction experiences has the potential to become interculturally com-
petent (see Mezirow 1991,167). This may lead to an understanding that,
as human beings, we all are both natural and cultural beings, sharing a
common human identity, but in a culturally mediated manner. Compar-
isons between cultures can help one to see different cultural practices as
solutions and answers to the same kind of problems in human life. This
presupposes multicultural awareness and dialogue with others in order
to outline alternative perspectives, and to analyse the interpretation of
one's own standing in different perspectives. (Mezirov 1991,168; 1995, 6;
Taylor, 1994.)
Notes
1	A questionnaire was sent to the managers of 717 private enterprises
employing a minimum of 10 people.
2	Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, around 25,000 Ingrians have
immigrated to Finland. Most of them are descendants of Finnish peo-
ple who were incorporated into the Soviet Union at the end of the
Second World War when part of the eastern district of Finland was
annexed by the ussr.
3	By 'culture' I refer here to the way of life, including the assumptions
and values of which people are not always conscious.
4	This study formed part of a wider research project, Learning Inter-
cultural Competency in the Workplace, which was being carried out
in 2003-2006, and was funded by the Academy of Finland and the
Finnish Work Environment Fund (see www.uta.fi/learn).
5	Except for one foreign manager, all the managerial respondents were
of Finnish origin.
6	In this data collection, I was assisted by Ms Hannele Ojalehto and Ms
Sanna-Mari Pöyry. All interviews were recorded and transcribed.
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