Chinese experts in climate change mitigation place foreign colleagues on the red surface.  The red surface is quite uniform over the value axis and somewhat less uniform across the identity axis.  Neither Chinese nor foreign experts anticipate that they would be able to change their relations by specific efforts and so whether they are individually known or not has little influence.  Nonetheless technical knowledge and skills ought to be assimilated and there is seldom thought or worry about local damage or risks in doing so.  This uniformity on the relational axis would in theory invite more active and repeated appeals by individuals to affirm or change the relations but in practice such appeals remain rare.  Many open doors are not pushed through.

European goods carry significant prestige in China but their use is disconnected from this prestige.   Likewise, technical knowledge is not seen differently when it is related to local usage.  Irrespectively of these origin attributes, assimilation is unpredictable.  

Both the blue and the red surfaces as typical interpretations of cultural distance are simplifications and most organisations have sufficient numbers of individuals with different behaviour that can agglomerate to other outcomes.  Individuals anticipate that they can stop well known patterns of relating to foreigners and vice versa.  Types of organisations, firm sizes or dominant professional groups in firms can be sources for other patterns.  

Within teams of local and foreign experts, communication across cultural distance is limited by accordance/disagreements among locals vis-à-vis foreigners and vice versa.  Bounds of solidarity or pecuniary interest among locals and among foreigners inhibit individuals from seizing opportunities.  The following graphic illustrates stabilised categorisations when a mixed team operates over several years.  The red line shows variations of attitudes among a team of Mexican energy engineers towards American colleagues.  In most cases, the variation of these attitudes are hidden from the foreigners because revealing them would make conflicts unbearable.  I have reconstructed this variation based on several months of ethnographic fieldwork in Mexico (see Fieldwork).  The red and blue lines are more precise and more actionable than the surfaces in the two graphics above. 

Graphic 3: Developer Positions in 3-dimensional Cultural Distance

Foreign expert roles in Mexican large industry:

ally- competitor - judge =  when a local group —————————————    varies widely over the relational axis, while there are no value or identity differences in the local perception of foreigners called “Gringo“ by those locals on the right, medium opinion locals speak of “Malinchismo“, on the left no subjective claims (ally) appear.  All locals and foreigners had the same engineering education and years of professional experience.  All individual engineering skill differences among foreigners and among locals remained inaccessible.

 

Foreign expert roles in the Chadian informal sector (other fieldwork): jerk - academic - coach = a group of professionals varies over the identity axis, local experts ————————————     (engineers and economists) rarely appear as individuals and thus little local reaction, Chadians who recognize foreign identity have clearly more “good“ interpretation and slightly more assimilate, dominant behaviour passiveness; exo-social exchanges: foreigners are labelled all sorts of things, and great difficulties in discerning their image.

When an outsider joins a team and his presence is credibly independent of the team's responsibilities, s/he becomes nonetheless object of the same interpretative efforts.  The outsider or observer can be used verbally by team members to call for changes in attitudes towards foreigners (and vice versa), the accordance / disagreements become visible.  The observer's neutrality is an opportunity for the team members.  The following graphic shows the same cases as above and illustrates the usefulness of the observer as pawn.  S/he serves as pawn by being the latest to arrive, stay only temporarily and also by demonstrating hesitation to choose sides.  Using an observer as pawn is common in international development projects where communication across cultural distance is shaped by a pretended equality of team members and international relations' objectives in project implementation.  Teams in commercial projects are just as open to verbal efforts.

 

The observer is a pawn for the team members, they use his/her presence in staged demonstrations to appeal to the other team members.  In Mexico, the staged demonstrations moved the observer along the red line towards the left.

 

The effectiveness of the observer presence and of management tools derived from it are the product of the legacy of development assistance and the economic growth inferiority or decline.

 

       ally - competitor - judge:    passive use of the pawn to claim sincerity especially by those on the
        —————————————     “judge“ side of the Mexican interpretation of foreign expert presence.

Management tools derived from fieldwork in Mexico can improve the recognition of the other side.  Such tools prolong the pawn usage (in verbal exchanges) in a more meaningful way.  They create more opportunities for foreigners and locals to appear as individuals, express their views and describe their professional products more accurately.

 

       jerk - academic - coach:     those local experts towards the “known“ use the pawn to demonstrate
       —————————————     their knowing of the foreigner to the other locals who want to
                                                ignore the foreigner, foreigners “confess“ to the observer.

The management tools from ethnographic fieldwork in Chad serve to separate the value from the relational axis. These tools improve the tendency among Chadian experts to scrutinize what the foreigners bring.  Similar to the use they made of the pawn (an observer), moving along the blue line toward the coach end, the tools expand the local significance of the project content by offering Chadians more arguments among them.

In both cases Mexico and Chad, management goals introduced co-existed with observer presence (described in chapter 6.1.3 Intersubjectivity and the management landscape, in Grammig, 2002).

Possible roles an outside observer is used for by team members seizing an occasion (suitable situation during normal project activity) for a verbal plea towards the other group:

• jerk
• social enemy
• parasite
• academic
• prostitute
• do-gooder (humanist)
• useful
• necessary
• competitor
• ally
• coach
• ideal
• judge

This list is counterproductive when transferred to another context.  Any field research requires producing these categories anew, and overcoming personal traits in the observer’s presence, exchange and perception.  The observer role reflects to the social other and at the same time to the opposite side in the project team.  Fieldwork becomes more diffult, even impossible, the more the observer role reflects him/herself as an individual.

Hausmann R and D Rodrik, 2003, “Economic development as self-discovery“, Journal of Development Economics, 72: 603-633.