In foreign lands Alstom Switzerland
employees report on their experiences of working among other
cultures

In the first part of the book, the editor, Mona Spisak,
examines the question of intercultural competence and reaches
the conclusion that it can be compared to playing music. Good
musicians do not just know about the staff, about harmony or
about the history of music, they also put themselves into their
music to make it their own. It is the same with intercultural
competence more is required than just mastering models
and recognizing the relevant dimensions of a culture. People
are challenged and have to bring their own efforts into play.


Experiences from three cultural groups

In the second part of the book, the Alstom engineers
and technicians report on their personal experiences among
Arab, Chinese and Indian cultures. The experiences of the
fourteen men and one woman were written down by authors from
the Swiss Study Foundation (Schweizerische Studienstiftung).



The experiences reported therein are by no means sanitized
sample stories of Europeans who were experts in
interculturality who came, saw and
conquered their work in distant countries. Instead they
are the reports of people presenting their daily working life
within a different cultural group. It is clear in the reports
how difficult the steps can be in approaching the new and
strange. At the same time, the travelers also experience
wonderful, amusing moments. There is no way back, and thus they
start on many new paths along which they learn some valuable
lessons.



The editors and initiators of the book are Mona Spisak,
Managing Director of the consultancy group
Interdisziplinäre Beratergruppe Zürich IDBZ, and
Hansruedi Stalder, Head of the business unit Field Services at
ALSTOM (Switzerland) Ltd in Baden.



For press queries, contact


ALSTOM (Switzerland) Ltd


Simone Ramser


Director of Communications and Press Spokeswoman


Tel.: +41 (0)56 205 96 00


Fax: +41 (0)56 205 52 31

simone.ramser@power.alstom.com


Alstom is a global leader in the world of power generation
and rail infrastructure and sets the benchmark for innovative
and environmentally friendly technologies. Alstom builds the
fastest train and the highest capacity automated metro in the
world, and provides turnkey integrated power plant solutions
and associated services for a wide variety of energy sources,
including hydro, gas and coal. The Group employs 65,000 people
in 70 countries, and had orders of 19 billion in
2006/07.

Annex: The three cultural groups

Arab culture

The Arab world, both divided from and connected to
Europe by the Mediterranean, is home to one language and
several religions. The Islamic world encountered in the book
In Foreign Lands, on the other hand, is marked by
one religion but many ethnicities and languages. A variety of
cultural syntheses are opened up to us. The Europeans in the
book encounter different attitudes and rules. Understanding
these always means having to view and question your own culture
through the eyes of others. Mutual respect and readiness to
accept that the other person is different are important
requirements for success.


Chinese culture

China may have lost something of its elusive, exotic
magic in recent years. All the same, reports from Europeans of
their working experiences in China still contain descriptions
of China's persistent mystery. Chinese behaviour
as an inscrutable black box? Personal interaction
in China obeys unwritten rules. The most important thing is a
basic awareness of certain culturally specific sensitivities
this is the Chinese emotional culture.
Some stories in the book also bear witness to this phenomenon.


Indian culture

Question marks and exclamation marks are constant
companions for everyone who was ever a foreigner in India. But
once one has established what Indians have stored in their
collective memory, one can find out the unwritten laws
according to which Indians live. The stories show that there
are no easy questions or answers, but that it is worth opening
up and looking for them.

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