Language codes & communication behavior in evaluating virtual enterprises oriented human resources.

Nica, Gabriela Beatrice ; Aurite, Traian

Abstract: For the human resources acting in virtual enterprises environment is important to be able to develop specific skills in communication. Only a good management of language codes and communication behavior allows SME's teams to imply themselves in international projects, where they can cover using their skills specific tasks, modules of the project proposed by the big enterprises who are leading the field. We present in this paper our proposal to modify the specific relevant psychological CPI (California Psychological Inventory) profiles for the mechanical engineers as defined in our previous researches, in order to also evaluate their ability to communicate in the Virtual Enterprise (VE) environment.

Key words: language codes, behavior, mechanical engineers, psychological profiles, virtual environment.

1. INTRODUCTION

The multinational culture has an impact over all the aspects of economic, social and even political life of many countries. The organizational culture of multinational enterprises has a declared role in influencing, the professional traditions and experience, by cultivating higher and more efficient standards and values. However, even if developing the social standards of some industrial countries, multinational organizational cultures may be responsible for inducing dependence, inadequate practices, and hard to assimilate industrial values to the host country. The multinational culture provides liaison between the local know how & resources and the communication technology. What we learned in both settings, regional and global networks, is that managerial competence to rapidly change the cooperative organizational arrangement from within must be backed by the cooperative culture of the partners (Katzy, 1998)

The concept of multinational enterprise culture is more and more corroborated in last years with virtual enterprises environment.

A virtual enterprise (VE) architecture represents a temporary consortium of independent member companies which come together to quickly exploit fast-changing worldwide product manufacturing opportunities during a project lifetime (figure 1).

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Different organizational cultures (ethnocentric, polycentric, regiocentric, geocentric) were proposed for this kind of enterprise architecture. At the moment the geocentric organizational culture (figure 2) seems to be the best choice because of his high degree of international coordination on production, with an important degree of independence observable across branch companies, and an important orientation towards satisfying the demand among local markets. In this kind of organizational culture the heads of the branch companies enjoy greater autonomy and decision-taking is more horizontal, tending to be carried out among branch managers. Local communication management process is emphasized at the level of each team in every node of the VE network as well as the increased need for communication management of the entire VE architecture. One of the main issues in communication management for such virtual team architecture is located in language codes and communication behavior. If those problems are neglected the organizational communication codes between partners may induce very severe differences between the reality images at the level of the emitter and receptor.

2. BREAKING THE WAVES

Effective communication is fundamental to all aspects of human functioning.

We can define the communication as transfer of the information waves from a sender to a receiver under the requirements that the message have been perceived with the same signification of the content by two subjects. Efficiency in communication is conditioned by the understanding of the message (figure 3).

Social/communications skills predict vocational functioning history independently of cognitive performance, and social skills Deficits in social/communications skills have been documented in schizophrenia, but it is unclear how these deficits relate to cognitive deficits and to everyday functioning.

Communication is best achieved through simple planning and control (Blair, 1993).

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To ensure an efficient and effective conversation, there are three considerations:

* you must make your message understood

* you must receive/understand the intended message sent to you

* you should exert some control over the flow of the communication

It is important to view that words should be rather pragmatic than philosophical. Thus, words mean not what the dictionary says they do but rather what the speaker intended.

More usual, however, is that in thinking over several alternatives you may suffer a momentary confusion and say one of them while meaning another. There are good scientific reasons (to do with the associative nature of the brain) why this happens, you have to be aware of the potential problem and counter for it.

The problem is to choose from the word multiple meanings the one intended. Especially when the waves of communication are made via Internet, the real meaning might be obstructed by the poor communication codes. Basic a luck of trust due to the only virtual contact of the sender & receiver is breaking the communication waves.

3. ADAPTING PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS

In the heretofore research, we have tried to define the psychological profile which must be in keeping with the specifically profile demanded by the virtual construct and we chosen California Psychological Inventory.

After the successively application on the group (62 students) we have discovered that the profile anterior defined is not adequate with the requirements which are implied by the virtual communication environment. Hereupon, in the evaluation and analysis of the psychological profile, we made a point of a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to be introduced.

Psychometric and conceptual analyses of the CPI instrument have identified three basic dimensions underlying scores on the folk and special purpose scales. Two of these themes are manifestations of fundamental orientations--toward people and toward societal values. The third is an indicator of ego integration or competence as seen by others, or self-realization as seen by the respondent. (Gough & all, 1996). The first scale assesses a continuum going from a participative, involved, and extraversive orientation at the low end, to a detached, internal, and introversive orientation at the high pole. The second scale) assesses a continuum going from a norm-questioning, rule-doubting orientation at one extreme, to a norm-accepting, rule-favoring orientation at the other. Each type or lifestyle has its own specific modes of self-actualization and its own specific modes of psychopathology. Level of ego integration or self-realization is indicated by scores on the third scale.

The MBTI[R] (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator[R]), one of the most well used personality indicators used in the psychological fields today, is designed to help to understand the unique personality and the way you relate to others around you.

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The Myers-Briggs (MBTI) personality test is based on Carl Jung's theory of Personality Types (Hirsh & all, 2003). This theory suggests that there are two different ways of gaining energy, gathering or becoming aware of information, making decisions and dealing with the outside world. This instrument for measuring a person's preferences is using four basic scales with opposite poles.

The four scales are: extraversion/introversion, sensate/intuitive, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving. The various combinations of these preferences result in 16 personality types which own the rights to the instrument. Types are typically denoted by four letters--for example, INTJ (Introversion, Intuition with Thinking and Judging)-to represent one's tendencies on the four scales (figure 4).

MBTI is a tool that can be used to achieve effective communication with other people. People receive, process, and act upon information differently. If you understand their preferences and then communicate in a way that they understand, chances are you will not only get what you expected, but those with whom you communicate will feel good about how they received and acted on your communication.

4. CONCLUSION

Virtual teams can be described as teams with virtual communication links and groupware products (Gould, 1999). We observed that a person's MBTI preference could be the key to becoming a good communicator. We have to understand how people receive, perceive, and understand what someone asks them to do. If we understand what motivates them, we can communicate the necessity of the task in a manner that they perceive and receive it as important, and the task will be as important to them as to the sender.

That is the reason why we adapted our CPI based test used in human resources evaluation in order to include those new profiles adapted from MBTI. Using those personalized test one can quantify the communication skills of human resources working in VE environment.

5. REFERENCES

Blair, G. M., (1993) Starting to Manage: The Essential Skills, Publisher: Chartwell-Bratt Ltd, ISBN-10: 0862383366

Dunning, J. H. (1993) Multinational Enterprise and the World Economy, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.

Gough, H. G. & Bradley, P. (1996). The California Psychological Inventory[TM] manual--Third edition (2002 Printing). Palo Alto, CA: CPP, Inc.

Gould, D., "Virtual Teams" (1999), available from: http://www.seanet.com/[sim]daveg/vrteams.htm. Accessed: 2007-09-17

Hirsh, E., Hirsh, K. W., & Hirsh, S. K. (2003). Introduction to Type(r) and teams (2nd ed.). Palo Alto, CA: CPP, Inc.

Katzy, B. R., (1998), Virtual Enterprise and Europe's Global Competitiveness, in: Proceedings of the Competing in the Information Society, Genoa, CEC.