Cultures doing business together: Romanians & Icelanders' communication pitfalls

A software company from Iceland offers a turn-key solution for gaming platforms and a large portfolio of games. It sold to a Romanian company a turn-key solution, a gaming platform as a base to be tailored to Romanians needs. Romanians believed it was the whole package including the turn-key solution, and this led to a series of misunderstandings. In this week's article, we will analyse what might have caused the miscommunication between the Icelandic and the Romanian team. By Irina Budrina This misunderstanding has caused the Icelandic employees many additional unexpected hours of work and financial resources. The chief software architect says: “We are frustrated and feel that we have been taken advantage of and this is affecting the morale among the teams.” The Icelandic employees believe that the Romanians were purposely being ambiguous and vague during the negotiation process in order to obtain more work free of cost from the Icelanders. Romanians believed, on the other hand, that the Icelanders were trying to mislead and made them buy the turn-key solution, making the Romanians think that everything was included in the sale (the platform including the work it takes to specifically construct it for the Romanian market). The results of the data analysis showed that the misunderstanding between the Icelanders and the Romanian counterparts are multilayered, due to language barriers, different communication styles and other different business patterns and values. The Icelanders and Romanians generally communicate in English which was a native language for Icelandic workers and a foreign one for Romanians. The language barrier resulted in more frequent interaction among the Icelandic employees in the department and less between them and the Romanians, communicating across only very important issues, and then asking the best English speaker from the Romanian team to be an interpreter. According to the Icelandic workers, the language barrier was a serious hurdle in their communication interaction, causing misunderstanding, mistakes and delays. To understand this finding, it is important to know that English has become the primary foreign language taught in Romanian schools only recently. Many people over forty were not required to learn English as French was more common, so they learned English probably after they had left high school through private language schools or taking courses abroad. According to the Icelandic Chief Software Architect, Romanians were vague on purpose about what they really wanted, while Icelanders wanted them to be more specific . Romanian people are less direct while Icelanders are more spontaneous . Romanian people generally consider direct confrontation inappropriate and impolite. The main difference between direct and indirect cultures shows that direct communication emphasizes low-context meaning and reveals the speaker’s true feelings, opinions and needs, whereas indirect communication is a characteristic of a high-context culture and obscures or even disguises the speaker’s true feeling, opinions and wishes. Romanian workers preferred to reveal their opinions in private, not in front of a group. Or just wait and see what happens if they remain silent. Icelanders, on the other hand, are quite spontaneous and say directly what’s on their mind. They rely very little on formal rules in their decision-making. This may reflect the difference between Icelanders (a more individualistic culture) who use more self-oriented-saving strategies and Romanians (a more collectivist culture) who use more other-oriented strategies. Another communication conflict reflected cultural differences in the