Kenya sends a sizeable number of
professionals overseas to work as expatriate labour. We call them the
“Kenyan diaspora” and the Foreign Affairs ministry estimates they send
back home over Sh113bn annually. The Kenyan Task Force on Foreign Labour
estimates that the government loses out on Sh3bn in tax revenue every
year due to Kenyans living abroad who do not fill their income tax
returns back here.
Kenya stands as a net exporter of
labour but we host a smaller number of expatriate professionals. Hosting
foreign labour helps Kenya to diversify skill sets, extend learning of
new skills and technologies, enhance local exposure, and build linkages
to those workers’ home countries that then attract donor and investor
funds to Kenya. Sensible immigration of skilled foreign workers greatly
benefits host countries.
Therefore, many major
national firms get nervous about sustainable corporate growth when
overly nationalistic governments try to shortsightedly reduce inflows of
skilled talent. In America, the public tussle between the high-tech
firms in Silicon Valley fearful of curtailed growth due to more
immigration restrictions from President Donald Trump highlights such a
struggle. Brexit in the UK, xenophobic attacks in South Africa, and the
upcoming French national election all evoke mixed feelings about
expatriate labour.
Researchers Nicole Gulleksona and
Aidan Dumaisnil examine the role of emotional expression in determining
the success of expatriate workers integrating with host country cultures
and office environments. Every culture holds what social scientists
label emotional display rules.
Some cultures famously
avoid outward displays of emotion. Examples include parts of East Asia
where emotions often stay closely guarded or, traditionally, Britain
and the cultural stiff upper lip. Contrastingly, in America or France,
one would immediately see an emotional display reflective of what
occupies an individual’s mind.
Globally,
agriculturalist-originated cultures show less outward emotion while
fishing and pastoralist-originated cultures exude more emotion-based
communication. The same paradigm exists here in Kenya with communities
showing different degrees of emotional expression based on their ancient
economic activity. What emotional display rules endure in our Kenyan
culture?
Generally here, emotional remarks centre more
on humour and pointing out comical ironies, puns, or situations rather
than inner thoughts. So Kenya exists in the middle of the emotional
expression continuum.
How do we react in Nairobi if a very expressive Dutch
citizen, as an example, voices his or her pleasure or displeasure
immediately and concisely at a situation? Since the scenario’s emotional
expression exceeds our own Kenyan emotional display rules, our
integration with that expatriate would prove less likely.
Jaime
Bonache, Hélène Langinier, and Celia Zárraga-Oberty’s 2016 study
published in the prestigious Human Resource Management Review found that
host country nationals often negatively stereotype foreign workers in
their offices. The degree of negative feelings towards the foreigner
depends primarily on whether the local individuals accept and include
the foreigner into their workplace social circles.
If not, negative stereotypes usually persist towards the expatriate resulting in their lower output and performance.
Additional
factors beyond emotional display parity that boost social integration
include working towards similar common corporate goals, the social
creativity of both parties, training of both host country nationals and
expatriates on cross-cultural collaboration, and, oddly, whether both
sides share a common enemy in the workplace.
The more
you can behave similarly to others’ expectations, the more likely you
are to integrate and find fruitful relations with diverse people thus
boosting job performance.
Scott may be reached on scott@ScottProfessor.com or on Twitter: @ScottProfessor
No comments :
Post a Comment