Module 3 Task 10
Read the following situation about understanding a promise in Estonia, then answer the questions. Compare with the comments in Ponder Point 5.
SITUATION 3:
A Chinese employee (Peiyao) and an Estonian employee (Juri) worked for an international company stationed in Estonia. They worked together on a project and had an urgent task that needed their boss’s approval urgently—the boss was Estonian as well. Peiyao and Juri went to see their boss on Tuesday and asked if he could read their documents and return them with the final decision as soon as possible. The boss answered, "I'm too busy today to get to your file. I’ll get to it tomorrow.”
To what extent do you think the boss will actually get to that task the next day?
What would Peiyao - the Chinese employee - expect?
What would Juri – the Estonian employee – expect?
What would you expect, considering your own cultural background and social rules related to power dynamics?
PONDER POINT 5
People from a high-power-distance culture (e.g., Chinese) tend to perceive a promise from a higher power as not completely committed. According to a recent study (Lyu & Yuan, 2023), a Chinese subordinate will only expect the boss to fulfill the promise of responding the next day with a 50/50% chance. Chinese participants believe a boss who said “I’ll get to it tomorrow” to a subordinate is significantly less committed than when the direction of a request is changed and a subordinate responds “I’ll get to it tomorrow” to a boss (Lyu & Yuan, 2023). The employee is believed to keep the promise as is expected by social and cultural rules of high-power-distance cultures. In contrast, in low-power-distance societies represented by East European countries (e.g., Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) (Hofstede et al., 2010), a subordinate tends to feel less inequality between themselves and their boss. There is no “direction-difference” when people make a promise in low-power-distance societies. In other words, no matter if it is an Estonian manager or an Estonian employee who promises to deal with something the next day, it is culturally sound that s/he will take time to actually get to it.