The Internationalisation of PTT Telecom: A Cultural Perspective - Free

197response; ‘I have not come here to be liked by you’. You only have to saythat once and it is over with you. Then the union will be opposing you andthen the staff. The Antilleans accept European Dutch only saying ‘bon dia’[good morning] but they don’t accept arrogance. (Interview with AntilleanSetel employee).If you are arrogant you can forget it. Even if you bring gold here, we will putyou and the gold on an aeroplane and you can go back to the Netherlandsbecause we are not interested. So what? Fuck you! That is the way we think.The difficulty for the Dutch is that we don’t always say this. We say, “yes,amen”, we talk with you, “nice, nice” but in the meantime we think; “who doyou think you are?” We have a completely different body language(interview with Antillean manager).The Curaçaoan counterparts do not directly show their irritation towards thearrogant European Dutchman. They stay friendly, have lunches together, discussmatters and agree to start new initiatives or introduce new working methods.However, the Curaçaoans distance themselves from the European Dutchmanager which is also called a ‘Yes refusal’. Criticism is made in privatesettings and personal networks are used to obtain information on the personallife of the manager. This information is used to isolate the European Dutchmanager and his new initiatives. The European Dutch expatriate in turn thinkshis work went smoothly, that his Curaçaoan counterparts are in need of Dutchexpertise and money and that everybody is heading towards the same goal. TheEuropean Dutch feels flattered, ‘put on a throne’ and, most importantly andloses his sharpness of judgement. It is usually only much later that he discoversthat there was no commitment on the part of the Curaçaoan employees and thatthe throne was an illusion.At the start go along with them, but then create a frame where you have tostay within. Because the Dutch are harsh when money is involved. But theyare willing to co-operate if you say; “well listen, without your help I can’t doit”. They feel flattered, and then you have them. Put them on a throne, paythem and then it is ok. A Dutchman never refuses me anything (interviewwith Curaçaoan manager).European Dutch expatriates use different strategies to deal with this issue offeedback. Almost all of the interviewed European Dutch stress the point thatgiving feedback the typically Dutch way brings about quite the opposite of thedesired result. A small number of the European Dutch expatriateskeep repeatingtheir critisism in personal one-to one exchange and thus manage to construct aplatform of people who come to support new ideas they might want tointroduce. When the platform has grown large enough someone else picks up onthese ideas which are then executed in the organisation. The majority ofexpatriates say they first try to build good personal relationships before givingfeedback. Since work or content related criticisms are generally experienced byCuraçaoans as personal failings the passing of feedback or suggestions forimprovement are possibly better received once a good relationship is