Beliefs and behavioral patterns affecting intercultural willingness to communicate in English at workplace

Communication competency in English is one of the most desired capabilities in labor market in the present day. Observation from employees in a Japanese company showed that people behaved differently in cross cultural situations where, regardless of their English competency, some spoke confidently but some did not. Cause of such action may come from several factors including culture differences. This quantitative study is to investigate cultural factors influencing motivation and avoidance of 264 Thai employees who were working in an international-environment company. To find out their beliefs and behavioral patterns, a self-developed questionnaire that combined with three cultural factors thought affecting intercultural willingness to communicate in English at a workplace; Ethnocentrism, Cultural Intelligence and Intercultural Sensitivity, were used. The results showed that low level of Intercultural Sensitivity especially in the part of interaction confidence increased Ethnocentrism while high level of Cultural Intelligence decreased Ethnocentrism. This study affirms that Ethnocentrism influences Intercultural Sensitivity through lack of interaction confidence in a positive way and has a negative relationship with Cultural Intelligence, whereas Intercultural Sensitivity and Cultural Intelligence have a positive relationship to each other. This finally brings the conclusion that high level of Cultural Intelligence and Intercultural Sensitivity, especially Interaction Confidence, can increase willingness to communicate through the low level of Ethnocentrism.