# data[].attributes.body
Can you briefly describe your first experience or feelings when working in a transcultural environment? How did the environment influence your cultural perception? In your opinion, how to build rapport in a diverse workplace?

# data[].attributes.body
The framework of rapport management is used to examine and interpret how people maintain relationships through language use to promote, maintain or threaten social relations (Jieying, 2020). Face sensitivities, sociality rights and obligations and interactional goals are three factors that affect rapport (Spencer-Oatey, 2008).

Additionally, Spencer-Oatey (2008) introduced five domains including verbal and non-verbal perspectives that provide a deeper understanding of rapport management.

# data[].attributes.body
In what ways could LinkedIn further enhance its approach to transcultural communication to foster deeper rapport and inclusivity among employees from diverse cultural backgrounds?

# data[].attributes.body
According to Shahghasemi (2017), the cultural schema is a cognitive theory. It can help guide people in classifying and understanding information and relationships within a specific cultural context. For example, it aids in understanding beliefs, norms, rules, attitudes, values, and behaviours (Hyun, 2021). As individuals interact with society, communication through language shapes how people perceive the world and others (Hyun, 2021). People’s behaviours, communication styles and decision-making in sociocultural contexts are also influenced (Sharifian, 2017).

# data[].attributes.body
At the beginning of the text, it shows the cultural background of LinkedIn, “We connected together, to achieve extraordinary things”. One of the employees acts as a guide to introduce the text in a “walk and talk” manner (see the image above). In LinkedIn’s culture, employees are the core and it guides people to communicate and interact among employees in this cultural context (Hyun, 2021). For example, employees play table tennis together. Playing table tennis can not only highlight the importance of table tennis in Chinese culture as the national ball (Boucher, 2024), but also show a friendly atmosphere with people from different cultural backgrounds to entertain together.

Through the presentation of the employee’s language, one can understand the employee's attitude towards working in the LinkedIn cultural context (Hyun, 2021). For example, words spoken by employees in the text “We are driven by a strong vision” and “We like to work and play hard driven by our mission to do what's best and right”. This indicates that LinkedIn has a positive and work-hard culture environment and a value of “achieve extraordinary things”. This belief of combining work and rest will bring employees closer to LinkeIn's cultural background and influence the communication mode among employees (Hyun, 2021), in order to create a cohesive and virtuous cultural cycle of interaction among employees.

# data[].attributes.body
A "walk-and-talk" style corporate branding video for LinkedIn Hong Kong's 10th Anniversary celebration

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
LinkedIn Corporate Branding - Hong Kong 10th Anniversary

# data[].attributes.body
Text highlights the Hong Kong, Chinese cultural background and characteristics, which can help and guide people to classify and understand information and relationships in a specific cultural context (Hyun, 2021). Such as using the Hong Kong unique location name for the office name.

# data[].attributes.body
In the workplace, it is vital to effectively establish and maintain working relationships with colleagues (Fletcher, 2017). Verbal, non-verbal and behavioural interactions between colleagues all affect the rapport in the workplace.

Face relates to a person’s identity, dignity, reputation and sense of worth (Spencer-Oatey, 2008). It is the negotiated public image that both parties give to each other in interaction (Scollon et al, 2011). Face is also the motivating force of politeness (Spencer-Oatey, 2008).

In the video, the man directly entering the colleague’s office and saying hello may make the female colleague feel disrespected and treated as impolite. Then, the male colleague adds “She’s busy, I swear we’re friends” to explain the reason for not being responded. This humorous form of expression is used to maintain harmonious relations, and the syntax choice reflects the stylistic domain (Spencer-Oatey, 2010). This kind of humour is perceived as non-hostile and non-threaten which effectively reduces interpersonal tension (Mathew & Vijayalakshmi, 2017). This not only avoids threats to the female colleague’s face, but also protects her face and demonstrates a friendly rapport of the workplace environment.

# data[].attributes.body
The final group photo: employees from different cultural backgrounds and both online and offline. Saying: “We’re one team and we win when we move forward together” embodies Chinese’s traditional cultural virtue of unity, mutual assistance and common progress (Lihua, 2013).

The keywords appear at the end of the video like culture, diversity, inclusive, etc. These reflect LinkedIn’s diversified and multi-mode cultural characteristics and guides employees to have a deeper understanding of LinkedIn’s cultural environment (Sharifian, 2017).

# data[].attributes.body
The LinkedIn Corporate Branding video celebrating the 10th anniversary of its Hong Kong office presents its vibrant and inclusive workplace environment. With scenes of LinkedIn employees engaging in casual conversations and social events in their modern, open-concept office, the video emphasizes LinkedIn’s commitment to “create a trusted, caring, inclusive, fun, and transformational experience” for every employee (LinkedIn, 2019), which are essential in today’s globally interconnected workplace.

# data[].attributes.body
In this poster, we will explore the transcultural communication strategies employed in the video by analyzing them through two theories: Cultural Schema and Rapport Management.

Based on the Cultural Schema theory that we discussed in the Culture and Identity at Work chapter, we will focus on how the cohesive, transcultural workplace influences employees’ cultural perception as both individuals and members of the community - and how the video constructs and conveys the ideas.

The second theory, Rapport Management, focuses on how communication styles are adapted to build rapport and accommodate cultural differences in the workplace. We will assess how the video reflects LinkedIn’s efforts to build rapport and create a sense of belonging among its employees through verbal and non-verbal interactions in the workplace.

# data[].attributes.headline
Non-verbal Interaction & Sociality Right

# data[].attributes.subject
Non-verbal Interaction & Sociality Right

# data[].attributes.body
The second factor that influence workplace rapport is sociality right and obligations (Spencer-Oatey, 2008).

Non-verbal behavior is also an important part of interpersonal interaction. Non-verbal domain refers to the forms of communication that are not carried out through language, including facial expression, body movement, posture, eye contact, voice tone. Any non-verbal behavior has the potential to communicate meaning (Burgoon et al., 2011).

In the video, colleagues' eye interactions and smiling faces during interactions represent a harmonious relationship and understanding of each other. Vocalics are just as important as the message itself: pitch level, volume, accent, and pronunciation (Bonaccio, 2016). Each speaker uses a high tone of voice. This rising tone reflects the passionate and friendly way.

Through these interactions, we can see that LinkdeIn Hong Kong respects and supports its employees. Employees are treated equally regardless of their cultural backgrounds in this inclusive workplace. Hence, employees' social rights and obligations are fulfilled (Spencer-Oatey, 2010). This will enhance their sense of belonging and team cohesion, and strengthen the rapport between colleagues.

# data[].attributes.body
Bonaccio, S., O’Reilly, J., O’Sullivan, S. L., & Chiocchio, F. (2016). Nonverbal behavior and communication in the workplace. Journal of Management, 42(5), 1044–1074. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206315621146

Boucher, A. (2024). Aurelien Boucher: Learn about Chinese society from ping pong. In The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. https://www.cuhk.edu.cn/en/article/9961#:~:text=Table%20tennis%20is%20regarded%20as

Chen, J. (2021). Rapport management in the German–Chinese workplace: Interculturality as a resource? Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 15(4), 454–474. https://doi.org/10.1080/17513057.2021.1936124

Fletcher, J. (2017). Rapport management. In The Routledge handbook of language in the workplace (pp. 77-88). Routledge.

Hyun, Y. (2021). Different cultural conceptualizations underlying intercultural business communication problems between Thais and Koreans. International Journal of Language and Culture, 7(2). https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.18016.hyu

Lihua, Z. (2013, November 21). China’s traditional cultural values and national identity. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2013/11/chinas-traditional-cultural-values-and-national-identity?lang=en

LinkedIn. (2019). LinkedIn careers - learn about our careers & culture. Linkedin. https://careers.linkedin.com/

Mathew, H. E., & Vijayalakshmi, V. (2017). Changing definitions of work and play: Importance of workplace humour. Psychological Studies, 62(1), 12–20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-017-0395-9

Scollon, R., Scollon, S. W., & Jones, R. H. (2011). Intercultural communication: A discourse approach. John Wiley & Sons.

Shahghasemi, E. (2017). Cultural schema theory. The International Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118783665.ieicc0019

Sharifian, F. (2017). Cultural linguistics. Cognitive Linguistic Studies in Cultural Contexts. https://doi.org/10.1075/clscc.8

Spencer-Oatey, H. (2008) “Face, (Im)Politeness and Rapport. Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory (pp.11-47). Bloomsbury. ISBN: 9780826493101

UX Studio Asia. (2022, June 16). LinkedIn corporate branding - Hong Kong 10th anniversary [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8asR_h5l7zY

Bonaccio, S., O’Reilly, J., O’Sullivan, S. L., & Chiocchio, F. (2016). Nonverbal Behavior and Communication in the Workplace. Journal of Management, 42(5), 1044–1074. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206315621146

Knapp, M. L., & Daly, J. A. (2011). The Sage Handbook of Interpersonal Communication (4th ed.). Sage Publications.