Intercultural Competences in the French Financial Services Companies

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore public corporate news related to the topic of intercultural competence (ICC) in 4 French companies in the year of 2018. In order to answer the research question, a computerized lexical content analyses were done of 424 separate news (texts), with 243,146 words. The research model generated a bottom up clustering on keywords, titles and abstracts. The examination of the data concentrates on 4 main clusters of news that focus on (1) motivation as an affective component - desire to cooperate with strangers, (2) knowledge as a cognitive component – understanding and awareness, (3) skills as a behavioral component – personal ability to engage behaviors, and (4) financial performance as a final success result – companies' ability to gain competitive advantage and create future value. A transversal review of the four clusters reveals that ICC as a portfolio of specialized competences whose complementary intellectual resources are crucial for the companies’ value creation process is insufficiently present in the communication practices. ICC as a part of human capital is a key companies’ resource for creation of future value and should be therefore more considered in companies’ communication practices. The article contributes to the current literature on ICC narratives. It seeks to provide explanation of which ICC components companies focus most on in order to gain competitive advantage and financial performance.