The research findings are discussed in this chapter which comprised of the tasks and job contents of the interviewees, the important intercultural competences proposed by the interviewees, intercultural communication barriers the interviewees faced, and developmental methods for intercultural competences.
Tasks and Job Contents of Financial Professionals
In this part, the researcher explored the tasks and job contents of the
interviewees to get whole understanding of job duties and working environment of financial professionals.
The financial professionals defined in this study included research investment analysts, research associates, equity sales, and secretary, as the job positions of interviewees. Research analysts and research associates belong to research team.
The main tasks of research analysts are to analyze financial information that affects equity price of specific companies, and help investors make decisions by providing value-added, independent, and insightful analysis. The main task of research associates is to assist research analyst, such as building financial models, writing research reports, and doing industry research. The tasks of equity sales are to maintain and develop relationship with investing clients, and to be as the bridge between research team and investing clients. The tasks of secretary are to arrange visiting schedule, and to maintain investor relationship. Table 4.1 gives further information of tasks and job contents of financial professionals.
Table 4.1
Tasks and Job Contents of Financial Professionals Job position Job task and contents
Investment Analyst Research and analyze financial information or other factors affecting investment programs of specific companies
Help investors make decisions by providing
value-added, independent, insightful analysis.
Call investing clients, conveying ideas of the research reports.
Call and visit management of companies to get information of financial position, new investment products, etc.
Build financial model and summarize the financial position of the company, review dividend records, note capital structure and comment on managerial effectiveness
Research Associate Build financial model and summarize the financial position of the company.
Draw charts and graphs, using excel spreadsheets, to illustrate technical reports.
Do industry research, and providing value-added, independent, insightful analysis.
Support research analyst.
Equity Sales Maintain and develop relationship with investing clients, such as fund managers, corporations, etc.
Advise clients on the investing opportunities and provide a coverage services to clients.
Read the research notes and decide which equity is worth to promote.
Generate ideas and be as the bridge between analysts and investing clients, pass clients’ questions to research team.
Secretary Arrange investing clients’ visiting schedule.
Arrange analysts and sales visiting schedule.
Deal with tasks which relate to maintain investor relationship.
Marketing is the same task of these financial professionals. There are three kinds of marketing. The first type is that analysts go abroad to visit investing clients, usually accompanied with equity sales. The second type is that analyst or equity sales accompany with investing clients to visit Taiwanese companies. The third type is that analysts and Taiwanese companies go together to visit investing clients.
Here, Aaron gave an example of the first type marketing,
We have many rounds road show and go to many countries each year. We will have 7~8 meetings per day, and 35~40 meetings per week. A road show needs to be 4~5 weeks, thus we will have around 150 meetings per roadshow.
We send out the paper to investing clients before we visit them, so they will know the topics and what contents I’m going to say [A-11-53].
As Chen said, the process of the second type marketing is as bellowed,
We call companies to express that our investing clients would like to visit them and to ask whether they are available or not. Then, we arrange the time and venue for meeting. Before we visit the company, it’s better for us to review the financial report of the company in advance. In this way, we have a clear idea that what questions we can follow up when we visit the management of companies. Usually, we arrange 5~6 company meetings in one day [C-04-19].
Fiona gave further information of the third type of marketing,
I cover xxx company. I bring the management of xxx company to visit
investing clients. Most clients are located in Europe, the United States, Japan,
Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Mid-East. We go to the offices of investing clients, and present some ideas or information of xxx company. Following this is investing clients’ questions [F-04-22].
The marketing is a communication channel for investing clients and Taiwanese companies, which means a communication way for Taiwanese companies and their investors. It let analysts and investing clients get more information of Taiwanese companies, and help them make decision on investing the equity. Besides, it is also a way for analysts to persuade, and convey their ideas to investing clients.
There are many ways that these financial professionals contact their customers, such as email, phone, and face to face communication. Email and phone contact are the most frequent ways to contact their clients. The frequency of face to face communication depends on the positions. The higher level of the positions, the more frequency they have face to face communication with clients. The language the interviewees used to contact foreigner clients is English. Most of them have ever lived in foreigner countries, some of them even have worked in foreigner countries. The language skills they oft-used during work are oral, writing, reading, and listening skill.
The researcher provided further background information of interviewees in table 4.2.
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The companies of interviewees were introduced as following.
Company A
Company A is a foreigner investment financial company in Taiwan. It is one of Asia’s independent brokerage and investment group. The company provides banking, equity-broking and asset-management services to global corporate and institutional clients. Company A built its reputation on unrivalled equity research and economic analysis which is consistently ranked the best in Asia. Interviewee A is a research investment analyst, interviewee B is a research associate, and interviewee C is an equity sales of company A. All of them have lived abroad for more than five years, also, each of them with more than five years working experience.
Company B
Company B is a global financial services company. It provides consumers with a wild range of financial products and services, including securities brokerage,
consumer banking and credit, transaction services, corporate and investment banking, and wealth management. Its investment research covers 90 percent of the market capitalization of the major global indices, and provides macro and quantitative
analysis of global markets and sector trends. Interviewee D is a secretary and supports the research team; interview E is a research assistant, also is a trainee of MA program.
Company C
Company C is one of the world's largest financial institutions, the biggest brokerage in the world, and a firm traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The company has more than 800 analysts focusing on global equity, macroeconomic and global credit research. Interviewee F is a research analyst in company C, has ever
worked both in local and foreigner investment financial institution.
Company D
Company D is a local financial company while provided services for domestic and international institutional investors. It operates brokerage, underwriting,
derivatives, credit transactions, bonds and stock transfer agency services. Company D is the biggest local brokerage in Taiwan with 12% of market share. Interviewee G is a research associate in company D.
Company E
Company E is a global banking and financial services company headquartered in London. It has operations in over 50 countries and territories across Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America. Company is famous for its investment banking and wealth management service. Interviewee H is a research analyst in company E.
Company F
Company F is a global banking group, headquartered in Paris. Company F is a universal bank split into three strategic business units: retail banking, corporate &
investment banking, and investment solutions. Interview I is an analyst of company F.
Intercultural Competences
Intercultural competences are the ability to communicate effectively and
appropriately in intercultural situations based on one’s intercultural knowledge, skills, and attitudes (Darla, 2004). The dimensions of identified intercultural competences include ability, skill, knowledge, cognition, personality and attitude.
Ability
The intercultural competence which was most mentioned by interviewees is language ability. Since their customers are foreigners (for some interviewees, even their colleagues and country head are foreigners), most of the interviewees thought language ability is a basic intercultural competence for financial professionals. As Betty said,
There are many original sources are in English, thus, your reading ability must be good, that means you can get the information in a short time. If you need to wait for others to translate the sources for you, or you can’t read it directly, you will spend more time on gathering information than others [B-01-07].
Also, Aaron and Gray thought owing to the need of work, good language ability can let work be effective. Therefore, language ability is the basic intercultural
competence proposed by the interviewees.
In addition to language ability, the ability to develop relationship is also important. Since these financial professionals need to explore information from companies, and communicate with unfamiliar clients or clients whom have not seen before, the ability to build up relationship with different background people is
important. As Betty said, “you need information that others did not know from certain
people. Why they need to tell you the news? It depends on the relationship between you and them.” Chen also said, “the reason we call clients everyday is to maintain relationship. We want to let our clients think we care about them.” Aaron even expressed that to build up relationship with industry insiders is one of his tasks.
Above talks showed that the ability of networking is needed intercultural competences for financial professionals. The ways these professionals used to build relationship includes attending conferences, seminars, analyst meetings, and investor forums. Also, calling clients, and visiting clients or industry insiders are ways proposed by the
interviewees.
The ability of observation is also mentioned by several interviewees. They mentioned that this ability help them catch more messages in communication with clients. It also helps them provide service that meet clients’ need. As Fiona said,
Some customers told me what equities they hold, but some didn’t. For clients who didn’t tell you their asset allocation, you need to catch the messages from your communication with them. Thus, you can meet their needs [F-05-29].”
Besides, Erina also said,
Investing clients will list the local companies they want to visit, you can tell the industry they’re interested in. If my clients want to see a financial
company in Taiwan, and unfortunately the financial company can’t attend this meeting, I will provide lists of other financial companies to my clients. For the same case, some equity sales provided lists of technology companies such as TSMC. This means the sales didn’t understand their clients’ need. My clients can’t meet the first-tier companies (means the biggest companies), I will
provide list of second-tier companies to them. You need to be observant [E-06-36].
Financial professionals should be sensitive to clients’ messages. Through good observation, they can catch the messages, and provide further service to meet clients’
needs. Taking note is a useful method proposed by Aaron. He took note after every communication with clients. This helps him to remember the conversation and clients’
special needs. Therefore, he can provide more service to clients.
All interviewees agreed that financial industry is a fast-paced working
environment. Professionals only have limited time to complete one thing. Usually, they have less than one hour for each meeting with clients, or even shorter when they convey ideas through phones or emails. Therefore, in limited time is needed, and the ability was proposed by Aaron, Betty, Fiona, Gray, and Helen. Gray gave an example on how to present ideas. He said,
Financial industry is too busy. We have more than 100 emails per day. My clients may not have time to read my report. Therefore, I will summarize one key point for each section and list in the front of email. Let my investing clients know the key points of this report in a short time. Then if they are interested in, they will read the report [G-06-51].
Besides, Fiona also suggested that do not present everything once time. She thought professionals can get rid of weeps and keep key points in presentation. The experiences of Gray and Fiona showed that the ability of summarizing key points is needed for financial professionals.
Knowledge
Knowledge is a set of facts or pieces of information related to a given content-domain. Knowledge is the competence which is most likely to be gained through training (Caligiuri, 2006). Intercultural competences identified by the
interviewees include knowledge of target culture, business knowledge, and knowledge about own culture.
Knowledge of target culture includes knowledge of ethnicity, language, history, geography, economic, society, value system and beliefs, rites, rituals, behaviors, and etc (Flaskerud, 2007). Knowing your clients’ cultural knowledge helps you get deeper understanding of them, it also helps you get closer relations with them. As Gray said,
It’s better for me to understand clients’ background, or their living surrounding.
If you have customers come from England, and you have ever been to England, you can have topics with them. You can exchange food experience, travel experience, the life there, and etc. In my opinion, the cultural knowledge helps me get closer relations with my clients [G-04-33].
Darren gave a negative experience of not knowing cultural knowledge as below,
Japan has much etiquette, thus you need to pay attention on getting along with Japanese. In Japan, if you want to pour Sake (Japanese wine), you need to fill the whole cup. If you pour wine, you can only fill half of the cup. My colleague didn’t know this culture, he did wrong. Japanese clients felt angry and though he was impolite. Thus, you need to know the specific cultural knowledge of your clients [D-07-28B].
What's more, food culture is also a cultural knowledge proposed by the interviewees. Erina said, “Indian do not eat beef, and 90 percent of Indian are
vegetarian. I didn’t know this before.” Therefore, the more one know others’ culture, the less chance one will violate taboo.
Moreover, knowledge about own culture also help these interviewees in
intercultural experience. Some interviewees stated that if one knows own culture well, one can share cultural knowledge or experience to clients. Basically, foreigner clients are interested in Taiwan, and the cultural sharing can let relation become closer. It helps to promote understanding of each other.
Business knowledge is another competence which helps financial professionals in intercultural context. Due to language barriers, foreigners are difficult to get financial information of Taiwan. That is why the investing clients especially need Taiwanese financial professionals to provide information to them. As Aaron and Fiona stated that because Taiwanese clients can get much information through newspaper, foreign clients relatively rely on their professional knowledge.
Moreover, according to Aaron, Fiona and Gray, broader business knowledge can help professionals build up relationship with clients. As Gray’s said
You will get esteem for your professional knowledge. That is because you and your clients are unfamiliar, you didn’t know each other well, and you can only communicate business knowledge. Thus, if you have tough business
knowledge, you will get recognition. The business knowledge is your view to Taiwanese industry, and the systematic analysis of environment. Broader business knowledge can help you start conversation, and also build up trust relationship with your clients [G-03-25].
Business knowledge is needed competence because it helps workers provide professional service to clients, also helps them build up relationship with clients.
Cognition
Caligiuri (2006) defined skills as practiced acts and can increase over time but limits to one's nature ability, intelligence, or personality. The cognition proposed by the interviewees includes cultural sensitivity, and think foreigner is not a special category.
Cultural sensitivity means being aware of cultural difference. Through interview, the researcher found many interviewees are sensitivity to cultural difference. Erina is the best example. She has many Indian clients. She noticed that every time Indian clients did not eat beef, and ask for vegetarian food. She did not know that Indian do not eat beef at first, but she found that Indian eating habits is different than Taiwan.
Therefore, she always arranged vegetarian restaurant initiatively for her Indian clients.
Erina also noticed that her boss did not celebrate Christmas and Lunar New Year. She found that her boss is a Jew, and celebrated holidays distinct from Chinese culture and Christian culture. Therefore, she arranged the meeting schedule avoiding cultural holidays for her boss. As Erina’s experience, sensitivity to cultural difference can help one understand foreigners more and can avoid violate taboo in some degree.
Many interviewees stated that they think foreigner is not a specific category called “foreigner.” They regarded foreigners as ordinary people. This cognition owns to the frequency they meet foreigners. Because they communicate with foreigners very often, foreigner is not a special group for them. Foreigner is just like a Taiwanese people. The interviewee Aaron said,
In my opinion, you don’t need to think foreigner is a special group. For me, I
think foreigner is just the same as Taiwanese. Foreigner is not a specific category to me. I found that many Taiwanese have different attitude when they communicate with foreigners. If you regard foreigners as a special group, this cognition will influence the interaction you face foreigner [A-13-66].
The interviewees thought that foreigner is an ordinary people. Foreigners are not special. Because of this cognition, their behavior and attitude to foreigners are same as the way they face Taiwanese.
Personality
The interviewees proposed personalities that they thought are needed in intercultural context. The first one is being an active person. Aaron, Betty and Gray mentioned that Taiwanese are relatively passive than foreigners. Therefore, Taiwanese may be disadvantaged in intercultural communication. Betty gave an example,
You must be active, or you won’t have opportunity to be promoted. When you attend meeting, you must talk, to comment on the topics. You need to say something that others think you contribute to them. Taiwanese is shy. Usually, they don’t talk, or have no comment on topics. If you don’t express your opinion actively, foreigners will think you do not participate in and not make contribution to teams [B-04-30].
The interviewee Aaron also gave his opinion. Aaron is a mentor for many interns in his company. He found that Taiwanese interns are passive, while foreigner interns are active. Aaron said,
Taiwanese students are passive. I have seen many interns for several years,
foreigner interns are relatively active. I gave Bloomberg as an example. When Taiwanese have problems on Bloomberg terminal, they press “help help” and use instant message software to find the answers. Foreigners also press “help help,” but ask servants to call them directly in order to find the answers
foreigner interns are relatively active. I gave Bloomberg as an example. When Taiwanese have problems on Bloomberg terminal, they press “help help” and use instant message software to find the answers. Foreigners also press “help help,” but ask servants to call them directly in order to find the answers