Background to the study

This study was conducted with the co-operation of the Groupe Consultatif Actuariel Europeen (GCAE). The GCAE has a consultative and advisory function facilitating discussion with European Union institutions on existing and proposed EU legislation which has an impact on the actuarial profession. Thirty-three actuarial associations from 30 European countries are represented in GCAE. Many GCAE members meet at various European venues at regular intervals to discuss current issues. Some members attend international meetings as frequently as twice a month and are in regular e-mail and telephone contact with colleagues. Consequently, face-to-face meetings are an essential part of their business life. This pattern of communication seems typical in European business, both in my own experiences and those of other researchers, such as Louhiala-Salminen et al. (2005), Hagen (1998) and Firth (1996).

Meetings within GCAE

Like most such international organizations, GCAE has a variety of meeting types from small internal and informal gatherings of a few local staff to large formal meetings held externally at different venues across Europe. The questionnaire data for this study were collected during such an external event where the annual, whole GCAE met to discuss key topics and to review the previous year’s business. This event consisted of a series of formal, subgroup meetings (ranging from 8 to 20 participants) culminating in a whole group meeting (approximately 50 participants) on the final afternoon.

Obviously, differences in size, location, purpose and, indeed, interactive mix of participants can have a substantial effect on meeting behaviours and outcomes, as noted in my own and others’ research. Indeed, the genre of business meetings itself can be subdivided into several subgenres using various criteria: for instance, whether a meeting is inter- or extra-organizational, has a primarily commercial business focus or a professional, consultative brief; whether a meeting is essentially collaborative and information-sharing in nature, or is fundamentally competitive and results-driven.

In theory the meetings at GCAE are interorganisational, routine events performing an essentially consultative and advisory function within a professional body. Nevertheless, as with most meetings, beneath this public brief there are no doubt several layers of organizational and individual agendas which contribute to the complexity of these interactions. Some of these issues arose superficially in this study but they will be explored more fully in the second, discourse-analytic stage of the research.

Impetus for the study

The impetus for this research originated from concerns within the organisation itself rather than from my own hypothetical research questions. The GCAE has for some time been concerned about what they referred to as unequal participation of members in meetings.

Some of these concerns are outlined in an extract from an internal report to Groupe members on this issue.

Extract from GCAE internal report “How to Encourage More Active Participation of Non-English Speakers Within the IAA”

Members: French, Swedish, Portuguese, Finnish, Japanese, Spanish.

“I was sitting in one of the IAA Committee meetings and listening to the discussion. Suddenly I thought that the meeting was missing an essential point and I started to plan an intervention. It took a few minutes to prepare myself, especially to find the right English words etc., and suddenly I realised that the discussion had moved on to another subject.”

“I was in the middle of an intervention talking about that interesting subject when in the middle of a sentence I realised that I had forgotten the correct English word to use.”

These are just two of a number of situations a non-native English (NNE) speaker finds himself in every now and then.

Of course, if you are an intrepid speaker you continue with a homemade translation, but we must admit that a fair number of us would more and more hesitate to speak publicly.

Are there any remedies or solutions to this problem that most probably results in a predominance of the Anglo Saxon views being forwarded?

This report highlights some of the concerns felt by GCAE members and illustrates some of the difficulties and frustrations encountered by non-native English speakers in meetings.

The final paragraph suggests an underlying assumption that some of these difficulties result from the dominance of ‘Anglo Saxon’ views in the organization, despite their minority status in terms of numbers of members.

It is interesting to note that some members of the organization had thought about these issues in some depth and come up with their own reasons for such difficulties. These they divided into three subsections: (a) cultural; (b) organization; (c) language barrier. As can be seen from the extract relating to ‘cultural’ issues, reference was made to differences in working styles and the need to give participants an adequate amount of time to respond in meetings, as well as to the tendency to defer to more senior associates.