Proceedings of the 75 th Annual Convention of the Association for Business Communication October 27-30, 2010 – Chicago, Illinois Turn-taking Behavior and Topic Management Strategies of Chinese and Japanese Business Professionals: A Comparison of Intercultural Group Communication Bertha Du-Babcock City University of Hong Kong Hiromasa Tanaka Meisei University Abstract This paper reports the preliminary results of a study that extends Du-BaďĐoĐks tuƌŶ-taking and topic management studies by examining the topic management strategies and turn-taking behaviors of bilingual Hong Kong Chinese and Japanese business professionals. The goal of the study is to confirm prior research findings as well as extend the research to the comparison of Chinese and Japanese business professionals. This study is based on both quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data examined the differences between Hong Kong Chinese and Japanese business professionals in terms of their turn- taking, speaking time, and number of words spoken. The qualitative data further examined the similarities and differences in their intercultural interaction. The preliminary findings show that there were differences between Japanese and Hong Kong business professionals in terms of their turn-taking behaviors (number of turns, amount of speaking time, number of words) and topic management strategies (socializing, disclosure of opinions, hedging and disagreement). In turn-taking, the Hong Kong Chinese participated more actively than did Japanese business professionals in terms of number of turns taken, amount of speaking time, and number of words spoken. In topic management strategies, the Hong Kong Chinese and Japanese exhibited similarities and differences. In regard the similarities, the socialization patterns (greetings and introductions) were similar. Differences existed in expressing opinions and disagreements. In expressing opinions, the Hong Kong Chinese exhibited an assertive behavior pattern while the Japanese showed a reactive communication behavior. Disagreements were also expressed differently. The Hong Kong Chinese expressed disagreement directly while the Japanese would use hedging to express their disagreements. Introduction As business activities have become globalized communicating in a bilingual or even a multilingual work environment is a fact of life for a growing number of individuals. These bilinguals attend meetings, exchange information, and make decisions using a second-language. As a result, non-native English speaking individuals (NNS) in their second-language meetings consequently has a significant and direct impact on global business. Although past research in the area of turn-taking behaviors has laid a solid foundation in examining turn-taking behaviors in small-group, cross-cultural decision-making meetings, little research has yet examined the communication differences between individuals from nations that