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Intercultural Business Communication: theoretical framework and training methods
Abstract
The emergence of Intercultural Business Communication (IBC) reflects the concern of global organizations with the costs of doing business. Thus, the efficiency of cross-cultural communica-tion processes clearly determines the success of business in international settings. This paper reviews the most relevant research in IBC, examines the needs of the business world and outlines the issues that influence the intercultural communication process, and concludes with an instructional approach identifying key methods for classroom training. El desarrollo de la comunicación intercultural en los negocios (IBC) refleja el interés empresarial en las habilidades comunicativas intercultu-rales, pues el éxito de las transacciones comerciales depende, en gran parte, de la competencia y eficacia del proceso comunicativo. Aquí se revisan los estudios más relevantes de esta joven disciplina, se examina el proceso de comunicación intercultural en los negocios y se concluye con un acercamiento al entorno educativo, proponiendo métodos de formación para la práctica docente.
... No 6. К важным культурным элементам в деловой коммуникации относят язык, вид деятельности, общественную организацию, авторитет, невербальное поведение, концепции времени [9]. В некоторых исследованиях к перечисленному добавляются предварительно существующие ментальные структуры в виде организованных структур, которые позволяют человеку понимать информацию [12]. ...
... The analysis is based predominantly on Wilhelms, Shaki and Hsiao' framework (2009) as the most detailed and corresponding to Bulgaria's location at a crossroad between differing nations, religions, continents, etc. The use of this framework permits each observer to fill up its structure with some appropriate contents from supplementary scientific deliverables in the field by Erez and Gati (2004), Hofstede (2010a), Paunov (2005), Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (2008), Espinar (2010) and O'Neil (2006) according to his/her specific necessities. Additionally, some elements in the structure of a target cultural layer may be identified with the help of Targowski and Metwalli's scientific results (2003) (see figure 10). ...
The current article traces back the scientific interest to cultural levels across the organization at the University of National and World Economy, and especially in the series of Economic Alternatives - an official scientific magazine, issued by this Institution. Further, a wider and critical review of international achievements in this field is performed, revealing diverse analysis perspectives with respect to cultural levels. Also, a useful model of exploring and teaching the cultural levels beyond the organization is proposed. Keywords: globalization, national culture, organization culture, cultural levels, cultural economics. JEL: M14, Z10.
... The analysis is based predominantly on Wilhelms, Shaki and Hsiao' framework (2009) as the most detailed and corresponding to Bulgaria's location at a crossroad between differing nations, religions, continents, etc. The use of this framework permits each observer to fill up its structure with some appropriate contents from supplementary scientific deliverables in the field by Erez and Gati (2004), Hofstede (2010a), Paunov (2005), Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (2008), Espinar (2010) and O'Neil (2006) according to his/her specific necessities. Additionally, some elements in the structure of a target cultural layer may be identified with the help of Targowski and Metwalli's scientific results (2003) (see figure 10). ...
ABSTRACT:
The current article traces back the scientific interest to cultural levels across the organization at the University of National and World Economy, and especially in the series of Economic Alternatives – an official scientific magazine, issued by this Institution. Further, a wider and critical review of international achievements in this field is performed, revealing diverse analysis perspectives with respect to cultural levels. Also, a useful model of exploring and teaching the cultural levels beyond the organization is proposed.
KEYWORDS: globalization, national culture, organization culture, cultural levels, cultural economics.
JEL: M14, Z10.
CITE AS:
Dimitrov, K., 2012. Critical review of models, containing cultural levels beyond the organizational one, Economic alternatives journal, Issue 1, pp.98-125, ISSN (print): 1312-7462, ISSN (online): 2367-9409, available at: https://www.unwe.bg/uploads/
Alternatives/BROI_1_ALTERNATIVI_ENGLISH_2012-Kiril.pdf
Global competitiveness is predicated on creating strong interorganizational networks. Successful development and administration of interorganizational networks is derived from effective intercultural communication efforts focused on developing relationships. The authors integrate the complexities of cultural influences (i.e., national and organizational) into an intercultural communication model that is aimed to enhance the understanding of the development of relationship quality The model developed can serve as a standardized intercultural communication process for organizations to employ within their global networks. The authors identify and address four determinants of relationship quality: cultural understanding, communication competence, cultural interaction, and communication interaction. The model provides a better understanding of the complexity of intercultural communication for relationship development in global interorganizational networks.
This paper presents a model of language-based communication zones in international business communication. The model builds on Du-Babcock and Babcock's (1996) descriptions of expatriate-local personnel communication patterns by reconfiguring and adding new zones, which vary according to the language proficiency matches of the interactants. The eight new communication zones represented here can contribute to a more comprehensive framework that represents the dynamic, bi-directional, mul tiply influenced, and tmnsformational translation process integral to international business communication. Previous research has operated on the assumption that all participants within an international business communication setting function as fully proficient users of all languages being spoken, with no accounting for communica tion difficulties based on varying levels of language proficiency. This study asserts that there is, in fact, a language-competency variable that greatly impacts communi cation and communication dynamics within the eight identified language-based com munication zones. Research-based incidents from four countries illustrate likely communication patterns in the language-based communication zones.
This paper presents empirically-derived models of expatriate-local staff oral communication patterns. The communication dynamics differed in three identi fied communication zones. The expatriates with the cooperation of the local Chinese were able to develop efficient but different communication systems in all three zones. The cultural influences on both expatriates and local Chinese interlocutors varied among these zones.
Despite a recognized need for a global mindset, opportunities for US business school students to gain hands‐on diversity training regarding intercultural issues remain rare. The reasons for this neglect include a lack of agreement on how to teach intercultural awareness and a paucity of faculty qualified to do so. In order to introduce intercultural education into a core business course, students were offered the opportunity to participate in an extra‐credit project that required the development of a proposal for an international joint venture and afforded them the chance to learn about each other while pursuing a superordinate goal of value to each. Thirty‐nine cross‐cultural teams were created, each of which had a partner from the US and a partner from a different country. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed that the value of the project was closely related to the amount of learning that reportedly took place in both the business and cultural realms. Importantly, 73% of the students reported a strong interest in meeting people from different cultures as a result of participation in the project.
Managers in a global business environment work with people who have different values, behavioral norms, and ways of perceiving reality. Team members bring their different national and professional backgrounds to the table, and suppliers and clients come from different corporate cultures. Consequently, intercultural competencies have become important for a wider range and larger number of people in business than ever before. In order to prepare students to become effective in the multiple cultural contexts they will face, business educators must clarify what constitutes intercultural competencies and how to develop them within the context of a business school classroom. In this paper we present the idea of learning to negotiate reality as a core intercultural competence and we describe an approach we designed and used for developing this competence at an international business school in Europe. -- Die Fähigkeit, mit Menschen aus unterschiedlichen nationalen, professionellen, ethnischen und organisationellen Kulturen zu arbeiten wird immer wichtiger. Sei es in Projektgruppen mit Mitgliedern aus verschiedenen Ländern und mehreren Funktionsbereichen, sei es in Verhandlungen mit Kunden und Lieferanten: kulturell geprägte Werte und Verhaltensnormen beeinflussen die Erwartungen über Ziele und Vorgehensweisen und können zu Missverständnissen und Konflikten führen. Interkulturelle Kompetenz, im Sinne der Fähigkeit, ein gemeinsames Verständnis einer Situation auszuhandeln (negotiating reality) gewinnt in Organisationen immer mehr an Bedeutung. Dieser Beitrag beschreibt wie diese Kompetenz im Rahmen eines drei- bis viertägigen Seminars entwickelt werden kann. Die relevanten Theorien werden dargestellt und an einem ausgewählten Fall illustrativ angewandt.
Culture plays a major role in the success of expatriate managers. If companies can identify the crucial cultural variables associated with success, they will be able to select and train expatriate managers more effectively and increase the success of their expatriation process. In this article, we argue that conscious cultural self-knowledge is a crucial variable in adapting to other cultures; yet the development of self-knowledge is typically not part of expatriate training. The article analyses and synthesises research and theories from the literature and presents an integrated four-stage plan for preparing expatriates, using cultural self-knowledge to improve the success of cultural adaptation. The discussion demonstrates the impact of self-knowledge on business behaviour and advances eight propositions about specific cultural variables and how they relate to expatriate behaviour. The focus is on be role of be individual, the importance of hierarchy, the importance of context in communication, and attitudes towards time and change. The article closes with discussing four stages in the expatriation process. In stage 1, potential expatriates are screened for personality characteristics that have been identified in the literature as contributing to expatriate success. In stage 2, expatriates focus on developing a conscious self-awareness including their preferences, likes, and dislikes. During stage 3, potential expatriates study the other culture and their reaction to it. In this process they are developing a cognitive map of their own and the other behaviours. In the final stage, expatriates explore adaptation possibilities and strategies.
An analysis of methods for intercultural training As globalization becomes a household word, the intercultural agenda is becoming the world's agenda. Interculturalists have been working for decades to improve intercultural understanding, but it is now increasingly imperative to reach this goal. The intercultural field must be ready for new responsibilities in facilitating mutually beneficial interactions among the wide range of cultures that inhabit the globe. However, the intercultural field is still relatively young. At the midpoint of the 20th century, it is doubtful that people thought of themselves as intercultural trainers. During that time, so-called “area studies” trainers relied on the traditional methods of the college professor: lecture, perhaps a film, the written word, and maps. it was not until 1971 that the first culture assimilator or intercultural sensitizer was developed (Fiedler, Mitchell, & Triandis, 1971). At about the same time, R. G. Shirts, under contract with the U.S. Navy, ...
Preface An Image of Thailand PART ONE: INTRODUCTION Understanding Cultural Metaphors PART TWO: CULTURAL METAPHORS The Traditional British House The Italian Opera The German Symphony French Wine The Swedish Stuga The Russian Ballet Belgian Lace The Spanish Bullfight Irish Conversations The Turkish Coffeehouse The Israeli Kibbutzim and Moshavim The Nigerian Marketplace The Japanese Garden India The Dance of Shiva American Football PART THREE: Cluster of Countries The Chinese Family Altar The Metaphors in Perspective
Within an increasingly global marketplace, discussions of intercultural communication are important in business and technical communication classrooms. Although many business and technical communication textbooks integrate discussions of intercultural communication, they do not go far enough in engaging the complicated nature of this issue. This article summarizes recent literature about the importance of paying attention to intercultural communication and analyzes the productive approaches in popular business and technical communication textbooks. It presents five challenges for business and technical communication teachers to consider and includes teaching modules that address these challenges. Although the article focuses on classroom practice, such intercultural explorations are also of value to authors of business and technical communication textbooks, who might consider integrating modules such as these into their textbooks.
This study assessed the extent to which a one‐time experiential intervention improved intercultural awareness and sensitivity among first‐year medical students. The students participated in group activities in which they shared personal experiences, solved a hypothetical problem, and engaged in team building exercises. Post‐intervention, students reported less intercultural awareness, but a greater commitment to improving the intercultural climate of the medical school and an increased willingness to work in diverse groups during their medical training. The results of the study suggest that experiential interventions may provide an important complement to didactics around issues of intercultural awareness and sensitivity with medical students. Importantly, experiential interventions must provide students with sufficient time to reflect upon and discuss feelings, thoughts and attitudes that emerge during this kind of intercultural awareness training.
Intercultural business communication (IBC) is a complex disciplinary endeavour. The fundamental constructs of culture and communication involve an array of well-established and highly developed fields of enquiry, with their distinctive and sometimes overlapping approaches, theories and methodologies, and the added dimension of the business context clearly increases that complexity. This paper selectively reviews the disciplinary fields of relevance to research in IBC. It briefly outlines current debates, identifying key topics and their potential contribution to the exciting 'diversity' that exists within IBC, and it concludes with a brief introduction to the four papers that make up the remainder of this Special Issue.
This article develops a theoretical framework for intercultural business communica tion which sets it apart from intercultural communication and international busi ness. In the past, discussions on the theory of intercultural business communica tion have mostly focused on intercultural communication using business as examples rather than including business as a distinct variable. The model pre sented here discusses the intercultural, business, and communication strategies that are part of intercultural business communication. It is argued that for intercul tural business communication to take place, it is not sufficient for all three vari ables to be present. The three variables interact and create a synergy that reflects the dynamic character of intercultural business communication. In this process, intercultural business communication becomes a unique construct that is different from intercultural medical or intercultural religious communication. The article examines how past articles in the field fit into this model.
How do humans understand, or in other words attribute meaning to, messages across cultures? This inquiry leads to analyses of meaning in written or spoken utterances and their relationship to cognitive processes. Some communication models attempt to accommodate the fact that meanings are culturally based and therefore differ from culture to culture, but this paper proposes a model that shows how meanings are generated from the attributions by the perceiver as well as from knowledge of the actual culture. Individuals project mental schemata of unfamiliar cultures. Furthermore, as uncertainty is reduced by cognitive under standing, schemata can grow more to resemble the actual culture. But the induction of information does not always result in improved intercultural communication; an individual's attitudes and evaluations can become unaccept ing, negatively evaluating, and ultimately antagonistic toward the other culture. Often this hostile position is triggered by feelings of distrust because of the gulf between what was previously projected about the unfamiliar culture and reality. When this cognitive dissonance occurs, intercultural communication appears unlikely to succeed. The model is applied to a historical case study: the first official trade encounter between members of a trade mission from Great Britain and Emperor Qian Long's court in China. Seven hypotheses for future research are proposed.
Discusses cross-cultural communication as a process of becoming aware of another culture's habits, actions and reasons behind behaviours; and explores low-context, high-context, frontstage and backstage cultures, along with the differences between them. Basic principles (conversational, presentation and written) are used to illustrate how cultures vary in communication style. Examples of attitude, priorities and behaviours which are influenced by culture are explained using factors of age, family, money and material possessions, space, time, priorities and gifts.
Incl. bibliographical references, index
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