Inter cultural communcation is the process of sending and receiving messages between people of different cultural background.
INTER CULTURAL COMMUNICATION
- Inter cultural is the process of sending and receiving messages between people of different cultural background.
Opportunities in a Global Marketplace
- Opens borders and allows worldwide competition.
- Domestic workforce becomes more diverse : people from different nationalities working in one company. Companies can recruit workers from a broad pool of talent; and benefit from broad range of viewpoints and ideas; and have better understanding of other markets.
Challenges
- Motivating workers from different countries and cultures.
- Working with them in teams
- Need to understand some of their culture to prevent mis-communication.
Definition of Culture
- Is a shared system of symbols, beliefs, attitudes, values, expectations, and norms for behaviour.
- Subcultures are distinct groups that exist within a major culture.
Culture includes the following :
- Language
- Non verbal signals
- Word meanings
- Time and space issues
- Rules of human behavior ; what is acceptable and not.
How culture is learned
- Listening to advice from family members, relatives, and elderly people (direct).
- Also by observing other people’s behaviour (indirect)
Recognizing Cultural Differences
- Social values
- Formal rules of etiquette (exp table manners) are explicit and well defined.
- Informal rules are learned through observation and imitation. Exp
- attitudes towards work and success – do they emphasize hard work and material success?
- Roles and status – the way top management is addressed eg Mr Roberts or using title ‘president’ ‘manager’
- Use of manners – exp ‘How was your weekend?’ is a common way of making small talk in U.S. but sounds intrusive (busybody) to people where business and private lives are separate.
- Concepts of time – do they follow time very strictly and are very punctual (Japanese) or being late is considered acceptable.
