Cross-Cultural Communication

Today's world of globalization and technological advancements emphasizes the importance of quality interpersonal communication. Intercultural communication skills are becoming perhaps more important than ever before in this time of an increasingly diverse workforce and extensive travel for business and leisure. Myriad considerations coalesce to result in improved interpersonal communication skills.

Packed with useful information, knowledge, considerations and insights, this course provides students the tools they need to improve their intercultural communication flexibility and skills, permitting them to gain more success in – and indeed more pleasure from – their intercultural encounters.

Intercultural communication flexibility is the management of cultural differences adaptively and creatively within many types of situations. Our attitudes and expectations are often shaped by underlying cultural values. Our perception of and approach to communication issues within work teams likely vary across cultures, ethnicities, situations, and individuals. For example, members of some cultural groups (for example, German and Swiss) prefer to address an issue head on, believing that directness and assertiveness spark new ideas. Other cultural groups (for example, Chinese and Korean) may prefer to address issues indirectly and tactfully, in efforts to facilitate more harmonious communication processes.

Reasons to study intercultural communication

Rapid changes in global economics, technology, immigration policies, and transportation have meant that the world seems to be becoming increasingly smaller. Our connections to our foreign neighbors are clearer than ever before. We find increased contact with those of different cultures. In the work place, people of different cultures bring with them different work habits and cultural practices, approaching problem solving tasks differently. Individuals may also have different desires for communication outcomes and emphases within their intercultural encounters.

The study of intercultural communication is the study of communication involving cultural group differences. This study helps students acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to manage intercultural differences appropriately and effectively. It also includes developing an ability to view things from different angles, absent rigid prejudgment. Indeed, there are many practical reasons to study intercultural communication. We will discuss several of those reasons here.

First on the list of reasons to study intercultural communication is global workforce heterogeneity. That is, many companies have a global presence. The top five most valuable global brands in terms of dollar value are Coca-Cola, IBM, Microsoft, Google, and GE (General Electric). Other companies such as Starbucks and McDonald's also have significant presence abroad. Most of these companies are managed and operated from U.S. soil, and many U.S. workers currently work in overseas locations. However, approximately 10-20 percent of U.S. workers working overseas fail in their global assignments (They return prematurely.), with the highest failure rates associated with work in developing nations. Most U.S. international employers may be considered technically competent, but they may also lack effective, adaptive intercultural communication skills that enable them to communicate appropriately and effectively in the new culture.

Secondly, the domestic workplace is increasingly diverse, making cultural diversity a critical part of our everyday lives. The Latino/a population is expected to increase from 16 to 30-percent by 2050, and the Asian American population will grow from 4.5 to 9 percent. The non-Hispanic Caucasian population will decline from 65% to 46% nationally. The 2010 U.S. Census revealed that 12-percent of the population is foreign born nationals, and another 11-percent is native born with at least one foreign born parent. Of those foreign born, more than half emigrated from Latin America, with almost a third coming from Mexico. These figures indicate that in the marketplace, the influence of multicultural and diverse customers is expanding across the board.

Additionally, knowing something about intercultural communication helps us to engage in creative multicultural problem solving strategies. Accepting and considering alternative viewpoints helps us move mindfully away from traditional binary (either/or) thinking and expand our diversity of options in managing intercultural team problems. In fact, a significant amount of creativity research demonstrates that we learn more from those who are different from us than we learn from those who are similar. Research on small groups indicates that better decisions are reached through more diverse decision making teams.

Further, technology is speeding up our identities as global citizens. We can now easily connect with individuals from around the world within a few seconds, and at a very low cost.

The fifth reason that developing quality intercultural communication skills matters is facilitating better multicultural health care communications. Borders continue to merge and divide, and increasingly immigrants and multicultural citizens require health care in their host countries. Many of these people have high expectations that their health care practitioners will respect their personal beliefs and health care practices; however, this is not always the case.Different beliefs and traditions surround the concept of death as well, which can make an already difficult time more challenging.

Global peacemaking is another reason to know something about intercultural communication.Citizens of many nations are rising up to demand better lives for themselves and their families by way of citizenship rights, democracy, and freedom. The terrorist attack on U.S. soil in 2001 prompted many individuals to recognize the important role of competent intercultural communication. Peace studies are forging new ground in university curricula, offering major and minor degrees on many campuses.

Finally, improved intercultural communication skills can help deepen self-awareness and other-awareness. For the most part, our cultural beliefs, values, and communication norms are acquired unconsciously. Without a basis for comparison, we may never question the way we have been conditioned and socialized. This can encourage the development of ethnocentrism, which means seeing our own culture as the center of the universe and seeing other cultures as insignificant or perhaps inferior. Groups, organizations, communities, and societies develop differences from each other. "Without interaction with outsiders, differences become difficult to understand and difficult not to judge. What is comfortable becomes right.What we do not understand becomes less than right to us." When we lack quality comparative cross-cultural knowledge, we may tend to view the world through only one lens.  However, that lens can be expanded to understand possible value differences and similarities between your own and other cultures through intercultural communication awareness. Our awareness of who we are can deepen through intercultural knowledge.