The Importance Of Intercultural Communication

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Introduction With an increase in globalization, many people venture into other countries to seek employment and education opportunities. The United States-based corporations employ over 100 million overseas workers. They also hire a large number of locals who then move to take roles in other countries where the company has operations (Reichard et al. 2015). This means that Americans are exposed to a high number of people from other nations with diverse cultures in their workplaces, schools, neighborhoods and other social places. Therefore, people need to improve their intercultural communication skills to enable them to interact efficiently with people with diverse cultures. The improvement of technology has made the media an agent for enhanced …show more content…

The article talks about a female executive who had visited a conservative Muslim country. She had trouble interacting with male business partners as they come from cultures where women do not often engage in high-level trades. The men refused to shake her hand, which made her, feel disrespected and confused. The author suggests that female businesspeople from liberal countries such as those in the West need to learn that every country has its norm pertaining the roles of men and women. Age is also important in cross-cultural businesses where older people are considered wise. Body language and communication style are also different depending on the culture where in some place direct speaking may be regarded as disrespectful or even rude while in others steady eye contact is considered as a means to build trust. The female business person also has to recognize the signals that she is sending to her corporate partners. She should be wary of offending her business partners of all sexes as the female may judge their fellow women more harshly than how a man would. The woman also has to determine if the signals that she is receiving are cultural norms or sexism. Therefore, the important factors in intercultural businesses are learning the culture of the other person in advance to know how to …show more content…

Human beings can unconsciously mimicry the behaviors, facial expressions and bodily movement in a bid to ensure effective communication, which is referred to as the chameleon effect (Dirksmeier, Helbrecht & Mackrodt, 2014). The articles do not mention the importance of technology in intercultural competency. According to Çiftçi (2016), various digital tools are utilized by people willing to learn different cultures and languages they include text-based chats, online message boards, video conferencing, email exchanges, video recording, podcasting, blogs and microblogging. International exposure causes cultural understanding and

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