Intercultural communication principles guide the process of exchanging meaningful and unambiguous information across cultural boundaries, in a way that preserves mutual respect and minimizes antagonism. We can define the intercultural communication as being an interactive process which will lie within a cultural scope and which aims at giving direction to a relation.
Thinking Intercultural communication, I remember an example I had, while working as a business developer in Europe. I had to go to a meeting, to get information on a project we were working on.
Thinking Intercultural communication, I remember an example I had, while working as a business developer in Europe. I had to go to a meeting, to get information on a project we were working on.
Two groups had to do the presentation, Germans and Spanish, 5 people in each group.
We had no specific recommendations for the meeting, I had questions I wanted to be answered, as some others colleagues who were in the conference room.
The presentation started in the first time with the Spanish, and then in the second time with the Germans colleagues.
The meeting for the first group lasted 1 hour while for the second group, the meeting lasted only 15 minutes and the result was the same one.
In the first case, the Spanish needed to give much more explanations, which were not very useful for me in this case, but they felt obliged to give these explanations.
We could say that their message was rich and slow in context.
In the second case, the German colleagues answered the questions without entering in complex explanations. They did not feel the need to give many explanations; they just answered the questions we had quite simply, I had the information I needed, and I save time.
We could say that their message was poor and fast in context.
When we did our researches for our Intercultural communication project on Japan, I found an interesting video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyjenhfSnFU
I appreciate the Alex explanation on the intercultural communications. As the technology is advancing this world is becoming more and more small, in other words every country has lost its borders and becoming like a single work place. Competing in today’s world is becoming so damn difficult that every organization is linked to some or the other foreign organization. Thus I would call it is an era of globalization. Thus we need to accommodate different cultures and religions and try to understand and respect them in order to succeed in a business life. Intercultural communications is working on depleting the barriers and trying to make communications being easy among different cultures and communities with the same time decreasing the probability if any for the misunderstandings to occur between them.
ReplyDeleteMy Real Life Example:
Since I am in USA I’ve been dealing all different kinds of individuals who have different cultures and beliefs since I am from India. In the early days when I just arrived in this country it was very difficult for me to understand other people feelings because I was used to the Indian culture, I would say it was a total paradigm shift for me to understand how to make Americans understand, because in America everybody likes to have has his/her own space, and understand the gestures which are not as same as India, like for example in India if you understand something it is very usual that you can see people shaking their head sideways, whereas which means you don’t understand if we talk in terms of American gestures.
Here’s the links I found most appropriate:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Experiencing-Intercultural-Communication&id=2350830
http://www.cyborlink.com/besite/india_interview.htm
Intercultural communication to me is continually growing in importance as the world continues to globalize. When I was in high school our teachers used to tell use of the growth of globalization and that we were going to start entering into a global era.
ReplyDeleteThat time has come and the mingling of races and cultures has become commonplace throughout the United States and many other parts of the world. As a result of this melding I feel that it is my responsibility to educate myself to a level that prevents me from being ignorant of cultural and language differences that I may encounter.
Through our research project and discussion I feel that I have added valuable knowledge to help better prepare me for a global community. An example from my personal life that highlights the need for this continuous education relates to my high school Alma mater. When I was in high school the population of the school was predominantly white. That was seven years ago. Last year I went back to visit and give a guest lecture and the population I found was dramatically different. The urban school had turned into a melting pot of cultures. In one class alone I had students from Egypt, India, Kenya, and many Latin countries. It was a shock to me how a localized population could change so dramatically in such a short period of time. To that point I was thankful for the education that I education that I already received on intercultural communication, and relations.
As stated in the previous blog post by Abhey, Intercultural communication is extremely important within business due to growth of technology and the shrinking of the world. Boundaries such as language and distance are quickly disappearing as barriers to entry. Also, people within business fluent in more than language are becoming more and more common.
ReplyDeleteIn order to be successful in business within this new globally networked world, you have to be knowledgeable of other countries culture and customs because business will be influenced by them. The intercultural project we did really rang true about this. It could be seen that while most countries may be very similar in one aspect, they can be polar opposites in another. It’s going to be your responsibility to learn those aspects, and respect if you wish for your relationships to grow.
As far as my real world experience goes, my freshman year roommate at Penn State was from Africa. From the beginning, I knew we were going to be drastically different from one another from a cultural standpoint. However, I did not see that as an inconvenience. I saw it as a learning experience. You don’t get to live with someone who lives in a different country very often. There was a lot of compromise but we made it through the year ok. He tried to get me to go to his bible studies which I tried once but told him that it wasn’t for me. I like watching comedians like Kat Williams or Dave Chappelle that are excessively raunchy in their comedy. However, since he was highly religious, the comedians made him feel uncomfortable so I respected that and stopped doing it when he was around. There were times when I found out he had worn something of mine without asking. Where he came from, everyone shared everything and it wasn’t a problem. I had to let him know it wasn’t a problem but you just have to ask first because people here in America view it as a sign of respect.
Here is an article that talks about cultural differences: http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/ucce50/ag-labor/7article/article01.htm
when i studied in France in the Erasmus program, one of the very first classes we had to take was a class about intercultural communication. The school did so because they felt that individuals coming up from so many different countries and with their own customs and specificities needed to know about each other before even thinking about working with each other on projects.
ReplyDeleteI had plenty of examples where communications were involved and learned how to deal with mexican people as well as with chinese students, experiences that i consider today very valuable because you not only expand your knowledge but it also was great and enriching experiences.
We always had to double check conclusions and milestones as team projects would go on with our fellow chinese groupmates because they would always agree on whatever we would decide on, and this was because in their culture it is bad to say no. We could always expect our friends from latin america to be late and the americans showing up in class with a mug and in sweatpants.
i am sharing this little video with you because i think it is a very funny one, i hope you'll enjoy it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxUm-2x-2dM
Growing up in Brooklyn, NY, I was fortunate to experience a multicultural atmosphere. My group of friends consisted of asian, Irish, Italian, Jewish, and mid east backgrounds. As a preteen, I moved to south Florida. Again, a very multicultural area. Many of my friends were from French or Spanish decent. However, I was adopted and the household I was raised in was extremely prejudice. While I grew up with this family from birth, I never understood or agreed with their views. It did, however, give me a good view of both sides of the issue.
ReplyDeleteWhile our class is in the context of business, I feel that at the heart of this is breaking the interpersonal barriers between races and cultures. In both business and in our personal lives, we should not judge and condesend, but learn and embrace other cultures. Most people are so caught up in their own beliefs that they are not willing to learn and accept others. I believe that you can not truely make a decision about your own beliefs until you have studied and learned what the rest of the world believes.
I have had many classes in world religions, liturature and other cultural issues that have brought me to a broader and more enlightened view of myself and of our world. If we wish to suceed in the business world, we must embrace other cultures and throw away our own prejudices. Respecting others and their beliefs is imperative to becoming a well-rounded human being, let alone business person.
It is only when we as a whole accept each other that we will ever find peace.
Here is an article that discusses the importance of intercultral communication in our globalized business world. It also has links to many other interesting articles on the topic.
http://www.acjournal.org/holdings/vol3/Iss3/spec1/kluver.htm
Before coming to graduate school, I was working for a company who's owner was Chinese, one of the office workers was from Russia, another from France. Two of my coworkers in the warehouse were from Mali, and two others were from Ethiopia. All these employees from completely unique cultures showed the importance of learning to communicate with persons from various backgrounds.
ReplyDeleteWhile we are learning about cultures for future use in ever shrinking world, it is important to realize that we are already being put to the tests at our current jobs, class, and social networks. We have to use each experience as a learning tool so we can be prepared for what comes next.
My link is to a popular Mali Musician that my African coworkers constantly played While working.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdtV5fwWCYQ&feature=PlayList&p=846AD9E497C8E178&index=0
This project that we did I had a lot of fun. I was able to learn about different cultures and also got a chance to present in front of the class about Japan. That was pretty neat stuff.
ReplyDeleteMy real life example I guess is that I grew up in different areas. I have lived in Ohio, Texas, Florida, and now PA. Although each of these states are in the United States, each of them has different backgrounds and ways of doing things. When I grew up in Ohio, it was all farming where I lived and the families were focused on farming and their crops. Texas was extremely hot and that was my first look at the big city. I visited San Antonio and saw the battle of the Alamo. Then in Florida the schools were a lot different than the schools in PA.
The schools in Florida had a lot of days off due to the different cultures living in Florida. I remember in the fall it felt like we had a four day week almost every week because schools had to recognize all the holidays. The only draw back to this was that school started almost at the beginning of August and ended in mid June.
Also, at the schools in Florida we weren't allowed to bring in baked goods from home because of some students may have food allergies. Students and teachers were only allowed to bring in store bought goods. This was a lot different from PA because there really weren't any rules dealing with only bringing in baked goods. Things seem more relaxed in PA and in the Pittsburgh Schools.
Although, I have not really experienced any international cultural differences, I have however experienced cultural differences in the different states that I have lived in.