Cross-Cultural Management Communication For Collective Programming

Topic 1: What is Culture and Cross-Cultural Communication? (Week 1)

Describe about the Cross-Cultural Management Communication for Collective programming.

The purpose of the study is to focus on the lessons, which has taught in twelve weeks about the Cross-Cultural Management and Communication. Cross-Cultural Communication refers to the processes through which people overcome the differences between cultures with communication. I have selected three topics from the lessons on which I will discuss my opinions and understanding about the topics to evaluate the issues regarding that.

Topic 1: What is Culture and Cross-Cultural Communication? (Week 1)

Summary

The lesson of the first week enabled me to understand the definition of culture and its impacts on the regular life, especially in the organisational culture. According to Adler, (1983), culture is a very complex concept that defines the collective programming of the mind including the feelings, thinking and acting, to distinguish people from each other. This helped me to determine the need for proper understanding of cross-cultural communication in the context of a business organisation to develop the cross-cultural skills and team management capability. The lesson has taught me about the cross-cultures in the organisations to apply the intercultural communications processes in the company to increase the business without any hindrance. Therefore, the issues the organisations are facing, regarding managing the multicultural people in their company is explained here to overcome the situation.

The lesson has taught me about the cross-cultural communication that helps to overcome the challenges in the organisations, which rise from the variations of the cultures of the organisations. This is the main issue of this topic, which has stirred me. If the issue continues, then the business organisations have to face many challenges regarding the communication. As culture differs from person to person, therefore it is quiet natural that an organisation will consist various people from different backgrounds. Therefore, the conceptual developments of the topic have helped me to highlight the cultural issues with the theories of cross-cultural communication.

Now the question has raised here about the main issue of team management in an organisation that has fallen in a risky situation recently. It can be cleared with the theoretical knowledge of the topic. The conception of culture has derived from the Latin word ‘colere’ that mean the tilling of the soil like in agriculture. Generally, it refers to the feelings, thinking and acting of an individual while in business world, it refers to the attitudes and behaviour of corporations. As opined by Hofstede, (1993), over last twenty years the organisations are trying to understand the cross-cultural communication concept to implement them in their companies to solve the cultural problem. Therefore, the lesson has made me enable to enhance my knowledge on the concept. The culture can be two types, one type is High Context Culture and the other one is Low Context Culture (Hofstede et al. 2010). The first one refers to the cultures that rely on the non-verbal and subtle situational communications and the other one defines the communications conveyed by words. Therefore, culture will be different if the country will be changed. As the organisations are now engaging themselves in the international business, therefore the main aim of the corporate are to abolish the cultural differences from the organisation. According to the perceptions of the cross-cultural communication the organisations mainly faces the problems like, ethnocentrism, discriminations, cultural imposition, stereotyping, cultural blindness and tone difference (Hofstede et al. 2010). These are the main issues that a company faces due to the presence of the various cultures among the employees. All these are the hindrance in the way to success to attain the organisational goals and to achieve the sustainability in business. These challenges can be overcome through implementing various strategies in the company. The lesson has developed the knowledge regarding the cross-cultural challenges in the company by applying intercultural sensitivity, intercultural communication and intercultural communication skill (Johnson yet al. 2006). I have learnt the solutions too from this lesson. The processes by which the companies can solve this intercultural issue in the company with studying other cultures and languages to enhance knowledge about them. It will help them to understand others culture to abolish the differences between them.

Theoretical Reflection

Cross-Cultural communication has applied in the companies to solve the problems about the cultural diversity in the organisations. As the companies are trying to invest their money in the international market to increase the business of the organisations, therefore they are trying to sort out the problem regarding cultural diversity to establish a good environment in the company.   Wesfarmers, Woolworths are the companies that have used the cross-cultural communication to solve the problems regarding this fact (International Business: Toward a Definition and a Model). Therefore, I have analysed the issue properly to improve the organisational culture to increase the profits in the business. For those of us who are inhabitant English-speakers, it is opportune that English seems to be the language that people use if they want to reach the widest possible audience (Zander et al. 2016). Therefore, it can be said that the lesson has taught us about the importance of the cross-cultural communication in the organisational level.

Conclusion

The study has enabled me to know about the concept of culture and its origin from where the concept has incorporated in business world. Therefore, the lessons have taught me about the processes of the applications of Cross-Cultural communication in the organisations to gain the profit in business. As the companies are now trying to expand their business internationally, therefore, they have to face many hindrances regarding cross culture. The organisations have to implement the strategies to resolve the cultural issues in the organisations among the employees to gain the maximum profit from their work. Moreover, it has increased my knowledge about the implementation of cross-cultural communication.

Summary

Cross-Cultural skills and abilities are the competencies that are required to improve the organisational culture in the company. The abilities and skills in a person that make enable to work in a multicultural environment is the key competency of that person. This helps the organisation to practice the cross-cultural communication. The lesson of this week has taught me about the requirement of skills and abilities to solve the problems regarding cultural issues (Caligiuri, 2000). Therefore, I have gained knowledge about the improvement procedures in an organisation to gain the profit in business. Various models and theories on culture, which has explained in this lesson, have helped me to understand the competencies that are required for developing the organisational culture. The study has revealed that in recent time the employers are finding the people to work in their organisation who have the experience in the cross-cultural skills. Therefore, the discussion of various skills and ability to accept and adopt the cross-cultural communication has given me the knowledge about this.

Practical Reflection

Theoretical Reflection

As the lesson has taught me about the skills and abilities of the cross-cultural communication therefore, I have found the main issue in this context is the competency level of the employees. It has clearly showed that the organisations in recent time are hiring the people who are experienced in the cross-cultural environment (Johnson et al. 2006). Therefore, the people who have a set of skills to cope up with the cross-cultural organisational culture are fit for the posts.

However, the people who have not the ability of providing the cross-cultural aspects in the organisational basis, they have to enhance the competency of the employees. The organisations are now searching for the employees who are already experienced in the cross-cultural zone to interact with any place and environment with their competency of cultural prospect.  Sometimes the employees can understand the cultural variety within the country but at the time they go abroad, then their ability become imperfect in context of that and become inappropriate choice in order to achieve objectives (Lin et al. 2012).

Cross-Cultural Skills and Strengths: The abilities and skills, which are required to strengthen the cross-cultural competency, are connected with succeeding in cross-cultural environments include cultural understanding, elasticity and compliance, Cross-cultural communication skills, optimistic attitude and spirit. It can make decisions in the face of vagueness or uncertainty, inquisitiveness and open-mindedness, zeal for learning and new experiences, aptitude to quickly set up and build trust and sturdy relationship building skills (Moore et al. 2012).

Demonstrating Those Skills and Strengths for the company: These are the possible effective skills and abilities, which are required within a person to acquire the cross-cultural communication for an organisation. Despite the fact that the above list is not comprehensive, if a person is able to display most of these skills and strengths they are more likely to be seen as potential candidates for overseas positions (Yamazaki & Kayes, 2004). However, the good explanation of this study is that through this no one has the need of this, to spent time overseas to demonstrate many of these qualities or skills. The everyday life is enough to develop these facts.

The employees can share about times when their flexibility or adaptability in a challenging situation helped them to defeat obstacles and attain results. The people could cite their ability to build trust or strong relationships was an essential part of congregation key objectives. On the other hand, they can report on the processes that able to make some quick decisions in the face of indecision to drag the team through a difficult situation to meet goals (Lin et al. 2012).    

Conclusion

I have learnt the skills and an ability that is needed for developing the cross-cultural communication is important for the organisations to increase business. Knowing the local language is not necessary in every country, but process of learning some languages is irrelevant. In the countries like Arabic and Mandarin, knowing the language is not essential and not appropriate for the fearful. According to the lesson, it can be said that the lesson of acquiring a local language is less relevant at the time when the employee is going to take an agreement with any outside country, then they have to know the language properly to complete the business deal. It the countries like United Arab Emirates, where the world of business and education is dependent on English, which is widely spoken in those countries (Lin et al. 2012). The zeal to learn is more important rather than actually learning that. A mere welcome in someone else’s language or the ability to say “thank you” or “you are welcome” projects humility, admiration and openness (Johnson et al. 2006).

Effectively noticing nonverbal cues is also an important part of getting to know how other cultures convey subtle messages. Gestures may mean completely different things in different countries, and blunders by the uninitiated may lead to much embarrassment all around. In some countries, the gesture of “thumbs up” hand signal is showing good luck while in some countries it is noted to be vulgar sign. Likewise, the hand sign of “zero” is a simple gesture in France whether in Brazil it is very offensive (Johnson et al. 2006). I have seen South Asian employees suspect a manager of being incompetent when he asked for their suggestions. Therefore, the

Conclusion

The study has explained me the topics of Cross-Cultural Communications and its impact on the organisational culture. In the part, the lesson was on the competency levels of the employees who have to develop their skills and abilities to improve the organisational cultural environment. Therefore, from this study I have gained the knowledge about the required skills and abilities to gain more profit with implementing those in the organisation.

Summary

In this week, the lesson on the non-verbal communication has taught me about maintaining the cross-cultural communication in an organisation to get the profit from the processes. Therefore, the non-verbal communication elements are discussed in the lesson to make us able to know about the non-verbal communications that influence the business a lot. I have developed an idea whether the countries and various body gestures can affect the business and organisational culture (Hall & Hall, 1990). I have learnt the issues that many organisations are facing in running their business because of this non-verbal communication gap and misunderstanding. The organisations are now trying to overcome this misunderstanding through developing the non-verbal communication. Therefore, the study has transmitted the ideas about various ways of non-verbal communication to implement in the organisational culture to increase the business level.  

Topic 2: Cross-Cultural Skills and Abilities (Week 7)

Theoretical Reflection

The lesson has discussed about the non-verbal communications in various organisations regarding the business behaviours. I have found the main issue regarding this topic is the communication between the different cultural corporate heads and the different process of country wise. Therefore, the discussion in the lesson on the variations of the non-verbal communication has influenced the organisational culture as well as the business growth. The study has explained that there are many facial expressions, hand gestures, body positioning, silence, eye contact, and intonation and body postures to express the non-verbal communication (Korac et al. 2001). However, I have felt that the meaning of these communication procedures is different in every culture. If one body posture means politeness for a country, it can be used in another country to express violence. Therefore, the misunderstanding can be emerged from a very simple gesture or body language that can affect the business. If in a company the employees are come from different cultural background, then it is very normal to misunderstand each other (LaFrance & Mayo, 1978). It will lead the company towards a weak work culture with unity less employees. For instance, we have found the different use of this non-verbal communication in the countries of Australia and Japan where the same communication style is used for different purpose. In Australia, the silence is believed to be the sigh of inability for doing any work while the same paralanguage non-verbal communication refers to deep thinking in Japan.  

According to Hall and Hall, (1990), the non-verbal communications are mostly expressed in two types – one is Paralanguage and other one is Extra linguistic communication. The first one is expressed through the volume of speaking, speed of talking, interruptions, intonation, silence and words emphasis. On the other hand, the second one refers to the kinetics and oculesics. The paralanguage communications are depending on the speech tone and processes in which the people interact with others. It defines the different attitude of a person while communicating through these processes. Therefore, it plays a crucial role in an organisational culture to create a good business environment in the place. As opined by Korac et al., (2001), there are more processes of non-verbal communications, which helps to improve the communications in cross-cultural environment as well as creates hindrances in the way to success. Paralanguage communication is one of the parts of this that refers to the study of vocal cues and speech behaviour. Haptics is the variations of touch and its amount that affects one with need, receiving, tolerance and initiative. I have found the colour related communication that is done with the study where the impact of messages sent and received through colour indicators who are called Colorics. On the other hand, the process of Olfactis refers the study of smell on the communication behaviour. Proxemics is the process in which the people position themselves in a situation. Additionally, the Kinesics is the study of human movement and gestures in different situations. According to LaFrance and Mayo, (1978), the other non-verbal communication processes are appearance (dress), interpersonal distance, eye contact, food symbolism and meals, attitude toward time and voice tone differences. All these can refer the cultural differences, which is a part of cross-culture.

Theoretical Reflection

The practical expression of this lesson on my mind has enabled me to understand the cross-cultural differences in the organisation. We can find many practical examples about this non-verbal communication process that has led a misunderstanding among the people for being wrongly used in wrong place. The gesture of victory sign expressed by the hand, which is used by the President George H.W. Bush in Australia (Korac et al. 2001). The use of his victory sign has wrongly interpreted in the country and the chaos has risen in the country. On the other hand, the IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus in Indonesia has held the cross hand posture during the Asian Financial crisis. It has a wrong implication to the people about his intentions. Another incident that has faced the same non-verbal communication problem during the World War II was Winston Churchill when he also wrongly used the victory gesture. Therefore, it can be proved that the communication problem has created many misunderstanding situations in the organisations. The lesson has helped me to understand the applications of this cross-culture that is creating many problems and misunderstanding in the business (Korac et al., 2001). Therefore, I have to solve the problem in this condition to make the companies culturally corrected with implying the proper theories to make the employees culturally improved. I have developed the knowledge about the various non-verbal processes to understand the cultural differences of the countries. As for example, I can state the eye contact as the communication process. In Arab, Latin Europe the eye contact is considered to express intensity while in Northern Europe and North America it is considered to express firm mind state.  Therefore, the study has enabled me to identify the issues regarding non-verbal communication processes and then has analysed the theories on it to find out the solution to increase the profitability in business.

Conclusion

The part of this study has explained the non-verbal communication styles in a cross-cultural organisation that had helped me to improve the quality of the business in the organisation. However, it has not successfully presented the ideas and processes to meet the ultimate goal of attaining a cross-cultural environment in an organisation. I have gained the theoretical knowledge about the cross-cultural elements and its impact on the professionalism of the employees. In the last topic, the non-verbal communications has discussed in the class that has increased my understanding about the processes in which way culture can affect the organisation.

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