Organizations And Management In Cross-Cultural Context

Active Listening in a Cross-Cultural Context

Discuss about the Organizations and Management in Cross-Cultural Context.

According to Aycan, Kanungo & Mendonca (2014: 112), active listening helps individuals in acknowledging their feelings, changing their behavior, and attitudes. The authors also note that active listening creates a supportive atmosphere and consequently reduces the need for individuals to defend themselves. In such an atmosphere, the uninhibited and open communication is defined by acceptance, understanding, and empathy. Besides, individuals involved in the communication process consider each other as crucial resources instead of a threat to assistance and information. Active listening in the context of cross-cultural communication entails listening with sensitivity and establishing an environment where acceptance, permissiveness, freedom, and warmth are respected and emphasized (Aycan, Kanungo & Mendonca 2014: 113). Through active listening, an environment of trust is created with the primary objective of conveying the intended information and avoiding miscommunication.

However, active listening significantly differs across cultures. For instance, depending on an individual’s cultural background, active listening entails utilizing facial expressions, nodding one’s head, maintaining eye contact, and utilizing open-ended questions (Aycan, Kanungo & Mendonca 2014: 113). Unfortunately, these strategies are common in Individualistic cultures including European cultures and the North American continent and not in collectivist cultures such as in China or Japan. For instance, maintaining eye contact is considered aggressive or rude by individuals from Japanese culture. Nodding means that a person is attentive rather than agreeing in Japanese culture. For all these reasons, it is important to learn non-verbal and verbal communication cues used by individuals from distinct cross-cultural backgrounds to avoid miscommunication.

Analysis of the Significance of Active Listening For Cross-Cultural Communication

Gore (2013: 59) defines cross-cultural communication as an individual ability to effectively improve, foster, and form relationships with people from different cultural backgrounds. Cross-cultural communication is founded on various factors including social structures, manners, perceptions, cultural values, and decision-making practices. Likewise, it takes into consideration comprehending how people from distinct cultural backgrounds communicate in writing, in person, nonverbally, and verbally in both social and business contexts.  Additionally, cross-cultural communication analyzes how individuals from distinct cultural backgrounds communicate among themselves and across cultures. Nonetheless, people from different cultures face communication barriers in their attempt to interact with one another.

Overview of Barriers to Cross-Cultural Communication

Gore (2013: 62) outlines six main obstacles to effective communication including gender barriers, language barriers, and cultural barriers. Other barriers include perceptual barriers, emotional barriers, and physical barriers.

Analysis of the Significance of Active Listening for Cross-Cultural Communication

Physical Barriers

The concept of the global village has brought individuals from different regions of the world together. In fact, the presence of mobiles, telephones, and the internet has enabled individuals from various parts of the globe to connect, share photos, and communicate with one another. However, physical barriers including workplace separation, marked territories, and geographical locations remains a significant barrier towards effective cross-cultural communication (Steers,   Nardon & Sanchez-Runde, 2013: 268).  In some organizations, the departments, sections, and cabins reflect the different status of their employees. However, technology advancements are eliminating these physical barriers. If the technology is not used to convey the message as intended, it might result in miscommunication.

Perceptual Barriers

Communicating with individuals characterized by different temperament, disposition, mindset, and colors is quite challenging because they hold distinct views regarding the world and people around them.

Emotional Barriers

According to Gore (2013:64), individual’s emotional behaviors and attitudes significantly differ when reacting to similar or different circumstances. Emotional behavior includes doubts, suspicion, fear, and mistrust. The author notes that emotional beliefs and disbeliefs are the main barrier to free and open communication. Individuals and students from different communities, societies, civilizations, cultures, and continents have distinct sets of emotional attachment which acts a barrier to effective cross-cultural communication.

Cultural Barriers

Failure to understand other peoples’ culture results in miscommunication, to be precise, the use of verbal and non-verbal communication. In some instances, positive message is taken negatively by a person coming from other civilization or culture (Gore, 2013: 65).  For this reason, it is advisable for individuals working in a multi-cultural institution such as the University of Wollongong (UOW) to have a knowledge of their students and co-workers ideologies and cultures to enhance the communication process.

Gender Barriers

Gender consciousness is a significant barrier to effective communication. For instance, individuals of opposite sex find it difficult to express themselves freely during conversations. However, this problem is prevalent among Arabians and Asians. For instance, when conversing, a man from the Arabian culture does not maintain an eye contact with a woman because they consider it offensive, and it jeopardizes the effectiveness of the communication.

Language is crucial in communication because it helps in conveying and describing what people wish to put across. Through language, individuals express their experiences, thoughts, ideas, emotions, and feelings (Thomas & Peterson, 2015: 56). However, people make use of colloquial expressions, jargons, and buzz-words that make communication difficult; especially if they are not viewed in the same context as the sender.  Equally, if people use unknown gestures, pronunciations, signs, imageries, symbols and words, miscommunication is bound to occur. Also, the use of body language, non-verbal communication, and similes jeopardizes communication effectiveness (Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov, 2010: 29). For all these reasons, active listening plays an essential role in cross-cultural communication.

Overview of Barriers to Cross-Cultural Communication

How Active Listening Eliminates Barriers to Effective Cross-Cultural Communication

Fall et al. (2013: 413) consider active listening as an effective strategy in boosting cross-cultural communication. As a technique, active listening entails understanding what the other speaker is trying to put across and asking questions to clarify issues. Accordingly, Krizan et al.(2012: 401) argue that managing cross-cultural communications  requires individuals to take into consideration non-verbal communication and listening. In various types of literature, employers consider active listening as one of the top skills in management because it boosts the relationship between employees and customers as well as between employees and the management (Hong, 2012: 125). Active listening eliminates barriers to effective cross-cultural communication because it is characterized by five crucial stages of communication including remembering, responding, interpreting, filtering and hearing (Kic-Drgas, 2015: 17). Being aware of these five processes makes the interaction between individual smoother because it focuses on the intention of the sent informational and the receiver’s attention.

Four Key Strategies for Staffs to Advance Their Cross-Cultural Active Listening Skills When Dealing With Students from Other Cultures

Staffs at the University of Wollongong (UOW) need skills in cross-cultural communication because they do interact with students and co-workers from distinct cultures and countries. Therefore, failure to recognize differences in verbal and non-verbal communication among different cultures might result in embarrassing mistakes. To avoid such errors, the staffs at the University of Wollongong should apply the following four strategies to enhance their cross-cultural active listening skills.

Acquiring cultural competence by studying different cultures at the University

The primary objective of the above strategy is to enhance communication skills across distinct cultures prevalent at the university. Through this strategy, the staff will shun behaviors that make their co-workers feel unwanted or excluded. Additionally, understanding other cultures is essential in preventing demeaning and stereotyping remarks or jokes (Guirdham, 2011:35).

Knowing and having a deeper comprehension of the staffs’ language of context

The above knowledge is crucial in obtaining significant insights regarding communication across cultures.  For instance, staffs will understand unacceptable and acceptable verbal and non-verbal communications across cultures (Maude, 2011: 48). The author also notes that in high-context cultures such as Malaysia, Vietnam, Mexico, and China, nonverbal cues are also important in conveying meaning in the communication process. However, in low-context cultures such as the U.S. and Germany, communication is restricted to spoken or written word. Therefore, through this strategy, the staffs will understand which nonverbal cues to use to make the other party in the communication process know that he/she is actively listening to the conversation. Failure to understand these differences results in miscommunication.

Physical Barriers

Taking part in teaching active listening

To enhance effective communication across staffs from various cultural backgrounds at the University, it is important that they take part in educating students about active listening skills. In their teaching, they will comprehend the importance of listening not to judge individuals rather understand them. Through this strategy, staff will become sensitive to other people’s culture. For instance, they will channel their focus on understanding what other people from foreign cultures are attempting to say and how they will react to their responses with the aim of reducing misunderstanding (Bholanath, 2010: 11).

The above strategy enhances communication skills because it requires the staffs to talk less and listen more. The strategy also allows staffs to spend time together with the aim of improving their cultural awareness and being sensitive to other people’s perspective (Moran, Harris & Moran, 2011: 93).

Identifying Four Key Strategies for Students to Advance Their Cross-Cultural Active Listening Skills When Dealing With Students from Other Cultures

Effective cross-cultural communication requires students to be sensitive to other people’s culture. Therefore, to enhance their communication with students from other cultures, the following strategies are crucial.

Speaking Slowly

Non-native students often find it difficult to figure out what native speakers are trying to put across because of the speed with which they communicate.  Regardless, the student is an individual who has started learning English language or who comes from countries that speak English as their national language; it is important to moderate the speed which one communicate. However, speaking too slow might be considered insulting by students from foreign cultures.

Sticking To Direct and Simple Explanations and Directions

According to cross-cultural communication experts, a single conversation between two individuals contains lots of information. For this reason, they recommend the importance of reducing the amount of information that students attempt to pass across at a one time. Improving communication and reducing incidents of misunderstanding requires students to use simple words and avoid multi-part and complex sentences (Lee, Brown & Yeung, 2012: 79).

Understanding Distinct Cultural Assumptions

Students from foreign cultures base their non-verbal and verbal communications on shared attitudes and beliefs.  Therefore, students should understand non-verbal cues that students from other cultures consider to be offensive. Additionally, they should avoid using references, slang, or jokes that might be misleading or confusing to non-native students (Kothhoff & Spencer-Oatey, 2010: 279).

Practicing active listening

Through this strategy, it is important to restate other speakers words with the aim of understanding what they intend to put across. It is also important to ask questions to ensure that significant information is captured during cross-cultural communication.

Perceptual Barriers

Identifying Four Key Strategies That I Need To Personally Adopt To Enhance My Cross-Cultural Active Listening Skill When Dealing With Students and Staff from Other Cultures

To enhance my cross-cultural active listening skills, I will adopt a wide range of strategies to avoid miscommunication and misunderstanding. First, I will channel my focus on understanding my fellow students and staff cultures by reading a wide range of literature. According to Velo (2012:13), literature mirrors a society beliefs, values, and views including their cultural, political, and social development. Through reading such literature, I will have an overview of the aspects of the different cultures at the University. The second strategy is maintaining courtesy and respect of individuals who come from distinct cultures. Through this strategy, I will be able to minimize the stress that individuals feel when attempting to comprehend what people from other cultures are attempting to put across. The third strategy is avoiding the use of slangs. The use of slang significantly differs between cultures and their interpretation is not always correct. Therefore, I will avoid using slang words that are unfamiliar to my audience. The last strategy is avoiding the use of humor because what might be funny in one culture might be insulting in another culture.

For the University to address the issue of cross-cultural communication, it is essential for both staffs and students at the University of Wollongong (UOW) to surf the internet and understand how people from different cultures use verbal and non-verbal cues. Understanding different cultures is crucial in enhancing communication and reducing misunderstandings.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the world is increasingly becoming a global village in that people from distinct countries and cultures interact on daily basis. For this reason, it is important for individuals to enhance their cross-cultural communication skills as well as active listening skills. For instance, they need to understand the use of verbal and nonverbal cues across cultures to avoid misunderstandings. For instance, maintaining eye contact is considered active listening in individualistic cultures such as Germany and the United States whereas in collectivist cultures such as Japan, it is considered rude.  Equally, individuals need to avoid using slang because it might be interpreted wrong resulting in ineffective communication. Therefore, the key to enhancing active-listening in cross-cultural communication is knowledge. Having knowledge of the different cultures, people will find a way to behave appropriately and address issues associated with the cross-cultural communication.

List of References

Aycan, Z., Kanungo, R.N. & Mendonca, M.(2014) Organizations and Management in Cross-Cultural Context, London: Sage Publications Ltd.

Bholanath, D. (2010) ‘Communication in cross-cultural context’, ICFAI Journal of Soft Skills, vol.2, no.2, pp. 7-12.

Fall, L.T, Kelly, S, MacDonald, P, Primm, C. & Holmes, W. (2013) ‘Intercultural Communication Apprehension and Emotional Intelligence in Higher Education: Preparing Business Students for Career Success’, Business Communication Quarterly, vol. 76, no. 4, pp. 412-426.

Gore, V.(2013) ‘The Importance of Cross-Cultural Communication’, IUP Journal of Soft Skills, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 59-65.

 Guirdham, M. (2011) Communicating across cultures at work, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hofstede, G., Hofstede, G.J., & Minkov, M.(2010) Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, New York: McGraw- Hill.

Hong, W. (2012) ‘New Perspective of Cross-Cultural Communications: Applications in China Marketing’, Journal of Marketing Development & Competitiveness, vol. 6, no. 5, pp. 123-130.

Kic-Drgas, J.(2015)’Communication Conflicts in an International Environment’, Global Management Journal, vol. 7, no. 1/2, pp. 73-80.

 Kothhoff, H., & Spencer-Oatey, H.(2010) Handbook of Intercultural Communication, Berlin; NewYork: Mouton de Grutyer.

Krizan, A.C., Merrier, P., Logan, J.P., Williams, K. S.(2012) Business Communication, Mason: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Lee, CK, Brown, EL, & Yeung, AS 2012, Communication and Language : Surmounting Barriers to Cross-cultural Understanding, Information Age Publishing, Charlotte, NC.

Maude, B.(2011). Managing Cross-Cultural Communication: Principles and Practice, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Moran, R.T., Harris, P.R., & Moran, S.V.(2011). Managing Cultural Differences: Global Leadership Strategies for Cross-Cultural Business Success, London: Routledge.

 Steers, R.M.&  Nardon, L., Sanchez-Runde, C.(2013). Management Across Cultures: Developing Global Competencies, Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Thomas, D. & Peterson, M.(2015) Cross-Cultural Management: Essential Concepts, Sage: London

Velo, V.(2012). Cross-Cultural Management, New York: Business Press