Successful Cross-Cultural Management

Chapter 7

Communicating Effectively Across Cultures

When members of two different cultures communicate we speak of cross-cultural communication. Cross-cultural communication supports each cross-cultural management process and is always one of the most critical issues in dealing with foreign cultures. Participants in a cross-cultural communication process do not share a common background, upbringing, or view on the world and this affects their way of communicating. Interpreting messages from a source little known to oneself is often the source of misunderstandings and miscommunication. Cross-cultural communication is significantly more demanding than communication within a single cultural context because people living and operating in a culturally ...