Intercultural Communication: Essential for Today's Globalized World

Intercultural communication is very vital in today's world, and everyone has to acquire a few skills in communication knowledge to know how to interact and communicate with individuals from different cultural backgrounds. People do travel, and others work in a different environment that is composed of diverse cultures. In the way or the other, a person has to communicate outside their learning; therefore, the essence of having more knowledge of intercultural communication, the easier it becomes for that person to cope up in the new environment (Chmielecki, 2017). Therefore with enough understanding of cross-cultural communications, there will be fewer problems faced by few individuals, such as lack of knowledge of other cultures' social interaction and cultural accommodation.

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There are some essential ways of an individual, improving his/her cultural communication. One of the recommended tips is for someone to learn more about the other cultures that he/she gets involved in daily activities such as at school or workplace. Through the knowledge of different cultures and individuals will avoid some insensitive comments and misunderstandings. Also, some of the tips include avoiding the use of idioms and slang and finally respecting others in different cultures.

Verbal Communications and Cultural Intelligence

Verbal communications are different from most cultures across the country since some words can be pronounced in a way that offends the others, so it is of great importance for people to understand how other cultures mark some letters to avoid confusion. To make the verbal communications less biased and free of distraction, individuals need to choose how to deliver some words carefully and ask some questions often to avoid confusion or misinterpretation of the message (Mautner-Markhof, 2019). Also, the patience of awaiting someone to process another person's verbal communication contributes a lot towards an understanding of the word since a person can be able to reply accordingly.

Cultural intelligence plays a vital role when it comes to any cultural communication by making sure it eliminates any anxieties, which are often related to low self-confidence. Through cultural intelligence, it displays the fact that an individual has more knowledge about various cultures and can know how to communicate without difficulties with people from different cultures. Therefore, the few individuals with cultural intelligence have the courage and confidence to work or operate in any type of environment or culture, knowing how to communicate with the indigenous people in the region.

The Negotiation Process of Different Cultures

Cultural norms such as aversion to touching, physical touching, and casual approach to time to time or moments of silence during discussions might appear rude or disquieting to a few individuals from different cultural backgrounds. However, there are so many factors that influence the negotiations through cross-cultural communication such as masculinity/femininity, for instance, most of the society's associate aggressiveness and competition to be male traits hence they cannot engage into peaceful negotiation with females from other cultures no matter their position in an organizational structure (Mautner-Markhof, 2019). Last but not least is the fact of individualism and collectivism whereby many cultures have a way of communicating depending on their beliefs; for instance, the United States believes in individualism as a way of success, unlike other regimes such as Japan who believe in collectivism to be successful.

Regional, International, and Cultural Differences in Communications

The ethnocentrism is one of the differences which make communication among different cultures to become painful or slightly differ at some point. Most of the individuals in business believe that they are superior when compared to other cultures, and this makes it hard to communicate or do business together. However, it is among the most business and organizations to emphasize cross-cultural differences to be able to grow since it affects both the regional and international markets. Moreover, the organizations try their best to make sure that they are familiar with different cultures to accommodate different cultures in their workforce, which later helps to increase their revenues and grow to the international level (Chmielecki, 2017). Some of the factors such as high and low context cultures create the difference in communicating with individuals from different societies; hence upon knowledge of some beliefs and opinions will aid in carrying out business operations at different levels.

Practical Cross-Cultural Approaches, Styles, and Tones in Communication

The business employs the use of different approaches to integrating different intercultural communication in their business set up to minimize some barriers and errors that arise from the communication process. The courtesy and respect for other cultures are one of the approaches that the company employs to create a good relationship for effective communication in most organizations because they feel appreciated and respected despite their cultural background. Pacing down or lowering the tone when communicating with different people of different cultures, this helps them to analyze and interpret whatever another person is saying (Mautner-Markhof, 2019). Also, some business tries to avoid ambiguity in their communication by using open and straightforward terms that o does not comprise of slang or idioms, which later contributes a lot to the communication barrier. Moreover, adopting the formal communication approach that helps individuals develop a good rapport with others within the business context since some informal approach can be annoying or upsetting to others from different cultures.

References

Chmielecki, M. (2017). Intra-organizational Negotiations as Cross-Cultural Interactions. In Intercultural Interactions in the Multicultural Workplace (pp. 267-282). Springer, Cham.

Mautner-Markhof, F. (2019). Processes of international negotiations. Routledge.