MANAGING CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION

Managing Cross Cultural Communication



Managing cross cultural communication

Introduction

Globalization is a phenomenon that is in vogue nowadays. In this rapidly changing world to succeed it's imperative for an organization to adopt the phenomenon of globalization. On one hand globalization cultivates scores of benefits for the organization. On the other hand, it also generates various dilemmas for management. One of these dilemmas is of effective communication management. This phenomenon of globalization presents challenges of understanding and managing cross-cultural communications. According to Stephen Roberts:

“Culture is the framework in which we communicate”

This suggests that various factors give rise to the problem of cross-cultural communication. These factors include: language, environment, technology, social organization, the perception of authority and non-verbal communications. Having the ability to assess these variables is vital in ensuring for managers to convey messages and conduct business across a wide range of cultures. This paper addresses communication within multicultural project teams and the significance of leadership style in managing cross-cultural communications. The aim of this paper is to reveal different ways or skills that managers need to adopt to make the process of communication effective. Furthermore, this paper sheds lights on variegated barriers that may exist in effective communication process in a cross-culture environment.

Literature review

Zapf (1991, p.105) describes culture as “more than simply a set of customs”. Culture is a shared set of meanings among community of people who develop a common model from shared experiences. Zapf (1991, p.106) continues by stating that when individuals interact with others sharing the same viewpoint, they assume meanings unconsciously. However, it is only through interacting with someone who views things differently an individual becomes aware of cultural patterns. Mismatching of meanings can potentially lead to frustration. When an individual moves to experience a different culture, he/she tends to take with them the meanings of their 'home culture' and behaves in line with it. Differences in rules, meanings and values between different cultures will inevitably result in conflicts. (Zapf, 1991, p.106)

This mismatching of meanings also occurs in communication process in organization. One can easily observe influence of culture in management style that in turn affects communication. In many academic studies, it has been shown that management practices are embedded in national cultures and when different cultures unite together it generates many intricate issues. (Chevrier, 2003, p.142)

It is also widely believed that people belong to a certain culture tend to share similar views regarding co-operation, managing conflict, accepting authority and communicating with each other. Watson et al (1993, cited in Chevrier, 2003, p.142) argues that diversity increases the available pool of resources and hence, a more creative team is created. On the other hand, diversity within project teams can increase ambiguity and confusion. Here, ambiguity and confusion means miscommunication due to amalgamation of different culture. (Chevrier, 2003, p.142)

Importance of managing cross-cultural communication can be predicted by the fact that studies have shown that promotion within organizations tends to happen for those employees capable of bridging language and culture gaps (Oertig et al, 2006, ...