Cross-Cultural Communications for Managers it

¶ … Cross-Cultural Communications for Managers

It is essential for business managers to be aware of the importance behind cross-cultural communication. The consequences of not being aware can be costly for American corporations. Munter (1993, p. 10) states that the cost of failed overseas assignments for American corporations exceeds $2 billion dollars per year. Due to such high costs it is necessary for American businesses to consider training their managers in cross-cultural communication.

In order to be effective cross-cultural communicators, American managers must perform the following seven activities: they must set communication objectives, choose a communication style, improve their credibility, select and motivate their audiences, decide upon an appropriate message strategy, overcome language difficulties, and become familiar with the proper nonverbal behaviors. As far as setting communication objectives, managers must become aware of how different cultures view time frames and the achievement of objectives. This means that some cultures may view future events and destinies as being under one's control while others may believe that these things are predetermined and thus uncontrollable.

As far as choosing a communication style, managers have to choose based on discovering whether the society they are in is democratic or not. This is important to know because certain styles are better suited for democratic societies while other styles are more appropriate for autocratic societies. Another way of choosing is for managers to discover whether a culture values individualism or collectivism because individualistic cultures require styles different from those required by collectivist cultures.

As far as improving one's credibility, this means managers have to know how their hierarchical power, personal goodwill, expertise, image, and values will affect their audience. Different cultures emphasize on different facets of credibility over others; for example one's hierarchical power may be important to one culture while one's level of expertise may be more important to another. In terms of selecting and motivating one's audience, certain factors are involved. In some cultures one will need to involve several types of audiences besides one's work superiors and subordinates, such as political officials, tribal members, and powerbrokers. Once an audience has been selected, one will have to find out what could motivate them to work based on their culture. For example if acquiring material wealth motivates members of a culture, one would appeal to them based on that.

In terms of setting a message strategy, managers have to determine what structure, channel and format the message will be in. With message structure managers have to discover whether the culture prefers for messages to be given directly or indirectly. With message channels managers have to discover which technologies the culture favors communicating in and whether it prefers to communicate through speaking or writing. As far as message format managers need to know what standard paper sizes and presentation layout the culture is used to.