INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION AND THE ORGANIZATION . . .

The effects of cultural diversity on organizations are significant. This topic shows that intercultural communication in terms of why it is important for organizational success and how persons who need to communicate interculturally can do so efficiently. The world is becoming smaller. Organizational men and women, sooner or later, will need to be adept at communicating interculturally. Intercultural communication can define as communication between people whose cultural perceptions and symbol systems are distinct enough to alter the communication event. Essentially, intercultural communication is a more complex form of interpersonal communication because there are more variables that can serve as impediments. Intercultural communication contexts have additional communication noises. Among these noises are perceptual and world view disparities, disparate language systems, disparate nonverbal systems, and ethnocentrism. Cultural factors will likely create additional obstacles for the communicators. Because of the frequency of intercultural interactions in organization, organizational men and women are occasionally, if not regularly, faced with communication challenges related to cultural differences. Overcoming these barriers requires a willingness to become knowledgeable about others, respect for differences, familiarity with other language systems, nonverbal behaviours, and customs, awareness that cultures are not monolithic entities, and adopting an egalitarian frame and abandoning ethnocentric perspectives.