Cross-Cultural Communication in Business
What cross-cultural communication means in a business setting, why it is on the rise, the benefits and barriers it brings, and a simple framework for getting it right.
Academic discussions of cross-cultural communication in business are unusual, because they are one of the rare cases in the social-science literature where experts agree on a handful of basic facts. (If you have spent time in academia, you will know how elusive scholarly consensus can be.)
Those basic facts are: (a) cross-cultural communication in business is becoming more common; (b) done well, it yields substantial strategic benefits for a company; and (c) communicating clearly across cultures, especially in business, can be extremely difficult.
Holding these three facts together raises an important question: how can we improve cross-cultural communication in business? Given that it is increasingly common, clearly beneficial, and genuinely difficult, what evidence-based strategies can we apply to make it succeed?
To work towards an answer, this article:
- Defines what cross-cultural communication is
- Discusses its rise in business
- Examines its benefits for a company
- Assesses why clear communication across cultures is difficult in business
- Outlines a strategy for improving it
A full list of references (in Harvard style) is given at the end.
What Is Cross-Cultural Communication?
The term cross-cultural communication is defined consistently in the literature: it refers to any exchange of information between individuals from different cultural backgrounds (Padhi, 2016).
For example, suppose Mr Crane is an American manager at a proofreading and editing company who hires two new employees, both born and educated in Germany. Whenever Mr Crane and his new colleagues exchange information, they are engaging in cross-cultural communication.
It is worth emphasising that cross-cultural communication covers both verbal and non-verbal forms (Teodorescu, 2013). If you want to learn more about non-verbal communication, Tiechuan’s (2016) study in the Asian Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences offers a useful summary.
The Rise of Cross-Cultural Communication in Business
Communicating across cultures is becoming more common in business as workplaces grow more culturally diverse (Okoro, 2012; Bove and Elia, 2017; Thomas and Peterson, 2017). That diversity, in turn, reflects rising levels of globalisation, immigration, and technological advancement (McLuhan, 1996; Ashcroft and Bevir, 2016).
As a result, almost all businesspeople, whatever their role, are likely to communicate cross-culturally at some point in their careers (Thomas and Peterson, 2017). Sometimes this is essential for business internationalisation; at other times it underpins international mergers and acquisitions and other activities (Seidschlag and Zhang, 2015).
In short, the rise of cross-cultural communication in business is a direct consequence of growing cultural diversity across every walk of life. A useful concept here is McLuhan’s (1996) “global village”, which captures the increasingly interconnected, international nature of the modern world — business included.
The Benefits of Effective Cross-Cultural Communication
At the national level, multiculturalism and cross-cultural engagement are associated with substantial benefits, including improvements to macroeconomic conditions such as GDP and trade growth (Washington, Okoro, and Thomas, 2012; Thomas and Peterson, 2017).
At the level of the individual firm, effective cross-cultural communication is well documented as a source of competitive advantage (Ghatge and Dasgupta, 2017). It can improve profitability, talent retention, team performance, dynamism, productivity, employee satisfaction, and much more (Pudelko, Reiche, and Carr, 2011).
The Difficulties of Communicating Clearly Across Cultures
The existence of high-context and low-context cultures is a major source of difficulty. The idea comes from Hall’s (1976) context theory, which holds that a person’s cultural background affects their ability to comprehend and appreciate complex messages.
According to the theory, people from a low-context culture (for example, parts of Europe) tend to find complex messages harder to interpret than their counterparts from high-context cultures (for example, parts of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa). To learn more, see the influential work of Hall and Hall (1990) and Kittler, Rygl, and Mackinnon (2011).
A second difficulty is that businesspeople are often simply unaware of the cultural differences between themselves and their counterparts (Teodorescu, 2013), which can easily lead to a communication breakdown (Hale, 2013). Imagine a negotiation between Finnish and American businesspeople: if each party is unfamiliar with the other’s culture, each is likely to misread the other’s culturally informed behaviour — for instance, American “talkativeness” and Finnish “reserve” (Carbaugh, 2005).
A final difficulty also concerns negotiation. According to Fang (2006) and Abbasi, Gul, and Senin (2017), the negotiation style an individual or team adopts is strongly informed by their nationality. Competing and accommodating styles, for example, are relatively common among Chinese and Pakistani managers respectively (Abbasi, Gul, and Senin, 2017). A breakdown can occur when either party fails to recognise and engage with the other’s culturally informed negotiation style.
Strategies for Improving Cross-Cultural Communication
Failures in cross-cultural communication can have serious consequences for a business, including damage to the consistency of corporate culture, its values, and the firm’s long-term profitability (Ghatge and Dasgupta, 2017).
Identifying strategies for improvement is therefore essential. Many exist, but this article focuses on Lawrence’s (2004) framework for cross-cultural engagement.
One of the framework’s great strengths is its simplicity. A short sequence of steps describes the broad process anyone should follow to achieve effective cross-cultural communication:
- Identify your own cultural beliefs;
- Become familiar with cultural differences and beliefs;
- Understand and engage with those differences and beliefs;
- Communicate successfully across cultures.
Around this process sit the cultural differences that the parties should keep in mind — many of which we have touched on here, including verbal and non-verbal communication, work practices, and cultural heritage. For the rest, it is worth surveying the literature for an introduction.
References
Abbasi, B. A., Gul, A., and Senin, A. A. (2017) Negotiation styles: A comparative study of Pakistani and Chinese officials working in the Neelum-Jhelum Hydroelectric Project. Journal of Creating Value.
Ashcroft, R. and Bevir, M. (2016) Pluralism, national identity, and citizenship: Britain after Brexit. The Political Quarterly. 87 (3), 355–359.
Carbaugh, D. (2005) Cultures in Conversation. London: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Fang, T. (2006) Negotiation: The Chinese style. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing. 21 (1), 50–60.
Ghatge, A. and Dasgupta, S. (2017) Exploring the competitive advantage of cross-cultural communication training: A conceptual semantic study. International Journal of Management and Development Studies. 6 (3), 30–40.
Hale, S. (2013) Interpreting culture: Dealing with cross-cultural issues in court interpreting. Perspectives: Studies in Translation Theory and Practice. 22 (3), 321–331.
Hall, E. T. (1976) Beyond Culture. New York: Doubleday.
Hall, E. T. and Hall, M. R. (1990) Understanding Cultural Differences: Keys to Success in West Germany, France, and the United States. Yarmouth: Intercultural Press.
Kittler, M. G., Rygl, D., and Mackinnon, A. (2011) Beyond culture or beyond control? Reviewing the use of Hall’s high-/low-context concept. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management. 11 (1), 63–82.
Lawrence, J. (2004) University Journeys: Alternative Entry Students and their Construction of a Means of Succeeding in an Unfamiliar University Culture. PhD thesis. University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba.
McLuhan, E. (1996) The source of the term ‘global village’. McLuhan Studies. 2.
Okoro, E. (2012) Cross-cultural etiquette and communication in global business: Toward a strategic framework for managing corporate expansion. International Journal of Business and Management. 7 (16), 130–138.
Padhi, P. K. (2016) The rising importance of cross-cultural communication in the global business scenario. Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Science. 4 (1), 20–26.
Pudelko, M., Reiche, S., and Carr, C. (2011) Why international strategy and cross-cultural management matter in business research and education. Schmalenbach Business Review.
Seidschlag, I. and Zhang, X. (2015) Internationalisation of firms and their innovation and productivity. Economics of Innovation and New Technology. 24 (3), 183–203.
Teodorescu, A. (2013) Non-verbal communication in intercultural business negotiations. Quality – Access to Success. 14 (2), 259–262.
Thomas, D. C. and Peterson, M. F. (2017) Cross-Cultural Management: Essential Concepts. London: SAGE Publications.
Tiechuan, M. (2016) A study on nonverbal communication in cross-cultural communication. Asian Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences. 4 (1).
Washington, M. C., Okoro, E., and Thomas, O. (2012) Intercultural communication in global business: An analysis of its benefits and challenges. International Business and Economics Research Journal. 11 (2), 217–222.