Intercultural
(noun)
Representative of many different cultures simultaneously.
Examples of Intercultural in the following topics:
-
Considering Cultural and Interpersonal Differences
- Intercultural competence is an individual's ability to communicate with, and adapt to, the cultural norms and expectations of each employee or customer.
- Perspectives vary as to what constitutes intercultural understanding.
- The following figure highlights the three building blocks of one intercultural approach: cross-cultural competence, language proficiency, and regional expertise.
- Intercultural exchange drives both manager and employee to think further about what predispositions each holds and how best to maximize the positives and minimize the negatives.
- To attain a high level of cultural awareness, along with intercultural communication skills, requires thinking about and understanding different people and their respective cultures.
-
Cultural Intelligence
- Cultural intelligence is the ability to display intercultural competence within a given group through adaptability and knowledge.
- The concept of cultural intelligence is exactly what it sounds like—the ability to display intercultural competence within a given group through adaptability and knowledge.
- An interesting perspective on cultural intelligence is well represented in the intercultural-competence diagram, which highlights the way that each segment of cultural knowledge can create synergy when applied to the whole of cultural intelligence, where overlapping generates the highest potential CQ.
- This diagram illustrates the three factors that constitute an effectively intercultural understanding for management: Regional Expertise, Language Proficiency, and Cross-Cultural Competence.
-
Gender and Diversity
- The most effective way to ensure proper communicative efficiency in diverse teams is to improve intercultural competence.
- Intercultural competence is simply the ability to communicate with different groups and cultures effectively and appropriately—"effectively" meaning that shared goals are being accomplished, and "appropriately" meaning doing so without violating the values, norms, relationships, or expectations of others.
- Intercultural competence is a widely studied area of organizational communications and behavior.
- Of course, intercultural considerations are only some of the issues that arise in diverse teams.
-
Considerations when Managing a Global Corporation
- Strong global management skills, intercultural competence, and a sensitivity to cultural issues are necessities for global managers.
- The development of global management skills, as well as the intercultural competence to identify and develop sensitivity to cultural issues, becomes a larger factor in the overall success of these business models.
- This is best achieved through understanding what constitutes a high level of intercultural competence and leveraging this confidence to achieve the desire results in global management (see Boundless's "Cultural Intelligence" section).
- To summarize the concept of intercultural competence, the basics necessary for effectively developing this is a linguistic understanding, a cultural understanding (religion, ethics, values, etc.), and regional expertise (ethnicity/geography).
- Sensitivity to important cultural considerations and the development of a highly perceptive intercultural competency is a prerequisite for any global corporations considering geographic expansion into a new market.
-
Cultural Transmission
- Intercultural competence is the ability to communicate successfully with people of other cultures.
- In interactions with people from foreign cultures, a person who is interculturally competent understands culture-specific concepts in perception, thinking, feeling, and acting.
- The interculturally competent person considers earlier experiences free from prejudices, and has an interest in, and motivation towards, continued learning.
- The development of intercultural competence is mostly based on the individual's experiences while communicating with different cultures.
-
The Challenge of Globalization
- Globalization is the international integration of intercultural ideas, perspectives, products/services, culture, and technology.
- In general terms, globalization is the international integration of intercultural ideas, perspectives, products/services, culture, and technology.
- Intercultural marketplaces allow for differing demographics, larger market potential, a more diverse customer base (and therefore more diverse product offering) and a highly valuable human resource potential.
-
Culture Bias
- How we communicated with one another in spite of and in support of our diverse backgrounds is at the heart of intercultural communication.
-
References
- Training police for intercultural sensitivity: A critical review and discussion of the research.
-
Definition and Challenges of a Global Corporation
- There are differences in strategies and approaches in every geographic location worldwide, and attracting talented managers with high intercultural competence is a critical step in developing an efficient global strategy.
-
Building a Diverse Workforce
- Therefore, it is a top priority for multinational corporations to develop a strong intercultural competence in their management and apply this competence to the human resource framework.