As we all know when traveling to another country it is very difficult to communicate with someone, especial if one does not speak the language at all. It would even more difficult in communicating with someone if the only medium of communication was by phone, text, email or webcam only. This brings me to the peer review cases that I read, in that they all mention the difficulties in communicating with different cultures and how they overcame those obstacles. The obstacles in dealing with time zone differences, having a culture understanding and motivating the group(s). It is very obvious that when communicating and working with people from very different cultures it hinders projects due dates and mistakes are made because of …show more content…
The one good outcome of knowing all the information up front and sharing it with others is that it will build up trust within the group(s). Zaugg et al. (2015) stated, “In interviews, students indicated that this sharing of upcoming cultural holidays and events became instrumental in building trust among team members” (p. 90). Sharing information is a simple but useful tool to use in the workplace if you need to start building trust with co-workers or managers with his or her employees.
The other issue was in having group(s) commit and follow-through with projects, which meant that an accountability needed to be established. Going back to the school project example, the way they made those students be accountable for the project was to give students for-credit approaches. Some schools made it a course requirement or registered the students in the course of the special projects all of which were part of the curriculum already. The other approach was to give them non-credit, which was less favorable with students and would not take the Global Virtual class serious. This resulted in less of an effort by the non-credit students and reduced the trust among team members. This proves a valuable point in dealing with virtual teams, in that all members of the team need a true sense of accountability in order to work on the project or have a breakdown in trust just like the students in
Different social, professional and cultural contexts may affect relationships and the way people communicate due to of a lack of understanding or knowledge of one another’s background and culture. This could be through their race, religion, ethnicity or where they come from. Each one of these can have similar or very different ways to communicate. For example
The harmony of the existing cultures is crucial for the survival and success of any communication and ignoring these aspects may challenge the communication. For example, speaking to employees in Middle East is quite different from Switzerland; talking about personal things is acceptable by Swiss. Individuals who move to other countries unprepared for cultural differences may face unpleasant frustration when communicating. However, those who try to learn other cultures are likely to avoid individual tragedies. For example, Americans doing business in Mexico need to learn the local language to enhance interactions with the locals.
Another example of how different social and cultural differences effect the way people communicate is a parent of a pupil I work quite closely with can not read. This is a social difference because it effects the way she communicates socially with other parents at the school and also the staff who work their. We can not communicate with this
All communication is cultural. It draws on ways we have learned to speak and give nonverbal messages. We do not always communicate the same way from day to day, since factors like individual personality, mood, and the context of the situation interact with the variety of cultural influences we have internalized that influence our choices. Communication is interactive, so an important influence on its effectiveness is our relationship with others. Do they hear and understand what we are trying to say? Are they listening well? Are we listening well in response? Do their responses show that they understand the words and the meanings behind the words we have chosen? Is the mood positive and receptive? Is there trust between them and us? Are there differences that relate to ineffective communication, divergent goals or interests, or fundamentally different ways of seeing the world? The answers to these questions will give us some clues about the effectiveness of our communication and the ease with which we may be able to move through conflict. The challenge is that even with all the good will in the world, miscommunication is likely to happen, especially when there are significant cultural differences between communicators. Miscommunication may lead to conflict, or aggravate conflict that already exists, or in the sad of case of girl developing epilepsy and both her parent’s Hmong culturally clashing with her Western medicine
Communicators who succeed in a diverse workplace must educate themselves about different cultures and co-cultures. Treating people from different cultural backgrounds with respect is essential. Finally, being willing to acknowledge and discuss cultural differences can help communicators understand and appreciate one another. The impact of culture and listening is very important in everyday life. Think about how many times you have had problems understanding someone from a different culture or even a different sub-culture. Now think about how many times someone from a different cultural background may have had problems understanding you. I know realize once that e-mail was
The USA is a very diverse nation with many different groups of people, and that being said it is a wonder our nation is able to coexist despite many cultures being integrated within our population. Several things that came to mind while researching this topic were; ,“What kind of social norms do other cultures have?”, “ How would I have turned out if I would have been born in that country with a different culture?”, and “ What do people from a different context think about the way I communicate?”. We oftentimes disregard a very crucial entity that is essential to any civilization, and that is the way the populous communicates with each other. Foreigners oftentimes struggle to adapt living in a new country because they have to overcome many endeavors, and have to deal with the initial culture shock. Aside from learning a new language they have to learn certain social cues that were not used in their native countries, and most of the time they will have to learn the social cues on their own. Even if you learn the language prior to your arrival you will still find it difficult to have a conversation with a local. There are two distinct ways to communicate, and it is oftentimes influenced by the culture an individual is born in. There are cultures that are considered to be high context, and their counterparts would be those who grew up in cultures considered to be low context. An individual’s upbringing greatly influences how well they would be able to adapt to communicating
With so much cultural diversity in the United States, it is important to know how to properly communicate with others who don't share the same cultures as you. There are certain principles of cross-cultural communication; they can be used to successfully communicate within diverse communities. The first principle says that the bigger the cultural or linguistic difference among people, the more likely there will be communication breakdown. The textbook gives the example "Communicating with customers from Iran will likely lead to more communication difficulties for you than would be true if you were communicating with customers from England" (Cheesebro, Thomas, Linda O'Connor, and Francisco Rios (2010). Differences in an individual's value
In today’s modern company virtual teams are interacting in different ways tan with traditional physical teams. Bock lists three ways virtual teams are getting their assigned activities accomplished, and what the company must provide for them to be successful.
When working with different cultures we have to be able to work in a professional matter. Culture is important because is an everyday life in our workplace when interact with other people. Being self-awareness of the other person culture when addressing thing to the client, the language that we use that won’t made them feel offend and appropriate approach such as a hand shack or a smile. Also looking things from a difference perspective such as asking then their opinions and maybe that can you understand their decisions. We have to respect the client’s space for example building a relationship little by little so the client can feel comfortable to open up to us a social worker.
The experience gained from working in this virtual team has shown me the importance of collaboration. Instructions were given by Ronie after discussion. I often found that my ideas were implemented in part or in whole and we all had (limited by the distance, time differentials and the limited time available) input into both the construction and finalisation of the
Rationale: A good research to conduct for communication accommodation might investigate how different culturals communicate with each other. How
In a culturally diverse team communication is difficult because they may have different linguistic backgrounds, accents which makes it difficult for the conversation within the company. Lack of language proficiency of different people will cause lack of team work and less interactions with each other. In addition, individuals will take time to come to a single opinion because diverse nationals have differing opinions regarding the task. Reacting to authority also varies because most of the western people prefer to convey their message in a direct way, while it may not be so obvious in non-western people.Hence, there are lot of conflicts in people from different cultural
The first intercultural communication issue that I have in my workplace is a co-worker and myself have a very large communication gap. His English is not that well and it causes major communication issues. For example, we recently went on a delivery to a new client and he wanted to bring the items on a “borrowed” shopping cart. I tried to explain to him that it is a new client and it is not a good look for us. But instead he chose to go his route and ignored me which made me very frustrated.
Ebrahim, A., Shamsuddin, A. & Taha, Z. (2009). Virtual Teams: A Literature Review. Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Science, 3(3), 2653-2669.
Cross-cultural communication is the process of exchanging meaningful and unambiguous information across cultural boundaries, in a way that preserves mutual respect and minimizes antagonism, that is, it looks at how people from differing cultural backgrounds endeavour to communicate. The study of cross-cultural communication was originally found within businesses and the government both seeking to expand globally. Communication is interactive, so an important influence on its effectiveness is our relationship with others. All communication is cultural -- it draws on ways we have learned to speak and give nonverbal messages. We do not always