Field Research Paper on Aspects of Diversity and Intercultural Communication

Performance criteria and goals are best established by combining the values and norms of each local environment with the home-office’s performance standards. An individual country profile should be developed and should take into account the foreign subsidiary’s environment. This profile should be used to review any factors that may have an effect on the expatriate employee’s performance. Such factors include language, culture, politics, labor relations, economy, government, control, and communication.

Being culturally intelligent: In order to work effectively in a team with global mindset, one needs to be culturally intelligent and fit. Evans et al. (2002) believes that international transfers and assignments are the strongest mechanisms for developing global mindset. International assignments not only provides the employee an exposure, it also provides understanding of global strategies, complexities and ability to work with people having different perspective.

Cross cultural awareness can enhance the potential of the international business person's trip considerably. Let us look at a brief example:

The world as we know it consist of a series of diverse, yet interrelated values, beliefs, and morals that combine to create a variety of cultures. Many societies may vary in cultural content, whether in how they particularly behave, appear, or communicate. In my opinion, individuals’ cultures play a tremendous role in how their day to day communication is achieved. As humans who co-exist which each other in a multicultural world, we often have to learn, understand, and be aware of the cultural differences that exist among our societies. As a Miami local and a Latina, I am definitely aware of the barriers that exist within the variety of the Hispanic cultures that permeate Miami. For instance,

CQ Drive (motivation) is “the interest, confidence and drive to adapt” (p. 135, Van Dan, L., Ang, S., Livermore, D., 2010, Cultural Intelligence: A Pathway for Leading in a Rapidly Globalizing World). It is the motivational aspect of cultural intelligence that measures the degree of the willingness or capability of energy required to adapt cross-culturally. CQ Drive also includes three sub-interests that are evaluated. All of these sub-dimensions are significant in how one approaches a diverse situation. These include:

2. When a company grows in size and makes the decision to expand internationally, it is vital for its image among current and future customers to complete projects effectively and on time. Furthermore, it is also likely that such an expansion would entail the representation of more than one culture among the workforce. Indeed, while many employees will be relocated from the home country, a further proportion will be hired from the host country. To facilitate the relations and

In this case “Kelly’s Assignment in Japan”, we have an example of expatriation poorly managed and unprepared. Different cultures, customs seem very important between Japanese and Westerners. Added to this barrier, we also not that there

The theory developed by Hofstede (1980) suggested that the national cultural differences have greater influence on shaping the management and business operations. The international experience from the repatriates has considerable positive effect on pre-departure training program. Enhanced cultural awareness is expected, since the repatriates are more familiar with the host country culture. The expatriate experience from the repatriates could provide more realistic information on business context in the host country which develop positive attitude to the assignment. They could act as guidance to allocate the resources to ensure that the expatriates familiarized the new culture and produce appropriate behaviours necessary within that culture. In other word, the chance of expatriate failure is likely to be diminished. On the other hand, repatriate experience could also play a role to aid with expatriate selection. Appropriate candidate for expatriate required to have “the ability to learn new business concepts, to supervise subordinates from different culture, to deal with family relocation issues and to adjust personally to a new culture” (Webb, Wright, 1995:39). Thus, we can know that the candidate selection is not solely depends on the technical competence but also the relational abilities. The international

In summary, the home culture of an expatriate predisposes them to certain behaviors and situations. It allows them to operate efficiently in that environment. However, moving to the host-culture changes that operating environment and makes their 'mental software ' less efficient and effective. Culture is clearly a relevant variable when expatriating employees and their families for international business assignments. Training can be applied to ameliorate these effects. Also, training provides insight into the procedural, substantive and informational aspects of their work and personal life in the host location.

Communication can be described as an information exchange with the aim of reaching a common understanding - through written or spoken means, actions or symbols (Boddy, 2017). Inter-cultural communication therefore, is communication between different cultures. This essay will explore issues faced during inter-cultural communication, with reference to my own personal experience. With ever-evolving technology and more companies taking advantage of globalisation than ever before, good cross-cultural communication has never been more important; therefore it is essential that issues arising during inter-cultural communication can be appropriately resolved to ensure the most effective communication. (Hybels & Weaver, 2012).

There are several factors that must be considered when preparing an employee for an overseas assignment. The most important out of all of these factors is ensuring the employee is prepared to interact with difficult cultures. The employee must have the appropriate interpersonal skills and cultural tolerance (SHRM). This factor is important because social sensitivity and communication skills are essential in a new working environment. The employee must know about the Canadian culture to ensure they do not offend anyone. Canada is an English speaking country and therefore foreign language assistance may not be needed. Employees prefer to be relocated to English speaking countries (Chamberlain, 2013). More research can be done on this factor for effectiveness. Organizations need to know the best ways to provide this preparation in the most cost

However, managing teams containing members of numerous different cultures has a variety of challenges and requires a skilled expatriate manager to

they have outlined adjustment in terms of subjective well-being or sad feelings of expatriates concerning their circumstances. What is more, adjustment in terms of socio-cultural characteristics is achieving effectiveness in social exchange with host country nationals. Adjustment is generally “acceptance”, that explains that adjustment refers to psychological discomfort which might be classified as work, general, and interaction adjustment. Work adjustment refers to expatriate comfort with the job; general adjustment refers to expatriate comfort with non-work factors like food, language, transportation, recreation etc.; and interaction adjustment refers to comfort related to interaction of expatriates with host country nationals within and outdoors the work. Cultural adjustment is said to a line activities and work adjustment is said to figure, whereas interaction adjustment is said to each work and non-work environments. Expatriate adjustment is completely associated with job performance and once expatriates properly suits the host country general setting, their job performance are going to be just like such performance within the home country. Additionally, if expatriates develop higher relationships with native staff, this may be useful for expatriates to satisfy the performance expectations of the corporate. What is more, society adjustment is completely associated with expatriate job performance. Some researchers have through empirical observation examined all

Selmer (2005) argued that these are the certain aspects of expatriate adjustment. According to Lee & Sukoco (2010), these three aspects of expatriate adjustment is to examine expatriate performance and effectiveness. In contrast, two

As more businesses turn to international markets, professionals are discovering themselves in overseas locales, wheeling and dealing like never before. Thus to be successful working abroad, one must understand the different aspects of a culture and how the cultural dimensions play a role in business transactions, negotiations, and managerial positions. Once those differences and dimensions are understood a person must be willing to make personal adjustments and implement courses of action to accomplish acculturation. Consequently, our cultural intelligence, literacy, and communication abilities play a significant role in the success or failure of working internationally; furthermore, establishing credibility amongst colleagues.