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Cross-cultural communication is a field of study investigating how people from differing culture backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they endeavor to communication across cultures. Intercultural communication is a related field of study.
Cross-cultural deals with the comparison of different cultures. In cross-cultural communication, differences are understood and acknowledged, and can bring about individual change, but not collective transformations. In cross-cultural societies, one culture is often considered “the norm” and all other cultures are compared or contrasted to the dominant culture.
There has become an increasing pressure for universities across the world to incorporate intercultural and international understanding and knowledge into the education of their students. International literacy and cross-cultural understanding have become critical to a country's cultural, technological, economic, and political health. It has become essential for universities to educate, or more importantly, "transform", to function effectively and comfortably in a world characterized by close, multi-faceted relationships and permeable borders. Students must possess a certain level of global competence to understand the world they live in and how they fit into this world. This level of global competence starts at ground level- the university and its faculty- with how they generate and transmit cross-cultural knowledge and information to students.Bartell, M. (2003). Internationalization of universities: A university culture-based framework. Higher Education, 45(1), 46.
Cross-cultural communication requires an interdisciplinary approach. It involves literacy in fields such as anthropology, cultural studies, psychology and communication. The field has also moved both toward the treatment of interethnic relations, and toward the study of communication strategies used by co-cultural populations, i.e., communication strategies used to deal with majority or mainstream populations.
The study of languages other than one's own can serve not only to help one understand what we as humans have in common, but also to assist in the understanding of the diversity which underlines our languages' methods of constructing and organizing knowledge. Such understanding has profound implications with respect to developing a critical awareness of social relationships. Understanding social relationships and the way other cultures work is the groundwork of successful globalization business affairs.
Language socialization can be broadly defined as "an investigation of how language both presupposes and creates anew, social relations in cultural context".Rymes, (2008). Language Socialization and the Linguistic Anthropology of Education. Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2(8, Springer) It is imperative that the speaker understands the grammar and Teaching Prosody of a language, as well as how elements of language are socially situated in order to reach communicative competence. Human experience is culturally relevant, so elements of language are also culturally relevant. One must carefully consider semiotics and the evaluation of sign systems to compare cross-cultural norms of communication. There are several potential problems that come with language socialization, however. Sometimes people can overgeneralize or label cultures with stereotypical and subjective characterizations. Another primary concern with documenting alternative cultural norms revolves around the fact that no social actor uses language in ways that perfectly match normative characterizations. A methodology for investigating how an individual uses language and other semiotic activity to create and use new models of conduct and how this varies from the cultural norm should be incorporated into the study of language socialization.
Yaila Zotzmann, Dimitri van der Linden, and Knut Wyra looked at Asia, Europe, and North America. Together they had a focus on employees in each continent with a focus on error orientation. The authors define this as "one's attitude toward dealing with, communicating about, and learning from errors". They studied employees from China, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, the United States of America, and Vietnam. Country differences, cultural values, and personality factors were also accounted for. The study was quantitative and looked at a single organization that had offices in eight countries. Results showed error orientation varied based on the culture they were in. Americans tend to be more open to errors and learn from them as well as speaking about their mistakes, whereas Japanese subjects had the lowest tolerance for errors. The Japanese showed concern about how it may impact those around them and the organization. The study also referred to Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory. The findings show a potential relationship between error orientation and an employee's culture. Other important factors are the country they live in or personality dimensions.
Cross-cultural communications and boundaries are present in all sectors. In Europe, cross-cultural communication in primary care is important, for example in dealing with migrants in the present European migrant crisis. Maria van den Muijsenbergh conducted a study on primary care in Europe as well as a new program, RESTORE. The program stands for: "Research into implementation STrategies to support patients of different ORigins and language background in a variety of European primary care settings". The countries participating are Ireland, England, Scotland, Austria, the Netherlands, and Greece. Muijsenbergh found in her study that there was a range of issues in primary care for migrants in Europe. There are both language and culture barriers between medical professionals and patients, which has an impact on their communication. Even with the translation methods that technology provides, language barriers remain to fall fast. The study also found that migrants were more likely to use emergency services, which was consistent in countries with a steady influx of migrants or few migrants, and during times of economic prosperity or recession. Muijsenbergh found that migrants have worse health than native Europeans, with her findings suggesting that this is a result of the language and cultural barriers. She recommends medical professionals use different training and educational resources in order to become cross-cultural communicators.
Research indicates that the impact of lateral feedback is complex, affecting various team performance dimensions differently. For instance, this communication can lead to increased individual performance and team effort but may not necessarily improve overall team performance, highlighting the importance of complex communication practices that acknowledge the sophisticated dynamics of team interactions (Tavoletti et al., 2019; Wisniewski et al., 2020). The application of Feedback Intervention Theory (FIT) emphasizes focusing feedback on task-related aspects rather than personal attributes to optimize its effectiveness (Kluger & DeNisi, 1996).
Given the global nature of modern teams, tools like GlobeSmart Profiles and Erin Meyer's Cultural Mapping offer valuable insights for tailoring feedback in culturally intelligent ways, thereby enhancing team performance across diverse settings (Lane & Maznevski, 2019; Meyer, 2024). Emphasizing constructive, culturally informed, and task-related dialogue is essential for fostering an environment that leverages lateral feedback as a tool for continuous improvement, collaboration, and enhanced creativity within teams.
With the increasing pressures and opportunities of globalization, the incorporation of international networking alliances has become an "essential mechanism for the internationalization of higher education".Teather, D. (2004). The networking alliance: A mechanism for the internationalisation of higher education? Managing Education Matters, 7(2), 3. Many universities from around the world have taken great strides to increase intercultural understanding through processes of organizational change and innovations. In general, university processes revolve around four major dimensions which include: organizational change, curriculum innovation, staff development, and student mobility.Rudzki, R. E. J. (1995). The application of a strategic management model to the internationalization of higher education institutions. Higher Education, 29(4), 421–422. Ellingboe emphasizes these four major dimensions with his own specifications for the internationalization process. His specifications include: (1) college leadership; (2) faculty members' international involvement in activities with colleagues, research sites, and institutions worldwide; (3) the availability, affordability, accessibility, and transferability of study abroad programs for students; (4) the presence and integration of international students, scholars, and visiting faculty into campus life; and (5) international co-curricular units (residence halls, conference planning centers, student unions, career centers, cultural immersion and language houses, student activities, and student organizations).
Above all, universities need to make sure that they are open and responsive to changes in the outside environment. In order for internationalization to be fully effective, the university (including all staff, students, curriculum, and activities) needs to be current with cultural changes, and willing to adapt to these changes.Cameron, K.S. (1984). Organizational adaptation and higher education. Journal of Higher Education 55(2), 123. As stated by Ellingboe, internationalization "is an ongoing, future-oriented, multidimensional, interdisciplinary, leadership-driven vision that involves many stakeholders working to change the internal dynamics of an institution to respond and adapt appropriately to an increasingly diverse, globally focused, ever-changing external environment".Ellingboe, B.J. (1998). Divisional strategies to internationalize a campus portrait: Results, resistance, and recommendations from a case study at a U.S. university, in Mestenhauser, J.A. and Ellingboe, B.J (eds.), Reforming the Higher Education Curriculum: Internationalizing the Campus. Phoenix, AZ: American Council on Education and Oryx Press, 199. New distance learning technologies, such as interactive teleconferencing, enable students located thousands of miles apart to communicate and interact in a virtual classroom.Bartell, M. (2003). Internationalization of universities: A university culture-based framework. Higher Education, 45(1), 48.
Research has indicated that certain themes and images such as children, animals, life cycles, relationships, and sports can transcend cultural differences, and may be used in international settings such as traditional and online university classrooms to create common ground among diverse cultures (Van Hook, 2011).Van Hook, S.R. (2011, 11 April). Modes and models for transcending cultural differences in international classrooms. Journal of Research in International Education, 10(1), 5–27. http://jri.sagepub.com/content/10/1/5
Many Master of Science in Management programs have an internationalization specialization which may place a focus on cross-cultural communication. For example, the Ivey Business School has a course titled Cross Cultural Management.
Jadranka Zlomislić, Ljerka Rados Gverijeri, and Elvira Bugaric study inter-cultural competency of students. As globalization progresses the world has become more interconnected, leading to job and study opportunities abroad in different countries and cultures, where the students are surrounded by a language that is not their mother tongue. Findings suggest that the internet is helpful but, not the answer; students should enroll in language and inter-cultural courses in order to fight stereotypes and develop inter-cultural competence and make them into better cross-cultural communicators.
Cross-cultural communication gives opportunities to share ideas, experiences, and different perspectives and perception by interacting with local people.
Cross-language issues are of growing concern in research of all methodological forms, but they raise particular concerns for qualitative research. Qualitative researchers seek to develop a comprehensive understanding of human behavior, using inductive approaches to investigate the meanings people attribute to their behavior, actions, and interactions with others. In other words, qualitative researchers seek to gain insights into life experiences by exploring the depth, richness, and complexity inherent to human phenomenon. To gather data, qualitative researchers use direct observation and immersion, interviews, open-ended surveys, focus groups, content analysis of visual and textual material, and oral histories. Qualitative research studies involving cross-language issues are particularly complex in that they require investigating meanings, interpretations, symbols, and the processes and relations of social life.
Although a range of scholars have dedicated their attention to challenges in conducting qualitative studies in cross-cultural contexts, no methodological consensus has emerged from these studies. For instance, Edwards noticed how the inconsistent or inappropriate use of Translation or interpreters can threaten the trustworthiness of cross-language qualitative research and the applicability of the translated findings on participant populations. Researchers who fail to address the methodological issues translators/interpreters present in a cross-language qualitative research can decrease the trustworthiness of the data as well as compromise the overall rigor of the study Temple and Edwards also describe the important role of translation in research, pointing out that language is not just a tool or technical label for conveying concepts; Indeed, language incorporates values and beliefs and carries cultural, social, and political meanings of a particular social reality that may not have a conceptual equivalence in the language into which will be translated. In the same veing, it has also been noted that the same words can mean different things in different cultures. For instance, as Temple et al. observe, the words we choose matter. Thus, it is crucial to give attention to how researchers describe the use of translators and/or interpreters since it reflects their competence in addressing language as a methodological issue.
In addition, as van Ness et al. observe, challenges of translation can be from the perspective that interpretation of meaning is the core of qualitative research. Interpretation and representation of meaning may be challenging in any communicative act; however, they are more complicated in cross-cultural contexts where interlingual translation is necessary.). Interpretation and understanding of meanings are essential in qualitative research, not only for the interview phase, but also for the final phase when meaning will be represented to the audience through oral or written text. Temple and Edwards claim that without a high level of translated understanding, qualitative research cannot shed light on different perspectives, circumstances that could shut out the voices of those who could enrich and challenge our understandings.
Heinemann Medical.
Karseras, P., & Hopkins, E. (1987). British Asians' health in the community. John Wiley & Sons.Temple and Edwards point out the absence of technically focused literature on translation. This is problematic because there is strong evidence that communication across languages involves more than just a literal transfer of information.Bhabha, H. K. (1994). The location of culture. Routledge.Simon, S. (1996). Gender in translation: Cultural identity and the politics of transmission. Routledge.Spivak, G. C. (1992). The politics of translation. In M. Barrett & A. Phillips (Eds.), Destabilising theory: Contemporary feminist debates (pp. 177–200). Polity PressTemple, B. (1997). Issues in translation and cross-cultural research. Sociology, 31 (3), 607–618. In this regard, Simon claims that the translator is not someone who simply offers words in a one-to-one exchange. Rather, the translator is someone who negotiates meanings in relation to a specific context. These meanings cannot be found within the language of translation, but they are embedded in the negotiation process, which is part of their continual reactivation. For this reason, the translator needs to make continuous decisions about the cultural meanings language conveys. Thus, the process of meaning transfer has more to do with reconstructing the value of a term, rather than its cultural inscription.
Today, the main contributions concerning issues of translation and interpretation come from the field of health care, including from transcultural nursing. In a globalized era, setting the criteria for qualitative research that is linguistically and culturally representative of study participants is crucial for improving the quality of care provided by health care professionals.Yach D. (1992). The use and value of qualitative methods in health research in developing countries. Social Science & Medicine, 35 (4), 603–612. Scholars in the health field, like Squires, provide useful guidelines for systematically evaluating the methodological issues in cross-language research in order to address language barriers between researchers and participants.
In this context, positionality refers to the ethical and relational issues the researchers face when choosing a language over another to communicate their findings. For example, in his study on Chinese international students in a Canadian university, LiLi, Y. (2011). Translating Interviews, Translating Lives: Ethical Considerations in Cross-Language Narrative Inquiry. TESL Canada Journal, 28(5), 16–30. considers the ethical and relational issues of language choice experienced when working with the Chinese and English language. In this case, it is important that the researcher offers a rationale behind his/her language choice. Thus, as Squires observes, language plays a significant role in cross-cultural studies; it helps participants represent their sense of self.
Similarly, qualitative research interviews involve a continuous reflection on language choices because they may impact the research process and outcome. In his work, LeeLee, S. (2017). The Bilingual Researcher's Dilemmas: Reflective Approaches to Translation Issues. Waikato Journal of Education, 22(2), 53–62. illustrates the central role that reflexivity plays in setting researcher's priorities and his/her involvement in the translation process. Specifically, his study focuses on the dilemma that researchers speaking the same language of participants face when the findings are intended to an English-speaking audience only. Lee introduces the article by arguing that "Research conducted by English-speaking researchers about other language speaking subjects is essentially cross-cultural and often multilingual, particularly with QR that involves participants communicating in languages other than English" (p. 53). Specifically, Lee addresses the problems that arise in making sense of interview responses in Mandarin, preparing transcriptions of interviews, and translating the Mandarin/Chinese data for an English-speaking/reading audience. Lee's work then, demonstrates the importance of reflexivity in cross-language research since the researcher's involvement in the language translation can impact the research process and outcome.
Therefore, in order to ensure trustworthiness, which is a measure of the rigor of the study, Lincoln & Guba,Lincoln, Y., Guba, E., 1985. Naturalistic Inquiry. Sage. Sutsrino et al.Sutrisno, A., Nguyen, N. T., & Tangen, D. (2014). Incorporating Translation in Qualitative Studies: Two Case Studies in Education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (QSE), 27(10), 1337–1353. argue that it is necessary to minimize translation errors, provide detail accounts of the translation, involve more than one translator, and remain open to inquiry from those seeking access to the translation process. For example, in research conducted in the educational context, Sutsrino et al. recommend bilingual researchers the use of inquiry audit for establishing trustworthiness. Specifically, investigators can require an outside person to review and examine the translation process and the data analysis in order to ensure that the translation is accurate, and the findings are consistent.
Over 3000 participants from 110 countries have attended their courses, they have run in 5 continents. Its flagship International Leadership Programme is a 12-day residential course for 30 people from on average 20 countries (aged 18 – 35).
WYSE International's website states its aims are to:
These theories have been applied to a variety of different communication theories and settings, including general business and management (Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner) and marketing (Marieke de Mooij, Stephan Dahl). There have also been several successful educational projects which concentrate on the practical applications of these theories in cross-cultural situations.
These theories have been criticized mainly by management scholars (e.g. Nigel Holden) for being based on the culture concept derived from 19th century cultural anthropology and emphasizing on culture-as-difference and culture-as-essence. Another criticism has been the uncritical way Hofstede's dimensions are served up in textbooks as facts (Peter W. Cardon). There is a move to focus on 'cross-cultural interdependence' instead of the traditional views of comparative differences and similarities between cultures. Cross-cultural management is increasingly seen as a form of knowledge management. While there is debate in academia, over what cross-cultural teams can do in practice, a meta-analysis by Günter Stahl, Martha Maznevski, Andreas Voigt and Karsten Jonsen on research done on multicultural groups, concluded "Research suggests that cultural diversity leads to process losses through task conflict and decreased social integration, but to process gains through increased creativity and satisfaction."
Nonverbal contact involves everything from something as obvious as eye contact and facial expressions to more discreet forms of expression such as the use of space. Experts have labeled the term kinesics to mean communicating through body movement. Huseman, author of Business Communication, explains that the two most prominent ways of communication through kinesics are eye contact and facial expressions.
Eye contact, Huseman goes on to explain, is the key factor in setting the tone between two individuals and greatly differs in meaning between cultures. In the Americas and Western Europe, eye contact is interpreted the same way, conveying interest and honesty. People who avoid eye contact when speaking are viewed in a negative light, withholding information and lacking in general confidence. However, in the Middle East, Africa, and especially Asia, eye contact is seen as disrespectful and even challenging of one's authority. People who make eye contact, but only briefly, are seen as respectful and courteous.
Facial expressions are their own language by comparison and universal throughout all cultures. Dale Leathers, for example, states that facial expression can communicate ten basic classes of meaning.
The final part to nonverbal communication lies in our gestures, and can be broken down into five subcategories:
The last nonverbal type of communication deals with communication through the space around people, or proxemics. Huseman goes on to explain that Hall identifies three types of space:
Oral and written communication is generally easier to learn, adapt and deal with in the business world for the simple fact that each language is unique. The one difficulty that comes into play is paralanguage, how something is said.
Indigenous Australian conversational interactions – in contrast to those of westerners – tend to be: "communal" or multilateral, i.e. they involve several people simultaneously; direct eye contact is not important (or even deliberately minimised); listeners control the interaction, and; conversations are "continuous" or episodic, spread over a longer, less definite timeframe.
Spoken language is the most important communication tool between people. Spoken language is seen as people's natural production tool, more common and normal, while written language is seen as intricate because of its broad rules. The same language has different meanings in different contexts. When two countries that use the same language communicate, there may also be some misunderstandings due to some dialects. American English and British English is an example for when two different of cross-cultural communication.
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