intercultural communication

At a recent conference on transnational marketing, a CEO commented that “In today’s increasingly globalised business world a knowledge of business alone is not sufficient to achieve success; a greater awareness of intercultural communication is also required.” Do you agree or disagree with his opinion? In a well-structured essay explain your ideas using clear examples to support your ideas. Distance and time are no longer the biggest obstacles to doing business, as result of human innovation and technological progress. And with the development of communications and wide-spread cooperation all over world, more and more companies are exploring the international market. (Johnson 2012) Intercultural communication has become a crucial factor towards the success of Global business. Because different cultures have different values, conflicts and misunderstandings are unavoidable. Most dominant of the challenges in Global business is the communication. Companies realize that professional business knowledge is not sufficient to achieve success unless you were aware of the intercultural communication. Therefore, the thesis emphasizes different cultural values have different business behaviours. To be successful in intercultural communication, it is essential for us to know not only our own cultural characteristics but also that of other countries during the intercultural communication. Based on the analysis three basic cultural types –individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus femininity and low power distance versus high power distance, which can help us find how important the culture impacts are on global business and how to turn cultural differences into a competitive advantage.
There are many differences between individualism and collectivism, the most importance is the value orientation. Collectivism emphasizes the importance of the group over the individual and values conformity. Individualistic cultures stress personal values and independence.

References: 2. John F. 2001, Cross Cultural Conflict Resolution in Teams, accessed,2,Feb,2013, 3. Melany,G 2010, How Culture Affects Management Around the World, accessed,4,Feb,2013,