Effects Of Culture Diversity In Business Communication

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Effects of Culture Diversity in Business Communications

Course: Interpersonal Communication (PSY 1023)
Professor: Terry Peddlesden
Author: Sze Chun Pang (c0628538)
Date: October 6, 2014
Introduction

Nowadays, in the time of globalization, different types and levels of cross-cultural communications are now increasing constantly and appearing frequently in negotiations, trades and social events. As a result, culture has become significantly important in the field of business communications. However, the cultural differences among people often lead to incomplete information and even unnecessary some misunderstandings and embarrassments. In the worst case, they may also cause disagreements and contradictions, affecting the efficiency …show more content…

In the field of international business communications, people always come from different countries and areas with different prospective on political system, habits, religious beliefs and education backgrounds. They have different or even opposite understandings on the same thing. Chinese philosopher Confucius from 2500 years ago said “The differences in the characters of men are chiefly owing to habit. By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart” could totally explain the concept.
There are many types of cultural differences in business communications. The major ones may include the sense of time, sense of space, sense of values and ethics and interpersonal communications. American anthropologist and cross-cultural researcher, Edward T. Hall mentioned that every culture is affected by the manner in which time, context and space are handled.

Sense of time
People from different cultures have different expectations on and methods to cope with time. Edward T. Hall has separated them into two: Monochronic and …show more content…

For example, the number “4”, is very alert to Japanese and Chinese. In events, we should aware of things such as the quantities of the gifts and levels and numbers of the hotel rooms.
Conclusion

As a result, we can see that culture diversity takes an essential role in business communications. In the trend of globalizations, cross-cultural negotiations are being more and more often which we could not avoid anymore. We have to make some clear understandings on different forms of culture diversity and find the ways to overcome them. With the skills on dealing those problems, the effectiveness in communications and the competitiveness of the company would definitely increase.
Bibliography

Legge, J. (1893). Chapter 2. THE CONFUCIAN ANALECTS (p. N/A). Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press.
Time, Context and Space. (n.d.). Benet Davetian 's Sociology Web. Retrieved October 5, 2014, from http://www.bdavetian.com/3%20TIME%20CONTEXT%20SPACE.htm
Hall 's cultural factors. (n.d.). ChangingMinds.org. Retrieved October 5, 2014, from

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