Cross Cultural Communication

CROSS CULTURAL COMMUNICATION

Cultures provide individuals with distinct frameworks of understanding, through which they interpret the world, and individuals from different cultures will likely interpret the ‘same world’ in radically different ways. This cultural difference can result in misunderstanding, which can negatively affect cross-cultural business-to-business relationships.  Globalisation and related advances in communications technology have effectively reduced geographic distance but business executives must still bridge this cultural distance in order to secure and maintain cross-cultural business relationships in the current global market.  In this highly interactive course, participants will acquire an understanding of the role culture plays in international business communication through intensive group work, thought experiments and role-playing. They will be provided with context-specific communications strategies that can minimize or overcome potentially harmful cultural differences.  The aim of this course is to enhance participants’ sensitivity to cultural differences, to signpost the dangers of ethnocentrism and to cultivate participants’ understanding of the constitutive role that context, paralanguage and non-verbal communication plays in cross-cultural business interactions.

THE PROGRAMME INCLUDES:

• Cultural theory: The construction of individual and collective cultures
• Creating intercultural work relationships and connections
• The social hierarchy: Exploring workplace differences due to power distance
• Improving intercultural communication (part one): The connection between language and culture, non-verbal communication and paralanguage
• Improving intercultural communications (part two): Engaging in direct and indirect communication and decoding messages
• Cultural interpretation of time: Punctuality, short-term or long-term world views
• Intercultural working styles and world views
• Multi-cultural teams: Strategies for working in an international team
• Managing a different culture
• Strategies for improving cultural intelligence

PARTICIPANTS WILL LEARN HOW TO:

• Communicate effectively with colleagues and clients from both high-context and low-context cultures
• Adapt oral and written messages to meet particular cultural requirements and expectations
• Utilise non-verbal communication to convey meaning in face-to-face meetings
• Avoid or cope with hot button issues
• Devise and deploy strategies to develop cross-cultural business-to-business relationships

For group Booking please call us direct on 061 502342 or info@languagelink.ie