Cross Cultural Communication Case Study

Cross-Cultural Communication in Business

Meet Toby Taylor, a young Northwood graduate with a degree in Business and Information Technology. He has just been hired by IBM, a multinational computer manufacturing company. Toby was informed after his training he has the option to work in Magdeburg, Germany. IBM provides multicultural training, as well as resources designed to provide its managers with in-depth essential information to conduct business in other countries. Toby’s goal is to become a diversity program manager for IBM. His hope is to impress the company and implement his knowledge into the cultural trainings. He plans to do this by providing an informational report depicting multicultural communication within business. His report details

Messages are often misconstrued due to communication styles, workplace philosophy, and cultural norms among both cultures. Communication styles can be classified as either verbal or non-verbal. Verbal forms of communication can be depicted into two different patterns, high/indirect and low/direct context. A culture of high/indirect context uses contextual elements such as non-verbal communication to convey their message. Only members of the speaker’s culture can understand the full message being communicated. Where low/direct context is in contrast, meaning communication is forward and simple. Both, America and Germany are considered low/direct context countries (Goman, C. K., Ph. D. (2014, March). We prefer conversations to be explicit and to the point, unless within a gathering of close friends or family. Other variations in verbal communication can cause misunderstanding such as phrasing, intonation, syntax, and the use of slang

Even though cultures are vastly different they can still share a similar dimension of a value or norm. An example, would be Germany and the United States both have a low power distance for positions of achieved status, meaning we accept the differences within a hierarchical scale (Passport to Trade. (n.d.). As does in many countries we share the view of time as monochromatic, linear, completing tasks in an order. Universalism, the way of the United States and Germany, is to acknowledge life’s inequality. However, we choose to treat everyone equally for the good of everyone (“Chapter 3 - Styles of Communication.