Cultural Knowledge

Inhaltsangabe:Introduction: Recent global economic developments have led to a shift in focus from the local to the global level and international companies are sending more and more of their employees abroad to take on international assignments. Simultaneously, the interest in inter- and cross-cultural topics has increased in response to the significant changes that have occurred in the context of business operations. One consequence of these changes entails that employees are increasingly exposed to situations where they deal with people of various cultural backgrounds. Scholars in the field of cross-cultural research have investigated the processes underlying intercultural encounters. They strive to come up with strategies that help dealing with such situations. Authors state that intercultural communication may lead to misunderstandings and miscommunication when people of different cultural backgrounds interact. Miscommunication arises if one is unaware of cultural differences and therefore perceives the counterpart’s perspective to be similar to her/his own. Culture may function as a ‘filter’ when the sender encodes and the receiver decodes a message. Meaning is distorted and interpreted in a wrong way if the filter is not understood. The common solution suggested by cross-cultural researchers is the accumulation of knowledge on cultural differences. The latter is seen to have an impact on intercultural communication. The knowledge in turn is assumed to make the situation transparent and ‘manageable’. Consequently, the supply of knowledge about cultural differences has grown extensively. Thereby represent cross-national comparisons the most influencing stream that focus on the variation of values across national cultures. The most widely known research on the subject is that of Geert Hofstede where he introduced the concept of ‘cultural dimensions’. In Hofstede’s study, five different cultural dimensions that affect the communicative behaviour of individuals were identified. The popularity of his approach is impressive mainly because it is easily replicated, extended, and confirmed. Hofstede’s research represents the most cited and popular theory when it comes to intercultural differences. However there are two more important scholars in the field: Edward T. Hall and Fons Trompenaars. All three scholars developed cultural dimensions that are supposed to influence the individual in (intercultural) communication. Their research has been [...]