CHAPTER 11: Intercultural
Communication in Business,
Health Care and Educational
Settings
FLAN 3440
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Intercultural Management
• Successful cross-cultural management depends
on the ability of managers understand the:
– Cultural context
– Organizational culture
– Environmental context
– Perceptual context
– Organization’s emphasis on group membership
– Verbal and nonverbal codes of the foreign
counterparts
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Power Distance & Organizations
• Characteristics of large power distance
cultures:
– Status conscious
– Employ top-down communication
– Mindful of employee welfare
– Employees not expected to participate in
decision making.
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Environmental Context
• Perspective on the environment including
– Information load
– Privacy
– Company’s overall orientation to nature
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Perceptual Context
• The attitudes, emotions, and motivations of
the persons engaged in communication and
how they affect information processing
– Categorizing
– Stereotyping
– Group Membership
– Verbal and Nonverbal codes
– Language
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Japanese Management Practices
• Wa (harmony)
• Taiso (morning exercise)
• Salaryman
• Karoshi (overwork death)
• Shushin koyo (lifetime employment)
• Nenko joretsu (seniority grading)
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SOURCE: Beer, J. E. (2003 and 2016). The Life of a
Salaryman: Time, Space, Career Path. Retrieved from
http://www.culture-at-work.com/jworklife.html.
Used with permission. Neuliep, Intercultural Communication, 7e. © SAGE Publications, 2018. 8
Japanese Managerial Strategies
• Firm’s Authority
• Personal Development
• Socializing
• Gaijin
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SOURCE: Table adapted from Lewis, R. D. (2006). When
Cultures Collide: Leading Across Cultures, pp. 515–517.
Copyright © 2006, Boston: Nicholas Brealey. Neuliep, Intercultural Communication, 7e. © SAGE Publications, 2018. 10
German Management Practices
• Facts more important than face
• Factual honesty more important than
politeness
• State-regulated apprentice system
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German Management Practices
• Compartmentalization/Doors
• Skill and experience most important
promotional considerations
• Implement shadow worker programs
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Mexican Management Practices
• Individual effort and self-starting are met
with suspicion
• Mexican workers value harmony above all
else
• Organizations considered paternalistic
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Mexican Management Practices
• Value cooperation over competition
• Rigid hierarchy
• Mexican workers prefer close supervision
• Innovative/risk taking behavior is
inappropriate
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Chinese Management Practices
• Business practices guided by Confucian
ideals
• Trust and Social bonds with business
relationships important
• Relationships viewed as unequal
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Chinese Management Practices
• No separation between social and
organizational relationships
• Management is responsible for decision
making
• Organizational conflict dealt with through
mediation and compromise
• Gift giving now forbidden
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Culture, Intercultural Communication, and Health
Care
• Different cultural groups have different
beliefs, values, and behaviors associated with
their health and health care
• Illness generally attributed to a factor that is:
– within the individual
– within the natural environment
– societal
– supernatural
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Health Communication
“The study and use of communication strategies
to inform and influence individual decisions
that enhance health.”
• Patient–Provider Communication
• Paternalism vs. Consumerism or Mutual
Participation
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SOURCE: World Health Organization.
(2015). World Health Statistics 2015.
Publications of the World Health
Organization can be obtained from
WHO Press, World Health
Organization, 20 Avenue Appia, 1211
Geneva 27, Switzerland.
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Healthcare Communication
• Patients in collectivistic, large power
distance cultures prefer to participate in
decision-making about health care
• Provider’s nonnative accent has minimal
effect on patient perceptions
• Microcultural group status in the U.S. does
affect health care communication between
patient and provider
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Intercultural Communication and Educational Settings
• Teacher-Student relationship
• HOW students go about learning and
teachers go about teaching may vary
considerably across cultures
• Learning Styles
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Intercultural Communication and Educational Settings
• Experiential Learning Theory (ELT)
– learning results from (1) grasping experience,
and (2) transforming experience.
– concrete experience (CE) and abstract
conceptualization (AC)
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Teacher Immediacy
• The physiological and psychological distance
between interactants
• Recommendations that may be helpful for teachers
in an intercultural classroom:
– 1. Motivate learning
– 2. Balance concrete and conceptual information
– 3. Balance structured and unstructured activities
– 4. Make liberal use of visuals
– 5. Don’t just lecture
– 6. Allow students to cooperate on some assignments
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Summary
• Explored principles necessary to consider
when you are in a culture other than your
own:
– Doing business
– Managing people
– Providing health care
– Teaching students
• Examined ways to be successful
communicators in a variety of contexts
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