Improving Intercultural Communication Competence

Question: Discuss about the Improving Intercultural Communication Competence. Answer: Introduction: Culture guides the human practices in a community and is at the heart of effective intercultural communication. Understanding the culture of a particular community is the epitome of correlation between parties from different parts of the globe. To be successful in managing the Australian and the New Zealand business branches, the Japanese manager will need to effective learn the languages, use of gestures, the low-context and low-power distance cultures in the two countries. The Japanese manager should be direct and genuine with words when speaking to Australian and New Zealanders who are a low-context culture. A low-context culture uses direct words to express thoughts and feelings and convey meaning (Nishimura, Nevgi Tella 2008). The two cultures are very straightforward and adore someone who speaks his mind fast and clearly. At the workplace, the managers should give specific directions and make decisions based on facts. At social places, the manager should be very fast to discuss himself, his culture, and his positions at the company to build good social relations with friends. Australians and New Zealanders are receptive to people who are humorous and, the manager should crack jokes to kick start a conversation with ease. The Japanese should carefully utilize non-verbal communication such as maintaining eye contact, physical touching and maintaining personal distance. Nonverbal communication is a key consideration among people of different cultures to avoid offending people (Samovar 2014). Australians and New Zealanders value eye contact in conversation as a measure of sincerity and trustworthiness and the manager should embrace the communication style. Additionally, the manager should shake hands with employees at the workplace as the formal greetings. The distance between two talking people should be an arms-length away, and the manager should ensure minimal physical contact. In a social setting, the manager can use a kiss on the cheek for a well-known female friend or touch on the shoulder when talking to either gender. The manager should adopt a participative communication and an inclusive method of leadership in both New Zealand and Australia being a low-power distance cultures. Power distance notes the differences in opinion on how power is distributed in organizations and, may affect working relationship (Khatri 2009). The two cultures expect their views to count on teams decisions. New Zealanders and Australian adore representation in the high ranks done by staff committees. Organization superiors must adopt a consultative mode of doing ways, soliciting for different views and giving back feedback to workers. The manager should embrace the behavior of rewarding people as individuals and promoting the employees on merit in the two countries. Individualistic cultures value the freedom to achieve personal success and adore the rights to own decisions and achievements (Alagic, Nagata Rimmington 2009). The manager should give work-related privileges on merit. Employees in the two cultures value recognition through merit and favoritism at workplace will result in ill feelings. Australia and New Zealand are a masculine culture and, the manager should encourage a more competitive environment at the workplace and hail success. The masculine culture concentrates on results and getting the work done (Samovar 2014). Moreover, the countries are a short-term orientation culture, and the manager should encourage the achievement of short-term goals. Hence, for efficient managing of the businesses and social interactions, the Japanese manager should understand the culture of Australia and New Zealand. Both countries are a low-context and low-power distance cultures. Additionally, the manager should encourage personal results, masculinity and use non-verbal communication effectively. References Alagic, M., Nagata, A.L. and Rimmington, G., 2009. Improving intercultural communication competence: Fostering bodymindful cage painting. Journal of Intercultural Communication, vol 12, no.2, pp.39-55. Khatri, N., 2009. Consequences of power distance orientation in organisations. Vision: The Journal of Business Perspective, vol. 13 no.1, pp.1-9. Nishimura, S., Nevgi, A. and Tella, S., 2008, February. Communication style and cultural features in high/low context communication cultures: A case study of Finland, Japan and India. In Proceedings of a Subject-Didactic Symposium, Finland, Helsinki. Samovar, L.A., Porter, R.E., McDaniel, E.R. and Roy, C.S., 2014. Intercultural communication: A reader. Cengage Learning.