Business Communication -successful communication between cultural sub-groups - Essay Example

Furthermore, both internal and external communication of the organization is to be effective in order for the business to succeed globally (Rosenhauer, 2009). Effective cross-cultural communication is, therefore, one of the keys to success of a multinational business. As such, effective communication in a multinational environment requires both a sender and a receiver of a communicated message to have a common understanding of the same message. However, as Rosenhauer (2009, p. 33) outlines, the complexity of intercultural or cross-cultural communication is that “if sender and receiver have a different cultural background, the chance of accurately transmitting of information is quite low.

” This means values, beliefs and norms that are a characteristic of a certain culture may prevent that culture’s representative form understanding the message correctly, even if both, a sender and a receiver, use one language. This point of view is also supported by Gudykunst (2003) and Schmidt (2001), who argue that the more different the cultures are, the more difficult it is for different cultural sub-groups to understand each other. . Furthermore, one of the most difficult aspects of cross-cultural communication is that, in order to convey a message to a representative of a different cultural sub-group, the communicator might have to provide some additional information related to the message, so that the receiver understands the message properly (Puffer, 2004).

Even if a sender and a receiver share the knowledge of the language they use, their understanding of the same message may be very different. This happens because the two people have different ways of thinking that are stipulated by the customs, systems, traditions and cultures of each. Commonality of these aspects, however, is necessary for effective verbal communication (Yamamoto, 1988). Jeanne Brett and Tetsushi Okumura conducted a study that was aimed at determining how much cultural differences influence the results of intercultural negotiations.

The researchers studies participants of negotiations between representatives of American and Japanese companies. The results showed that cultural differences do have an influence on negotiators’ goals, as well as the outcomes of negotiations. In particular, individualism of the US citizens, in contrast to collectivism to the Japanese, showed to have an impact on the Americans’ views on the self, as well as individual goals that might be different from those of the group. The Japanese, being collectivistic by their culture, were following their group’s interests only (Gelfand and Brett, 2004).

Such differences based on the culture of the negotiators may lead to different information-sharing perspectives. However, problems in cross-culture