Cross-Cultural Communication and Teamwork - Coursework Example

The paper 'Cross-Cultural Communication and Teamwork" is a good example of management coursework. This reflective paper seeks to highlight some of the lessons I learnt regarding cross-cultural communication, teamwork and importance of research during my group assignment. This has been done through a simple yet incisive analysis of my learning experience in the group under appropriate subheadings.

An important lesson on cross-cultural communication

Cross-cultural communication is communication between members of different cultural groups. It may be people from different nationalities or different ethnic groups. However, in cosmopolitan cities, national cultures constitute the greatest differences when it comes to cultures. In the 21st century, cross-cultural interactions are inevitable as people move from one corner of the world to the other with much ease due to improved transport, financial and communication infrastructure that is making the interactions possible. Cross-cultural interactions have been credited with spreading ideas, knowledge and new ways of overcoming problems. However, they are also blamed for the homogenization of global culture scene as dominant cultures assimilate smaller cultures (Maunde, 2011).

While working on this assignment, I did not experience cross-cultural communication with group members as it was two of us in this group. However, I noticed it was hard for us to convince other people to join our group. Perhaps they feared we might have communication problems due to our different languages. I think next time we might have to be aggressive enough to convince more people to work with us or better still try to integrate into another group as there is a lot they people can learn from our culture and also we can learn different cultures and know how to relate with people from other cultures and backgrounds. This will be very important in enriching my studies and interpersonal experiences as well as helping me integrate well in a diversified corporate world where globalization is a reality that businesses have to contend with in a rapidly changing world.

Teamwork and its benefits

For this assignment, I teamed up with another student who happens to be my countryman. We tried a lot to include more people in our group with no success. Eventually wed decided to work on the assignment the two of us. I can honestly conclude that the group was easier to manage since it had only two individuals. This is the case with working with small groups as West, Tjosvold, & Smith (2005) put it; there is the possibility of achieving goals and objectives within a short time since there are few disagreements in the group and few opinions as well so it is easy to decide how to go about a problem.

We complemented the work of each other very well and I appreciated the fact that a team can be able to have an in-depth analysis of an issue if the members refuse to be passive but rather positively critic the opinions of others to achieve a well informed or researched conclusion to a problem or research objective. I realized that working in groups is also a great opportunity of understanding other people and form interpersonal relationships that can go a long way in improving each other's development in studies but also in career and personal lives.