Lesson 10: Intercultural Communication

Intercultural Communication

John applied for an engineering position with the home office of a Japanese corporation. He was excited about the possibility of living and working in Japan so he emphasized several key accomplishments. He had been student body president of his high school and held a key position in student government at the university. He graduated in the top 3% of his college class. He also listed all of the athletic and scholastic awards and scholarships he had won. Finally, he finished by explaining his experience working as an intern in different countries and his multicultural experience that would, in his opinion, make him a good fit for the position .

After reviewing John's resume, the Japanese human officer was unimpressed and even somewhat upset by John's resume. Why would this be the case? John is obviously qualified and trained to do the job.

In Japanese culture it is considered to be a sign of pride and arrogance to include personal accomplishments on one's own resume. Humility is a key attribute of a good employee. Especially when the accomplishments of the team or group are considered more important than those of the individual. If you need to talk about accomplishments, they should be attributed to others (i.e. team members, mentors, etc.) and not to yourself. With this information, how could John alter his resume to make it more acceptable to the Japanese corporation (Ting-Toomey & Chung, 2005, Peterson, 2004, Ferraro, 2006)?

Lesson Objective

The purpose of this lesson is to provide an introduction into the challenges of intercultural communication. It will explain major communication styles and how these styles affect and are affected when communicating between cultures on global virtual (GV) teams. It will also explain challenges of communicating with English as a Second Language (ESL) speakers and how to overcome these challenges. Special emphasis is given in how people from different cultures can and should interact through virtual communication technology (VCT) to build trust, develop relations, and access information needed for successful completion of a project.

It should be noted that the comments and examples provided in this lesson are generalizations. Efforts have been made not to over generalize or over simplify aspects of cultural communication. The examples are provided as illustrations, specific counter examples may be made.