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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