1.

Recognizing ethical choices :

(A) Ethical Dilemma:

When choosing between two ethical alternatives. You are facing an ethical dilemma.

(B) Ethical Lapse:

When choosing an alternative that is unethical or illegal, you are experiencing a ethical lapse.

2. Making ethical choices:

The following questions can help to make right ethical choices:

1. Is this message legal?

2. Is this message balanced?

3. Can you live with this message?

4. Is this message feasible?

3. Adopting an audience-centered approach

You need to keep your audience in mind and your message must make sense and give a meaning to your
audience. In order to do this, you must ensure that your message is not bias, keeping the education, age,
status and style of audience in mind. You must convey the message in a way that is understandable to
your audience.

4. Improving Your Intercultural Sensitivity

Culture is a shared system of symbols, beliefs, attitude, values, expectations, and norms for behavior
and the cultural differences must be recognized while communicating.

(A) Recognizing cultural differences

There are cultural difference in context, ethics, social customs and nonverbal communication.

Context: In high context culture, individuals expect that you should recognize situational cues, such as
gesture or tone of voice. High context culture relies more on verbal communication and more on the
context of nonverbal actions and environmental settings to convey meaning. The Chinese and Korean
people have high context culture.

On the contrary, low context culture has the complete opposite behavior.

Ethics: This can differ from culture to culture. So, making ethical choices can be extremely difficult
because of the variation in culture. When communicating across cultures, keep your messages ethical by
applying four basic principles.
  Actively seek mutual ground
 Send and receive messages without judgment
 Send messages that are honest
 Show respect to cultural differences

(B) Overcoming ethnocentrism, the belief that one’s own cultural background is superior to all others.
This can cause many conflicts while communicating among different cultures.

A few simple suggestions can help to overcome ethnocentrism.

 Acknowledge distinctions
 Avoid assumptions
 Avoid judgments

(C) Polish your written intellectual skills

The following tips can help to prepare you with effective written communication for multicultural
audiences:

 Use plain English

 Be clear
 Address international correspondence properly
 Cite numbers carefully
 Avoid slang, idioms, jargon, and abbreviations
 Be brief
 Use short paragraphs
 Use transitional elements

(D) Polish your oral intellectual skills

The following tips can be helpful:

 Try to eliminate noise

 Look for feedback
 Speak slowly and rephrase your sentence when necessary
 Clarify your true intent with repetition and examples
 Don’t talk down to the other person
 Use objective accurate language
 Observe body language

(E) Improving your workplace sensitivity

 Find common ground

 Send clear messages
 Deal with individuals
 Learn when to be directed
 Test your understanding
 Look past the superficial
 Be patient
 Be persistent
 Admit cultural biases
 Stay flexible
 Find common ground
 Send clear messages
 Deal with individuals
 Learn when to be direct
 Test your understanding