Intercultural Communication

Introduction
 Goals
1. Understand cultural background and complexities as they
influence communication processes.

2. Develop ability to successfully communicate with people from

different cultures.

3. Obtain intercultural skills as a prerequisite to live and work

with people from other cultures.

4. Be able to communicate in business environments of different

cultures to the benefit of professional gain.
What is Culture?
Cultural Onion
 3 Layers of Cultural Onion
1. The outer layer, or material culture = artefacts of culture
●First thing you notice when entering a new country

2. Second layer = norms and values

●They are written and unwritten standards or correct, desired
behavior.
●Values express what we think is good or right.

●They are now as visible as artefacts

 3 Layers of Cultural Onion
3. The deepest layer = basic assumptions
●They are abstract and invisible, we learn them when we were
very young-before we are 7-and we are unaware of their
influence.
●The perception of the world around us and the judgements we
make about others, are very much shaped or distorted by the
basic assumptions of our own culture.
What’s Intercultural Communication all
about?
● Intercultural communication is about bringing basic
assumptions of our own culture to awareness and to
recognize the basic assumptions of other cultures.

● This is in order to communicate creatively and more

effectively with people from other cultures, to use cultural
diversity at work as a source of inspiration and growth, and
to achieve cultural synergy.
 Definition of Culture
● A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned
as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal
integration, that has worked well enough to be considered
valid and therefore, to be taught to new members as the
correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those
problems (Schein,2004)
 Definition of Culture
● A group’s set of shared norms and values expressed in the
behavior of the group’s members (Huijser, 2006)
● Culture is the way in which a group of people solve
problems (Trompenaars, Hampden Turner 1998)
● Culture is the collective programming of the mind, which
distinguishes the members of one group or category of
people from another (Hofstede 1991)
 Cultural Programming
Culture is Learned
●We are programmed through upbringing, socialization, norms
& values, and perception.
 Culture and Subcultures
“Culture is the collective mental programming of the human
mind”

List of subcultures:
●A continent (Asian culture, American Culture)

●A country (Indonesian culture)

●Ethnic (Javanese culture)

●Urban or Rural

●Religion

●Social Class

●Gender

●Age
● Culture is Coherent
● Culture is Learned
● Culture is the View of a Group of People
● Culture ranks What is important
● Culture furnishes attitudes
● Attitude is learned; attitudes are based on beliefs as well as values; Beliefs
are convictions or certainties based on subjective and often personal ideas
rather than on proof or fact.

● Culture dictates how to behave

THANK YOU