Intercultural communication in business
Who we are?
We are the group of HKSJ which means Having Knowledgeable and Sensational Journal and also combined from the first letter of our English names. This is also the aim that we want to achieve. We want to write a blog which is knowledgeable and impressed others a lot. We hope we can do it in the near future.
Our group members are:
Harmony Leung
Hi, everyone. I’m Harmony, a year 2 student major in Global Business System Management. In fact, I like to meet new friends and chat with others, so that I think it is very important to know how to communicate with others in an efficient way, especially when I communicate with one who has different cultural background. I hope that I can improve my communication skill after study this course and everyone can learn something by visiting our blog. I’m looking forward to your comments which help us to improve. Thank you.K Wong
Hello. I am K, a GBSM student in year2. I like music and playing guitar so much. And I think music can be a common language in the world because we can know each others' thinking in the music. Hence, music actually can facilitates the intercultural communication. Besides, I hope everyone can get something in our blog. Thank you.
Seth Ng
Hello, nice to meet you all. I am Seth, year 1 GBSM student. I like playing basketball and listening to Hip-hop and R&B music. Moreover, meeting new friends around the world is so great but I know some culture difference have to be tackled. So, I hope all of us can learn from each other and reading our blog. Then, we can be as a nice friend to others. Please always come to visit us, you definitely will be impressed by our blog and learn something from here.Jeffrey Lee
Writing this blog is one of the assignments of a course which called Intercultural Communication for Business. In this blog, we will have some comments on this course or any other materials that relate to this course, e.g. how culture affects personal communication or business communication.
First of all, let us take a look of the following video~
What message do you get from this video?
Why there are cultural misunderstandings between different people in the video?
Is it all only because of different language?
Here, we would like to have some ideas on a blog related to “Intercultural Communication” and give some comments to the blog. The link of the website is http://mhafidz46.blogspot.com/.
Intercultural communications is not only about languages
At the beginning, the author has introduced the definition of the term “Intercultural Communication”, importance of this term, and how it affects the business field. The author has mentioned that many companies have some misunderstanding on this term or are not really familiar with this. Many companies think that Intercultural communication is just about the skill or ability of language. However, in author’s view, that’s not the truth. It should be more than language, something such as a variety of religious, social, ethnic, and technical backgrounds should also be concerned, and so that’s why many companies fail to deal with this issue.
Who is the author? Who will be interested? Is that you?
The author’s name is Mohd. Hafidz Hussien. He is a lecturer who is aged 63. And the viewership is people who are interested in intercultural communication such as students, his friends and his relatives.
The purpose of the blog…
Although the author doesn’t clearly mention his motivation of writing this article, we think that his motivation is to state out what intercultural communication really is, how intercultural communication would affect us in the business environment, and the right way to deal with this issue.
We need more Creativity and Innovation
When it comes to promoting the creativity and innovation of intercultural communication, our group deems it fails to do so. Because the blogger just defines the term “Intercultural Communication”, and explains the importance of it, i.e. mostly from textbooks rather than in his own opinions. It lacks the creativity and innovation. In addition, those tips mention in his blog are quoted from others. It has room to improve. We cannot see any impressive ideas or views in the blog. We like this blog because we can have a clear meaning of intercultural communication. It points out language is just one of the important elements of intercultural communication. Besides language, we should pay attention to religions, culture, social and ethnic backgrounds since these are also important components of an effective intercultural communication system. We think this blog is useful for us to understand intercultural communication concepts.
What really inspire us?
In fact, one thing that inspires us a lot is that people in different culture using different communication methods, not just because of different language, but also the different background, rules, norms etc. Western people prefer a direct communication and not to be silent at all time in the discussion, but Chinese are completely different. They want others indirectly response to their ideas even others disagree. So we should be aware of this. Respect each other and understand other’s cultures are what we should do to avoid any arguments triggering by culture shock. Moreover, intercultural communications is not only an expression, but also a sharper of cultural identities, so we should also pay attention to this.
What can be improved by the blogger?
We suggested that the blogger should share more of his perspectives, so he can inspire the readers more. Hence, the readers would be more willing to share their views by leaving some comments rather than just like reading an article about intercultural communication.
More about Intercultural communication...
The clickable link in the following is the other blog we found it is interesting: http://www.clintrogersonline.com/blog/2008/04/18/nobel-peace-prize-winner-shirin-ebadi-iran-children-law-violence-and-peace/.
We eventually chose this one because we do not have enough knowledge understanding of the concept of intercultural communication. As theme of our blog is intercultural communication in business, we should have basic knowledge and understanding of it. And all details of intercultural communication are given by the blog we have chosen. It also points out some useful tips such as underestimating the cultural differences in the communication would eventually lead to some conflicts. People who work in the multinational enterprise need to communicate with others who are in different culture. Hence, we should be aware of our non-verbal language during listening, prevent others from having a sense of alienation. This is one of the tips stated in the blog. Moreover, as these scenarios we will inevitably encounter in the future, our group deems those tips useful to us. And the blog has provided a lot of tips, which are about communicating with people in the business environment. Enjoy and have fun.
Thank you you guys
Thank you for all the good comments that you guys left us. We really appreciate that. All of you suggested us to add the subtitles, self-introduction of us, more pictures and clips. We all agree that what you guys suggested and think all of the feedback are reasonable, so in order to make the blog more interesting and complete, we make some changes according to your suggestions. We added the subtitles and insert more pictures and clips in our blog. The background of the blog has also changed which make the blog become more attractive, so you will feel more comfortable when reading our blog.
In addition, one of you had asked a good question: What solutions can be or something else as we cannot learn every culture to prevent such problem?
In our point of view, it is too difficult to eliminate all the problem arises from communication and even intercultural communication. What we try to do is to minimize the problem arises. We should try to learn as much culture as we can, respect each other and try not to do something what break the communication or lead to misunderstanding. By doing so, we could avoid having troubles during the communication. In other words, just try to learn more and know more others’ culture and make the communication in better way. Practice makes perfect. No one does things perfect at first time.
16 意見:
Thank you that you've introduced an useful blog to us. In this blog, as you mentioned, the definition of "intercultural communication" is clearly stated, and also clarify what people generally misunderstand about intercultural communication. However, I think his blog is like a "website" rather than a "blog" as he does not update it frequently and regularly. And I agree with what you said is that the author just quoted others opinion with very few his own expression, the readers cannot understand the writer's own point of view. There is lack of interaction between the writer and the reader even they write comment, but no one to reply it.
I appreciate your work as you do not just say yes to what the author said, but to criticize him. This is good for us to train our critical thinking skill, which is also important in communication. By the way, you can make your blog more attractive by putting some photos in it, such as the photo of the author, or when you are talking about different cultures have different religions, you can post some photos of any religious activities.
First of all, thank you for sharing the interesting blogs you have found. I appreciate the effort that you made in your blog. As the trend of globalization becomes significant, more and more people will meet with different cultures and languages. So, intercultural communication in business is a important topic which we should discuss and learn.
In your blog, it is good to see the design is clear and tidy. The viewers would feel comfortable when they read through the blog. Also, you have already pointed out that the blog which you have chosen is fall to promote the creativity and innovation of intercultural communication since that the author was just copied the knowledge from textbooks rather than his own opinion.
However, the blog that you have chosen may lack interaction between the author and the viewers. It is because he does not update his blogs and reply the comments regularly. Moreover, your blog can put more photos in it in order to make it more attractive. Otherwise, the viewers may feel bored and would not visit your blog anymore. Furthermore, you can add the subtitles which it can easy for the reader to get the main point.
Anyway, keep going you guy. Hope you success on the blog!
Thanks for your sharing!
You have a nice definition on your group name. It’s fit and suitable to the course aim too!
You have made a detailed introduction to the author and the blog. I can know a lot about the blog before surfing it. However, I would be more appreciated if you can provide some photos or some interesting posts in that blog.
I have looked over the blog you introduced. It is quite good. There are video clips for visitors which gain their interests. The post is educational, with clarified subtitles. I have learnt a lot from this passage about recent concern and effectiveness on intercultural communication. Some difficult vocabulary are hyperlinked to web sites with definitions. He also kindly provided other recommended readings to visitors. It encourages visitors to know more by looking over those readings.
However, the blog “Comm/Politics” is too wordy. And the subtitle is too unobvious for readers to read. The layout of this blog should be more reader-friendly because he posts messages to share! And I agree what you said that the author seemed provide too many objective information but do not clearly show his view on the issue he posted. I also expect his improvement if he would share his comments on issues.
The other blog you recommend is also good! The posts are more organized, but somehow less related to intercultural communication and takes more time for reader to understand what author of this blog want to say. You guys really done a good job! I hope that your group would continue hard working and share more good blogs!
Thanks for your sharing.
Your blog design is clear and simple, it made us easy to read. But it will be better if you add the subtitles in your article. Also some photos could be added in order to make it more attractive. If it is available, more description about your memebers is preferable.
But I think the blog you introduced is not a good blog actually. Because the author doesn't update the blog frequently. Also the mere article about Intercultural Communication is only a duplicate from the other website. The content from the blog is not the author's own point of view. We cannot know something about the author's opinion, so that there is lack of interaction between the writer and the readers.
On the contrary, I prefer another blog which you found more[http://www.clintrogersonline.com/blog/]. It catch my attention once I saw the blog name"Wandering the World"! Also it is more orderliness. The content is rich and resourceful. I know more about Intercultural Communication within this blog. It wrote more about the author's own opinion and experience as he is a professional in related aspect. I learn a lot from it!
Thanks you for your sharing in this blog.
The blog that you found is really helpful and educational. The author uses rounds of findings and reference to demonstrate the term “intercultural communication” in a simple and clear way, and I also like the video uploaded because it present intercultural communication in this different way. It is really inspiring and innovative.
This blog inspires me to think why we need intercultural communication in contemporary situation, most of international and leading enterprises are likely to diversify their business and undergo globalization, that’s why we need intercultural communication which can enhance communication between people with different culture, background, and social value. This can utilize the human resource in the company. Sometime, intercultural communication is not restricted in the company, it always appears in everywhere. Thus, it is a useful skill that we all need.
I think your blog is really good, but I think it would be better if you can add more pictures, audio or video in your blog. For example: you can add the video in the http://mhafidz46.blogspot.com/ to your blog, it could be helpful to be more interesting and attractive.
Thanks for reading it.
Good blog you chose
The author, Mohd. Hafidz Hussien, of the blog (http://mhafidz46.blogspot.com/) is a wonderful man. He shared a comprehensive and meaningful content of intercultural communication. I agree with his speech about the intercultural definition. We should also take religious, personal background, social, ethnical and educational value into account to consider as a cultural background. People with different cultural background communicate with each other form an intercultural communication.
He has also explained how an intercultural communication is needed around all levels of people including not only the management stage need profound intercultural communication skills, but also the functional areas of the company. I like the part that your group sums up the major intercultural communication skills to the readers. But it will be more cleared if there are image or mind map concluding the author’s intercultural communication skills in an organization.
I will keep reading your blog
I really inspired by what the author said. He said listening should also be one of the intercultural characteristics. At the beginning of my thinking, I don’t think passive listening process can sharpen a cultural identity. While I keep reading his blog, his perspectives changed my mind. For example, he quoted “a person who communicates by leaning forward and getting close may be very threatening to someone who values personal space”. That’s true and I experienced it while talking with a French teacher before. I love reading his blog, he helps me to think in the reverse way of how communication can succeed in the intercultural organization. I thank so much for your group, HKSJ, for posting such a satisfying blog to enrich my knowledge.
Intercultural communication is very important in the business nowadays, a lot of companies located in different countries and the customers are all over the world, so we need to learn different culture and accept the others. Something that I agree with you is the blog you are choosing lacks of creativity and innovation; the author did not comes up with some creativity ideas or suggestion and just tell us the importance of effective intercultural communication. After I read it, I think you are not really choosing the right blog since it is not really having a big relationship with creativity and innovation.
Besides, I want to talk about your design of your blog. It is really simple and the viewers can read comfortably, however, it is not attractive. It lacks of some pictures and the colour, it just have the write background and black words. What you should improve is post some pictures, also in your introduction part; you should put your group member’s photo and write more details. Moreover, I agree someone said you may have subtitles in your blog because it is a little bit unclear unless I read through the paragraph.
First of all, thank you for your group for introducing a new blog (http://mhafidz46.blogspot.com/) to me. As a reader who newly touches the area of intercultural communication, I think the author of the chosen blog help me to have a better understanding of what ‘intercultural communication’ and why it is important. Particularly I agree with the writer that ‘different cultures use different communication methods’. Since globalization is very common in different aspects, it is one of the major reasons why we have to learn intercultural communication.
’However, personally I don’t think it is a recommended blog since it only contains 3 posts and the author hasn’t updated the blog for 7 months already. The only one article in the blog cannot really inspire me a lot or provide me much new information. Besides, the content is quite difficult to read because the writer didn’t separate each paragraph and bold the headings.
For HKSJ blog, I appreciate your work and you did mention the good and bad aspects of the chosen blog. I can see that this team has really gained some insights from the chosen blog. However, it would be great if your team can introduce each member in more details and what your course is about. Then as a viewer who knows nothing about your course is still able to understand and expect what is your blog related to.
Anyway, I am looking forward for your upcoming blogs. I am excited to learning more about intercultural communication from your entries. : )
I agree that intercultural communication not only consist of language, but also religions and ethnic, etc. It is unreasonable that there are only included language. As other elements is quiet important as well.
There are no doubt that language really affect the communication. But it is not the most important thing. We are able to do some actions or write pictures to represent our thinking or meaning instead of speaking.
More important, intercultural communication mainly focus on the issue of ethnic and respect of other cultures. I totally agree what the Author said. Magority of peoples usually ignore other elements that only mention language. Learning other languages is good but we know how to respect other cultures is more important out of all.
Understanding how to respect others is another types of performance of communication. Take doing business as an example, a company is hard to sell their product or band name if they don't know others culture when a company want to enter a new market. Wal-Mart is a good example, at the beginning, Wal-Mart sells steak and pork chop as their major product. But they find that it is not so popular by selling this kind of products. After recognizing chinese culture, they sell seafoods, chicken, rubbit meat instead of steak and pork chop. Even though Wal-Mart is the biggest supermarket in all over of the world, they still need to recognize china market to run their business.
That's why language is not the most essential thing that company can hire the local residents as their employees.
I love the idea of this blog. Keep going~
Thank you for your sharing about Interculture Communication.
The blog your group had shared with us is really a good web for us to understand what Interculture Communication really mean. After reading the blog I have a deeper understand. Actually in my thought, I think that language is the first way for interculture communication, because the best way to communicate with people is chatting. However, different language may make the communication difficult. Second, is to understand other country's background, it may make the communication easier. These are what in my mind when think Interculture Communication.
I agreed with your group that the website is not really call a blog, as it is a more acedemic website than a blog. It is explaining the meaning like textbook. Hope the author may share more about what he think people can do to improve the communication, because his thoughts may stimulate the viewers mind too. I think your sharing is really useful, it can make people have a more clear understand about Interculture Communication.
I learnt a lot about intercultural communication after reading your blog and the blog that you suggested, thank you so much! The picture of “The Power of Communication” indicates the importance of understanding how culture influence communication. It is a great picture. I agreed that even people speak the same language, communication barriers still exists. It is because of the differences among cultures and these can affect communication between people. Therefore it is a need for people to learn more about the culture differences, including language, ideologies, rituals and myths.
The blog that you suggested provided a lot of readings about cultural diversity and also it taught me a lot on intercultural communication and an interesting video. I agreed that the blog should provide more real life examples about intercultural communication to illustrate how diversity affects the communication between one and other.
Your blog is very nice and I am looking forward!
I agree with your points, the blog you provided is really boring…. And it is avoidable to read those textbook when you study on it.
As soon as I have no knowledge on Intercultural Communication, I feel like Intercultural Communication is something you must take care when communicating or cooperating with different nationalities.
Good illustration on the different aspects on discussion, and the consequence of that. It sounds really inefficient when having troubles in a meeting. It really raises my interest on it, but you cannot learn every culture to prevent such problem, don’t you think so? What solutions can be or something else?
I like your blog, simple and readable. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for sharing this blog. Your blog is readable, since the word is simple. Besides, I think you did a great job!!! This time, your blog is done better than the last one. It contains more photos, video aids and the clickable links. Those can give us more information on Coca Cola in a more convenience way.
Since your choosing company is Coca Cola Company, why you merely focus on the product, Coca Cola?? It would be more comprehensive if you also consider products like Qoo, BonAqua, Spirte, Minute Maid, etc. because the company has also achieved “Globalization” by these products. You can also use those products for discussing the intercultural communication and the cultural identity. Just like you have mentioned before, the Coca Cola Company is an American company. Its products are westernized and there are only a few Asian favor products. Qoo is one of the products that have the Asian favor. Soya bean milk is one the favor. I think this favor is to adapt the Chinese. Soya milk is very popular among Chinese. They almost drink it every day. I think this can facilitate the intercultural communication through the beverage giant (the Coca Cola Company) because it will sell all over the world. The foreigners may notice that soya milk is one of the Chinese favorite drinks.
I think that the Coca Cola Company has a good image to the public, since they are the sponsors of many international events. It sponsors, for example, Beijing2008 Olympic Games, 2010 Shanghai Expo, 2006 Germany World Cup and the coming 2010 South Africa World Cup. It nearly sponsored all international events in the past. I think they had always delivered a good image to the public. Besides, you have suggested that Coca Cola Company can try to use more environmental friendly materials to produce the products. Can you give specific suggestions on “how”? I think it is very difficult for them to do so. Instead, I suggest that they may do marketing on environmental issues, for instance, if the customers use their own bottle to buy their products in the convenience shop like 7-11, they can enjoy a 10% discount off.
Hi, hksj. I have read your blog. The post about globalization is really good. I think Coca Cola, who is an international branding, certainly have some impact over the cultures outside the USA.
You mentioned that the Coca-Cola Company has caused pollution in all aspects, and they should be rectified in order to make the company to be a more social responsible one. I certainly agree with this. The Coca-Cola Company is a large company that has influence to many countries’ culture, if it impacted being environmentally friendly into their organizational culture, it can certainly spread the message of being environmentally friendly. However, I saw that Howard Pang questioned about the practicality of your suggestion. I would like add a point to Pang’s question. The Coca-Cola Company has actually implemented a few ways in order to reduce the impact to the environment. They have used a new technique, which is known as the CDL+ techniques, in making the aluminum cans. This technique can reduce the use of aluminum by 5% as the wall of the can is thinner. Moreover, Coca-Cola Company advocates the use of recycled aluminum in making its cans. Currently, Coca-Cola uses 60% of the worlds’ recycled aluminum.
I would like to raise a question about the second suggestion you made – do more charitable activities so as to improve the company’s image. Does doing more charitable activities necessary means that the company will have a better brand image? I would like to state the example of Marlbolo. Believe it or not, its mother company – The Philips Morris Company, is one of the top ten companies in the world’s largest donators. However, from my own observation, Marlboro does not have a good brand image. The above example shows that a good brand image depends much on the product it sold, but not on the amount of the charitable activities it has done.
Keep up with your good work!
Thank you for your sharing.
I agree that Globalization may take over some tradition habits, but I don’t think it is necessary bad. If people choose the global one and give up the local one, if people all feel happy, I don’t think this is a bad thing. If a local culture going to be take over, that means it must to be improved. If it finally to be taking over, I can see no one enjoy it anymore and it should be disappear.
But globalization may help the local culture too. In terms of Coca Coke, it helps the local drinks to grow. Try to recall your memory, have you even seen bottle of tea (I am not saying lemon tea, I mean the traditional Chinese tea) being sell in the market? The idea that drinks in cans and bottles help the tradition culture to be growth too. Of course, some time some traditional local culture can jump to the world become globalize start with some globalization invade into the market. I think that globalization may damage, or help local culture, it all depends on how the local culture itself.
You mention that Coca-Cola reduces conflicts or inconveniences in the processes of intercultural communication. I think so too. I think that drinking Coca Coke is an action. We all love it and share the joy it brings to us. Because it is drinks, we don’t care where it comes from, or why it comes. Just like people enjoy watching World Cup, people enjoy football matches whatever the countries is.
You mention that Coca Cola have American image, well, maybe some countries thinking of that. But I think Coca Cola successes in promoting itself as a global brand. Although Coca Cola producing the same products around the world (Don’t say the water is different….), Coca Cola must use local stars, or promote in a localize way, to let people feel Coca Cola is not belong to any country, at least I think so.
You mention that Coca Cola affect people choosing drinks when diet, but I don’t think so. People are still drinking lemon tea or coffee, etc. (except fast food shop, but they didn’t provide traditional drinks, or they make those drinks so bad, right?). But I agree that Coca Cola affect people choosing drinks when go for gathering. It must be Coca Cola when you go BBQ, or parties, as a mean of joy. If you do not have Coca Cola on BBQ, you would think something is missing.
Coca Cola do very successful in globalization, but one thing that can make Coca Cola to be more globalize. I suggest Coca Cola should enter the stock market all around the world, to give a sense that everyone can own Coca Cola, and Coca Cola is a company for the whole world, just like HSBC.
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