Intercultural Communication in Context (Essay Sample)

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Quiz 4: Intercultural Communication Theory, Otherization, and Ethnocentrism

Intercultural communication theory is influencing the way people are carrying out businesses and work across cultural boundaries. Globalization has promoted people’s mobility contributing to multicultural nations. In such multicultural nations, companies embrace and embed intercultural communication into their organizational cultures to maintain their performances. However, ethnocentrism and otherization are barriers to effective intercultural communication in the workplace. People have realized the barriers’ impact the workplace and companies’ performances. Additionally, various factors contribute to ethnocentrism and otherization in the workplace. Organizations are responding by developing strategies like intercultural communication training and establishing inclusive and diverse cultures to overcome ethnocentrism and otherization. Therefore, ethnocentrism and otherization that emerge from diverse sources affect intercultural communication, but different strategies help companies to overcome the issues.
INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Intercultural communication is essential to current businesses, but cultural insensitivity can contribute to employee alienation. Intercultural communication is common in the contemporary workplace because multinational organizations are hiring individuals to different global parts. According to Sinden, intercultural communication is “the sharing of information across different cultures and social groups, including individuals with different religious, social, ethnic, and educational backgrounds (para. 2).” Current economies are evolving, merging, and overlapping rapidly forcing people from different cultures to work together in various companies. International businesses understand that possessing intercultural communication skills is indispensable for them to survive in the international market. Business professionals are flexible, skilled, and adjust with sensitivity and tact to facilitate international business success. However, international businesses insensitive to intercultural communication experience employee alienation and risk experiencing market failures. Barriers to understanding other cultures include otherization, ethnocentrism, prejudice, and egocentrism (Keles 1514). The barriers cause mistrust and misunderstanding between people in the workplace, which contributes to organizational failure. Individuals misunderstand other people’s identity that triggers workplace intercultural conflicts. Companies that do not recognize such barriers experience difficulties managing workers from different cultural backgrounds (Keles 1513-1514). To this end, intercultural communication is vital to organizations, but otherization and ethnocentrism affect people’s interactions in the workplace.
EXAMPLES OF WORKPLACE ETHNOCENTRISM
Ethnocentrism hinders effective intercultural communication in the workplace. Ethnocentric people believe that their cultures are superior to others and the right cultures. Ethnocentrism is beneficial because it motivates individuals to sacrifice for their groups in the workplace. The concept promotes unity among employees if they share cultural backgrounds. Companies adopting an ethnocentric approach transfer practices and beliefs effectively to their employees in the workplace. Such companies monitor their subsidiaries’ operations and employees’ interactions from different countries (Buchanan para. 4-5). However, once companies allow ethnocentrism to infiltrate into the workplace culture they experience workplace conflicts between employees from different cultural backgrounds. Ethnocentrism is counterproductive and instills performance-killing attitudes, which creates the impression that management supports discrimination. Bennett in his model explained ethnocentrism in three stages; denial, defense, and minimization (Keles 1515-1516). In the denial stage, employees experiencing cultural differences deny or avoid the existence of such differences. Such workers start countering other cultures because they perceive them as threatening to their beliefs and working practices. Additionally, individuals minimize the differences assuming that all humanities have similar cultures. Employees from dominant cultures believe that people from other cultures follow dominant cultural beliefs and practices in the workplace (Keles 1515-1516). Therefore, ethnocentrism creates the perception among employees that their cultures are superior to others.
Ethnocentrism occurs during communication between managers and employees from different cultural backgrounds. For instance, managers from the United States, a low-context culture are punctual when meeting with employees or reporting to the workplace. However, employees from India, a high-context culture do not value punctuality. For instance, a United States manager sets up a zoom meeting with an Indian employee at 8.00 A.M. on the dot (Wittwer para. 5). The following day fifteen minutes before the scheduled the United States’ manager is already waiting for the Indian worker who turns to the Zoom meeting twenty minutes after the scheduled time. The manager decides to reschedule the meeting for the following day at exactly 8.00 in the morning because the Indian employee was late for the meeting, but he insisted that he turned out for the meeting (Wittwer para. 5). The following day the Indian employee was late making the American manager furious. The manager decided to postpone the meeting again, but the Indian insisted that he turned up for the meeting. The two individuals did not understand how cultural differences affected intercultural communication. If the American manager and the Indian employee understood each other they would have accommodated gaps (Wittwer para. 5-7). Indeed, ethnocentrism occurs when people believe that their cultural values are superior to other cultures.
Japanese multinational firms apply ethnocentric employment policies to operate in international markets. The Japanese firms rely on Japanese nationals that they delegate as their subsidiaries’ expatriates or the Japanese employees working in their headquarters. The Japanese multinationals export their HRM practices overseas to control their overseas operations while the headquarters in Japan make overall organizations’ decisions. Japanese companies like Sony, Nintendo, and Honda have opted to hire Japanese nationals as their representatives in their various subsidiaries from different parts worldwide (Johansson and Palau 5-6). The Japanese firms trust Japanese nationals more than employees from other countries to oversee operations in their subsidiaries. The intricate structure that the Japanese companies possess makes it difficult for employees from other countries to integrate with the management and cooperate with other employees from Japan. The Japanese companies apply an unwritten-rules riddle, which is difficult for non-Japanese employees to understand the Japanese culture and language (Johansson and Palau 14). The unique Japanese culture is difficult for foreign workers to understand, which exhibits ethnocentrism. The culture is challenging for non-Japanese nationals and Japanese employees to communicate and understand each other. Despite the reduction in hiring Japanese employees, the Japanese multinational firms still maintain ethnocentric management (Johansson and Palau 15-16). To this end, the Japanese multinational organizations demonstrate ethnocentrism by hiring Japanese workers to oversee operations in their overseas subsidiaries.
WORKPLACE OTHERIZATION
Workplace otherization occurs when employees from one cultural group demean individuals from other cultural groups. Otherization hinders communication among workers in the workplace. Otherization shows that people come from different groups and realigns them based on their cultural backgrounds. The concept creates barriers between individuals from different cultural groups and triggers the lack of unity. Otherization creates a bias based on the way employees perceive their colleagues from other cultures. Treating workers as outsiders cause stereotyping and prejudice that make interaction difficult. Stereotyping and prejudice trigger low employee performance because individuals from different cultural backgrounds do not collaborate to execute group duties in organizations (Wendland 22-23). Otherization makes people misperceive their colleagues from other cultural groups because othering idea is present in their society. Undermining contribute to conflicts between workers from different backgrounds in companies. Organizations fall into the otherization trap if they only consider holidays from dominant groups and perceive holidays from minor groups irrelevant. The companies’ failure to address the othering preconceptions embedded in society demeans workplace communication and individuals’ responsibilities to understand their counterparts from different cultural backgrounds. Allowing otherization misconception hinders management from realizing their potentials and talents that employees from various cultural groups possess (Wendland 21). Therefore, otherization hinders workplace communication, collaboration, and talent realization.
People experience otherization behaviors in the American workplace. In the United States, companies consider African Americans and Latinos as others because they rarely hire them for top and well-paying job positions. According to Johnson, white employees 77% of the well-paying jobs while 13% and 10% of the total employed Latinos and Black Americans held well-paying jobs (para. 8). Organizations prefer hiring white people to minority groups’ indi...