Intercultural communication in transnational work

Just take a minute to reflect: Imagine you work on a project together with other members of your volunteer organization. Although you all agree on the fact that it is important for your organization to look for new international contacts, you strongly disagree on the strategy how to approach new international organisations. Do you think that going through a conflict can be a way of finding a suitable solution? Or is a conflict only endangering the social harmony of your peer-group?

How cultures approach a conflict situation depends very much on how conflicts are perceived and valued in that culture. There are more individualistic cultures (like Germanic cultures) that foster a “positive” attitude towards a conflict. That means that in the perception of those cultures a conflict can be beneficial to the development of the situation if appropriately tackled. These cultures may see the reasons of a conflict rather in misunderstandings about beliefs, topics, goals, matter of things etc. Other cultures, like collectivist Asian ones, experience a conflict as an interference in established relationships threatening the harmonious social coexistence. These cultures feel that the cause of a conflict lies more in a disturbed group atmosphere and relationship (Kammhuber, 2005, p. 298f.; Ting-Toomey, 1994, p. 364)

How a conflict is handled has also much to do with the understanding of the “self” that is construed and perceived differently according to the own cultural background. In some more individualistic cultures, individuals see themselves as agents, as the ones who decide over a situation and their own actions. In these cultures, the self is autonomous (Ting-Toomey, 1994, p. 361) – the individual (“I”) stands over the group (“we”). In more collectivistic cultures individuals define themselves over group relationships. They build up their identity as a “connected self” (Ting-Toomey, 1994, p. 361). This means that they see each other as interrelated and focus on their common needs. In these cultures the group (“we”) stands above the individual (“I”).

Based on these conditions, individualistic cultures may rather pursue strategies of “verbal offence and defense, to justify one’s position, to clarify one’s opinion, to build up one’s credibility, to articulate one’s emotions, and to raise objections if one disagrees with someone else’s proposal” (Ting-Toomey, 1994, p. 367). Those cultures are strongly solution oriented. Collectivist cultures, on the other hand, will rely more on indirect verbal messages (for example metaphors, changing topics), non-verbal signs and silence to show, for example, hesitation or uncertainty.

https://pixabay.com/de/vectors/frage-fragen-mann-kopf-erfolg-2519654/