Skip to main content
Top

2017 | Book

Intercultural Competence in Organizations

A Guide for Leaders, Educators and Team Players

insite
SEARCH

About this book

This book addresses one of the most critical issues facing global business leaders and the multicultural workforce – how to work and relate effectively in the intercultural contexts. The author presents business professionals, practitioners and academics with the Collaborative Intercultural Competence Model. Based on solid theoretical assumptions and real intercultural experiences, this model is to help professionals work more effectively across and within cultures. This book expands the traditional presentation of existing knowledge by providing a unified discussion of intercultural communication and its conceptual foundations. The book offers readers with a contemporary insight into the intercultural competence phenomenon and highlights the basis for its experience-based inquiry, assessment and development.

A distinctive feature of Intercultural Competence in Organizations is its comprehensive coverage of the intercultural competence framework from both communication and organizational behavior perspectives. This book does not cover traditional areas of international business, international management, global management strategy and policy and cross-cultural comparative management, but focuses on theoretical foundations of intercultural competence and intercultural competence research and practice. The author describes the complex nature of intercultural competence in a straightforward format which helps professionals, practitioners and students to envision a variety of intercultural situations in which they may behave competently. Thus, the conceptual acumen of this title is to understand the premises of intercultural competence, embrace its theoretical assumptions, see its practical applicability, and advance individual intercultural competence.

Featuring examples and skill development exercises, this book will be appealing to professionals, practitioners, students, academics and policy makers in the field of international business, management and communication.

“Dr. Matveev challenges his readers to develop their intercultural competence so as to make themselves more effective, more humane and more socially skilled in a world that increasingly involves extensive contact across various groups of people.”

--from the Foreword by Richard W. Brislin, University of Hawaii

“Dr. Matveev creates an awareness of intercultural competence by exposing the reader to the theoretical concepts and practical tools. Business people and academics will use this book to recognize and leverage the benefits of cultural diversity.”

--Berthold Mukuahima, Director of Human Capital, Ohlthaver & List Group, Namibia

“Dr. Matveev reveals how intercultural competence of professional multicultural teams helps in achieving corporate competitive advantage and longevity in a challenging globalized world. This book is very useful for managers, scholars and students who want to elevate the efficacy of intercultural relationship in their professional and personal lives.”

--Srečko Čebron, Management Board Member, Sava Reinsurance Company, Slovenia

Table of Contents

Frontmatter

Intercultural Competence: Key Concepts

Frontmatter
1. Describing Intercultural Competence
Abstract
This chapter introduces the focus of the book—intercultural competence in organizations. The chapter provides most recent and established definitions of intercultural competence, explains its relevance to contemporary organizations, and highlights its perceptual nature. Further, the chapter describes a common framework for intercultural competence analysis and research, introduces how intercultural competence is viewed in the context of multicultural teams, and outlines the basis for researching and practicing intercultural competence.
Alex Matveev
2. Theoretical Foundations of Intercultural Competence
Abstract
A theory is a tool that helps to provide an exploratory foundation to the phenomenon under investigation. Since one of the main functions of intercultural competence is to minimize misunderstandings among culturally diverse individuals, the theoretical foundation appropriate for intercultural competence research and practice should be able to explain cultural variations among people and clarify how cultural uncertainty and anxiety can be managed. This chapter presents the foundational assumptions of culture and cultural studies, introduces the Uncertainty Reduction Theory as the foundational theory for intercultural competence investigation, and puts forward the premises of common models of intercultural competence research: overseas performance model, intercultural adjustment model, and intercultural effectiveness model. This chapter also explains the cultural context of organizations, including communication context richness, power distance, individualism and collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and performance or competitiveness.
Alex Matveev
3. The Intercultural Competence Models
Abstract
As described in the previous chapter, practitioners use different approaches to understand intercultural competence in different facets of organizational lives, including situations of overseas performance, intercultural adjustment, and effective intercultural performance. However, due to a high level of complexity of intercultural situations some theoretical background and knowledge of existing models of intercultural competence is deemed necessary. This chapter describes the foundational dimensions of intercultural competence and presents modes typical models of intercultural competence, including the compositional, relational, behavioral, traits and skills, developmental and causal models. While these models are descriptive and multifaceted, a more integrated model of intercultural competence would be helpful to better examine and understand the intercultural competence phenomenon in multicultural organizations. Hence, this chapter introduces the collaborative intercultural competence model and explains its dimensions and applications.
Alex Matveev

Intercultural Competence in Organizations

Frontmatter
4. Intercultural Competence in Multicultural Teams
Abstract
This chapter extends the topic of intercultural competence in organizations to the context of multicultural professional work teams. Leadership of modern organizations places high value on self-managed work teams and collaboration between employees and organizations. This chapter highlights the importance of intercultural competence for multicultural teams, some challenges and advantages of multicultural teams, and explains how intercultural competence can help to develop coherent and effective culturally diverse teams.
Alex Matveev

Practicing Intercultural Competence

Frontmatter
5. Intercultural Competence Assessment
Abstract
This chapter explains how practitioners use intercultural competence in their professions and how academics and trainers assess intercultural competence. The chapter begins with an explanation of the purpose, the design, and the implementation of intercultural competence assessment in different contexts. The chapter completes with the examples of intercultural competence assessment.
Alex Matveev
6. Acquiring Intercultural Competence
Abstract
This chapter brings a logical close the journey into the world of intercultural competence by explaining how practitioners and trainers develop intercultural competence in their organizations. This chapter presents the reader with the current frameworks of intercultural competence development. The chapter completes with the examples of intercultural competence development and with a futuristic insight on intercultural competence in organizations.
Alex Matveev
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Intercultural Competence in Organizations
Author
Alex Matveev
Copyright Year
2017
Electronic ISBN
978-3-319-45701-7
Print ISBN
978-3-319-45700-0
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45701-7