Intercultural Competence

Examples of Intercultural Competence in the following topics:

• Considering Cultural and Interpersonal Differences

  • Intercultural competence is an individual's ability to communicate with, and adapt to, the cultural norms and expectations of each employee or customer.
  • The following figure highlights the three building blocks of one intercultural approach: cross-cultural competence, language proficiency, and regional expertise.
  • This model suggests that the development of each building block allows for the largest potential crossover between the sections, and that employing them in concert provides the largest potential level of competence for an intercultural manager.
  • Managers who pursue intercultural competency while possessing a strong understanding of their own strengths, weaknesses, and cultural identity will more effectively immerse themselves into the cultures of co-workers.
  • This chart illustrates the three factors that constitute an effectively intercultural understanding for management: Regional Expertise, Language Proficiency, and Cross-Cultural Competence

• Cultural Intelligence

  • Cultural intelligence is the ability to display intercultural competence within a given group through adaptability and knowledge.
  • The concept of cultural intelligence is exactly what it sounds like—the ability to display intercultural competence within a given group through adaptability and knowledge.
  • An interesting perspective on cultural intelligence is well represented in the intercultural-competence diagram, which highlights the way that each segment of cultural knowledge can create synergy when applied to the whole of cultural intelligence, where overlapping generates the highest potential CQ.
  • This diagram illustrates the three factors that constitute an effectively intercultural understanding for management: Regional Expertise, Language Proficiency, and Cross-Cultural Competence.
  • Analyze the key components inherent in developing strong cultural competence as a manager in a diverse global economy

• Gender and Diversity

  • The most effective way to ensure proper communicative efficiency in diverse teams is to improve intercultural competence.
  • Intercultural competence is simply the ability to communicate with different groups and cultures effectively and appropriately—"effectively" meaning that shared goals are being accomplished, and "appropriately" meaning doing so without violating the values, norms, relationships, or expectations of others.
  • Intercultural competence is a widely studied area of organizational communications and behavior.
  • One model outlines the three following components as being at the core of a culture-savvy individual: regional expertise, language proficiency, and cross-cultural competence.
  • Of course, intercultural considerations are only some of the issues that arise in diverse teams.

• Considerations when Managing a Global Corporation

  • Strong global management skills, intercultural competence, and a sensitivity to cultural issues are necessities for global managers.
  • The development of global management skills, as well as the intercultural competence to identify and develop sensitivity to cultural issues, becomes a larger factor in the overall success of these business models.
  • This is best achieved through understanding what constitutes a high level of intercultural competence and leveraging this confidence to achieve the desire results in global management (see Boundless's "Cultural Intelligence" section).
  • To summarize the concept of intercultural competence, the basics necessary for effectively developing this is a linguistic understanding, a cultural understanding (religion, ethics, values, etc.), and regional expertise (ethnicity/geography).
  • Sensitivity to important cultural considerations and the development of a highly perceptive intercultural competency is a prerequisite for any global corporations considering geographic expansion into a new market.

• Building a Diverse Workforce

  • Therefore, it is a top priority for multinational corporations to develop a strong intercultural competence in their management and apply this competence to the human resource framework.

• The Challenge of Diversity

  • This evolving outlook on a diverse workplace has ultimately resulted in the recognition and implementation of diversity management and intercultural understandings within organizations, creating stronger and more ethical business practices.
  • Effective managers in diverse situations have a highly developed degree of cultural competence that empowers them to use careful observation skills to determine what gestures, phrases, customs and values would be most appropriate in a given circumstance.

• The Challenge of Globalization

  • Globalization is the international integration of intercultural ideas, perspectives, products/services, culture, and technology.
  • In general terms, globalization is the international integration of intercultural ideas, perspectives, products/services, culture, and technology.
  • Intercultural marketplaces allow for differing demographics, larger market potential, a more diverse customer base (and therefore more diverse product offering) and a highly valuable human resource potential.

• Human Resource Planning

  • Human resource planning identifies the competencies an organization needs to fulfill its goals and acquires the appropriate people.
  • This is typically accomplished by defining competencies that are required by workers to achieve business goals, matching people with these competencies to the right tasks, and assessing the overall process for progress and improvement.
  • When appropriate, human resource managers may note experience and/or competency gaps or the need to create new roles or hire new individuals to ensure proper functioning.
  • If the available people lack necessary competencies, the organization plans how it will develop them.
  • Express the way in which planning, evaluation and improvement can create competency relative to developing human resources

• Introduction to Red Ocean and Blue Ocean Strategy

  • The thesis behind the blue ocean strategic perspective is that competing in an established market is not a rational option for investment.
  • The idea behind the blue ocean strategic perspective is that competing in a red ocean (an already established market place, likely with companies with economies of scale), is not a rational option for investment.
  • Instead, companies need to go beyond competing.
  • Identifying ways to create a new market, new niche or new differentiated strategy that creates more pie (as opposed to competing over an existing one) is a superior approach.
  • The second figure illustrates this well, as the substantial value added lies in differentiating into new strategies to capture new market share as opposed to competing for established market share.

• The GLOBE Project

  • The research identified nine cultural competencies and grouped the 62 countries into ten geographic clusters, including Latin American, Nordic European, Sub-Saharan, and Confucian Asian.
  • The GLOBE project identified nine cultural dimensions, called competencies, with which the leadership approaches within geographic clusters can be compared and contrasted:
  • Outline the nine cultural competences found by the GLOBE project using the six GLOBE dimensions and describe how the project pertains to leadership