Question

Define intercultural communication. Identify and describe which dimension of intercultural communication to be most important. Justify your answer.

Answer 1

Answer:

Intercultural Communications: Intercultural communication is defined as the communication to be used for communicating between the different cultures and social groups so that one cultural group is able to communicate to the other cultural group and both can understand their intent of communication adequately. This will show how the culture affects the communication among different culture people. The intercultural communication is also known as cross cultural communications. This will study the impacts of the different cultures on the communication process. The key thing is to ensure that what are the cultural beliefs one need to incorporate in the communication so that the message passed to different culture adequately.

Following are the key dimensions of intercultural communication as per Hofstede’s theory as below

• Power Distance Index (PDI)
• Individualism vs. Collectivism (IDV)
• Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI)
• Masculinity vs. femininity (MAS)
• Long Term Orientation vs. Short Term Orientation (LTO)
• Indulgence vs. Restraint (IND)

The most important internal communication dimension is the Uncertainty Avoidance dimension. This shows that how easily the unexpected events can be easily managed by the culture and the communication can be made easily without any major impact on the other culture. Thus if one culture is able to manage the impact’s of other culture, then it manages the communication adequately. This dimension is most important for the internal communication, as it avoids any major issues among the different cultures during the intercultural communication process among themselves.