The 21st century is marked by the intensive movement of people across international borders. While languages are used as a means of interaction across the globe, the nuances of communication vary from culture to culture. This book explores how the misperception of cultural values and norms may result in misapprehension and communication breakdowns in various settings.

The 21st century is marked by the intensive movement of people across international borders. While languages are used as a means of interaction across the globe, the nuances of communication vary from culture to culture. This book explores how the misperception of cultural values and norms may result in misapprehension and communication breakdowns in various settings.

Both interculturalism and multiculturalism address the question of how states should forge unity from ethnic, cultural and religious diversity. But what are the dividing lines between interculturalism and multiculturalism? This volume brings together some of the most prominent scholars in the field to address these two different approaches. With a Foreword by Charles Taylor and an Afterword by Bhikhu Parekh, this collection spans European, North-American and Latin-American debates.

'Managing Cultural Diversity in Technical Professions' provides managers of technical professionals with clear and tested strategies to improve communication and increase productivity among culturally diverse technical professionals, teams, and departments. Dr. Laroche outlines the differences in education and training, career expectations, communication styles, and management expectations in countries around the world. He explains cross-cultural concepts and presents his case for the importance of cross-cultural competence supported by hard data, including charts, tables, and readily accessible schematics. You'll benefit from the author's experience and expertise as a manager and consultant in this area, illustrated by numerous anecdotes, critical incidents, and mini case studies, centered around two central themes: * Most technical professionals do not recognize the impact of cultural differences in their work * Cross-cultural issues lead to a significant under-utilization of talent and affect productivity negatively 'Managing Cultural Diversity in Technical Professions' offers proven tactics for improving your personal effectiveness and the efficiency of your multicultural teams, breaking the communication barrier in the multicultural workplace.

Leadership in a Diverse and Multicultural Environment provides leaders with the tools necessary to effectively interact with all individuals. Although much of the research related to multiculturalism has focused on expatriates and international assignments, the book also focuses on leaders in domestic organizations, as they can benefit from developing their own multicultural awareness, knowledge, and skills. Effective leaders can shape the culture of their organization to be accepting of individuals from all races, ethnicities, religions, and genders with a minimum of misunderstandings.

All cultures appear to share the belief that they do things ‘correctly’, while others, until proven otherwise, are assumed to be ignorant or barbaric. When people from different cultures work together and cannot take shared meanings for granted, managers face serious challenges. An individual’s parsing of an experience and its meaning may vary according to several cultural scales – national, professional, industrial and local. Awareness of cultural differences and the willingness to view them as a positive are therefore crucial assets. This edited textbook sets itself apart from existing cross-cultural management texts by highlighting to the reader the need to avoid both ethnocentrism and the belief in the universality of his or her own values and ways of thinking: the success of international negotiations and intercultural management depends on such openness and acceptance of real differences. It encourages the development of ‘nomadic intelligence’ and the creative use of a culture’s resources, according to a symbolic anthropology perspective. Through the essays and case studies in the chapters, readers will become aware of the intercultural dimension of business activities and better understand how they affect work. Cross-Cultural Management will help interested parties – students of business management, international relations and other disciplines, and business managers and other professionals – develop their ability to interact, take action and give direction in an intercultural context.

Now called Cross-Cultural Management to more clearly reflect the content, the Second Edition has been refined to build on the strength of the earlier edition for a stronger emphasis on understanding of the most current research on culture in organizational settings. The text examines cross-cultural management issues from a psychological or behavioural perspective. It focuses on the interactions of people from different cultures in organizational settings and helps the reader gain an understanding of the effect of culture that can be applied to a wide variety of cross-cultural interactions in various organizational contexts.