A job in intercultural communication involves facilitating understanding and communication between people of various cultures. This is also known as cross-cultural communication. Professionals may work in a variety of different fields and environments, but they usually have specialized training in helping people from different cultures engage productively with one another. This may be a master’s degree.
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Internal and External Communication
A professional may focus primarily on facilitating internal communication between people of different cultures. This could be the case for a company that has a large number of workers from all over the world but primarily serves a heterogeneous population. An example might be a company that hires a number of engineers from various countries. Those engineers might not communicate much with people outside the company in a work context, but they would spend a lot of time on internal communications. In other cases, an organization might need assistance in communicating with people outside the company who are from different cultures, involving effective external intercultural communication.
Private Industry
The issues that may arise when companies have a global reach go beyond geography, time zones and language differences. As this article from Forbes explains, differences embedded in the culture also mean that people will communicate differently in a business context and may even approach projects differently with more or less time spent on brainstorming, planning or execution. The job of someone working in cross-cultural communication in such an environment might involve training employees in awareness of these differences as well as mediation if necessary. This awareness can be critical to a company’s success in the global marketplace.
Academia and Education
Universities tend to have a relatively large population of foreign students and faculty. There are also educational organizations that focus on introducing students to the idea of crosscultural education and communication. Jobs in this area might involve working with foreign students to help them acclimatize, working with exchange programs or even traveling with students abroad. A specialist in this area might also help facilitate international conferences or other functions the university is involved with that have a global reach.
Government and Nonprofit Work
From international organizations such as the United Nations to government and nongovernmental foreign aid organizations to nonprofits that work with immigrant populations, there are organizations at every level that need good cross-cultural communication. As with private industry, a professional’s role here might be to do training and other preparation for staff to work with other cultures although the primary focus of the training might shift from a business context to other contexts. These types of organizations also tend to have an international staff, so a professional might also facilitate internal communication.
Effective communication between cultures involves everything from understanding the proper etiquette in business meetings to body language and more. Therefore, the role of a person specializing in intercultural communication is crucial in making sure that private corporations, universities, government agencies and nonprofits are sensitive to these subtleties and can bring people together globally to work toward common goals.