Communicating Globally
Intercultural Communication and International Business
- Wallace V. Schmidt
- Roger N. Conaway - University of Texas at Tyler, USA
- Susan S. Easton
- William J. Wardrope - University of Central Oklahoma, USA
This text integrates the theory and skills of intercultural communication with the practices of multinational organizations and international business. Intended as supplemental reading in courses on communication, culture, and globalism, this book provides an innovative perspective on cosmopolitan communication, global leadership, cultural synergy, and the dynamic processes affecting international business.
The book discusses the implications of these approaches and the new competencies needed for conducting international business and entering the world marketplace. It examines intercultural transitions and cross-cultural relationships as well as how virtual groups or teams and constant change influence multinational organizations.
The book further provides insights into doing business abroad by examining significant geographic regions and emphasizing cultural themes and patterns, business conduct and characteristics, and emerging trends. Also included is a regional resource guide that establishes a sensible foundation for readers to continue their own cross-cultural or international business research, personally transforming their understanding into individually instructive significance.
"College-level libraries strong in business and global communications won't want to miss Communicating Globally: Intercultural Communication and International Business. From understanding the processes of communication and miscommunication, to insights into how to do business abroad given differing cultural perspectives, communicating Globally offers many important key concepts essential for global business success."
"The insight supplied is based on research and application that can permit you to make necessary choices and decisions. This is definitely an excellent book for advanced courses in the field of international business communication."
An ambitious text which seeks to cover lots of ground, but which gives the impression at times that more detail would be helpful. Lots of scientific references, some useful examples and anecdotes, but also some puzzling choices, such as the focus on Russia in the "European" section. This book could be useful in generating a bibliography for certain areas, but arguably doesn't contribute an original synthesis on the question of "communicating globally", while more attractive and readable introductory textbooks exist to both intercultural communication and international business.
Potentially useful for a short course in the subject, a little instrumental for a course which hopes to build competence on a wider base of intercultural competence.
The text navigates adeptly between conceptual development and practical suggestions for business students. The regional overviews in the final unit provide in-depth application of ideas developed in earlier parts of the book.
This is a compact, well written and very well structured little book. It covers (almost) all main topics in intercultural communication. Because of the well thought out structure of the book, every chapter ends with good tips for further reading, books as well as online sources. However, due to its size and the many sub-topics they try to cover, the writers are unable to really explore all the (in-depth) different facets of these topics. Of course this is not the main objective of the writers, but it does make this book less applicable for some of my courses in organizational communication. Nevertheless, highly recommended for first-timers on the subject.
This book seems to fit my needs nicely and was written by numerous communication scholars.
