What does international/intercultural communication entail?
As soon as we communicate beyond the borders of our society we are in the area of intercultural communication. In theory the closer the cultures the easier the communication and so it is easy to believe that because we share the same language we are going to be able to communicate very easily. If we look at South America where Spanish is the common language in most countries, we find that communicating with Argentineans is not the same as communicating with Peruvians and in fact it might even be easier to communicate with Brazilians than either of the others. I know the case of an Australian firm which decided to set up its European HQ in London believing that as Australia and the UK shared both language and history communication would be easy. Not so, the direct Australians found the indirect communication style of their English colleagues confusing and tiring. Trust went out the window and with it efficiency. The Australians shifted their HQ to Holland. Dos and Donts of International
