Communicating and Adapting Across Cultures

Communicating and Adapting Across Cultures
Author: Riall Nolan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 216
Release: 1999-04-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0313371261

Today, more Americans than ever are going abroad to visit, work, or study. Increasingly, the ability to communicate and work in cross-cultural situations is seen as an important determinant of success in business, government, education, and the social services. Being successful depends less on what you know of a particular culture than it does on what you know about managing new cultural situations. This book provides a comprehensive and practical guide to communicating, learning, and adapting within any new cultural environment. It begins by examining what culture is and why it is important. It then goes on to outline the process of cross-cultural adjustment, and presents some highly effective tools and strategies for avoiding culture shock, while encouraging learning. Advice on learning a language, preparing for the transition, settling in, working and living overseas, and planning re-entry into U.S. culture is given. One of the book's most useful features is the presentation of a detailed plan for actually making the transition from one culture to another. It also provides a detailed chapter on re-entering the home environment, again to aid in minimizing shock and anxiety. The skills learned from this book are essential to success and can be put to use in any new culture, anywhere in the world.

Cross-Cultural Business Communication

Cross-Cultural Business Communication
Author: Sven Rosenhauer
Publisher: diplom.de
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2008-12-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3836623137

Inhaltsangabe:Introduction: The transfer of business activities across nations is growing at a rapid rate. The emergence of market economies in Latin America and Asia, the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and the emerging democracy in Africa have led, among other things, not only to increased global trade, international, multinational and transnational business, but also to an increased demand for international workforce since firms must employ people who possess international business skills in order to remain competitive in the global marketplace. How often does it happen that we meet someone doing business in the United States after representing his/her company in Asia, Middle East or Europe? How often do we meet someone obtaining an international degree abroad before doing business in China, France or Scandinavia? How often do companies require international experiences, mobility, and flexibility? The soft skills of intercultural competence and open-mindedness to cultural diversity are taught by universities around the world. But what happens with our own cultural identity while doing business worldwide? What happens if we conduct business in Japan but with an Italian colleague who lived in São Paulo for many years? Are we just applying intercultural competence or are we developing a universal business culture - apart from our own national culture? How does an international workforce communicate; is it adapting the communication style of the host-country, of a majority culture; or is it developing a communication style which is unique in international business? Are we speaking the same language at the end? Is the understanding of cultural diversity becoming less substantial and more implicit? If companies and organizations require the indispensable and vague defined soft skills of intercultural competence, could these skills be seen as an approach towards a universal business culture, likewise a universal business communication? Purpose of the Present Thesis: The purpose of the present thesis is to examine if and to which extent cultures converge in an international business environment and if intercultural competence has a bearing on it. Therefore, theoretical and practical insights in the subject of culture, its implicit and explicit differences, as well as its measurements will be provided. Due to the fact that communication - as a major cultural attribute - is the most obvious level on which cultural [...]

Dictionary of Multicultural Psychology

Dictionary of Multicultural Psychology
Author: Lena E. Hall
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2004-10-28
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 145222210X

This dictionary is an up-to-date volume that contains numerous references to relevant concepts and terms in the field of multicultural psychology. Professor Lena Hall has collected, studied, and analyzed a multitude of terms in her eleven years of teaching multicultural psychology, and she has gathered them together in this handy, accessible reference book.

Gorgias and the New Sophistic Rhetoric

Gorgias and the New Sophistic Rhetoric
Author: Bruce McComiskey
Publisher: SIU Press
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2002-01-31
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0809390132

In Gorgias and the New Sophistic Rhetoric, Bruce McComiskey achieves three rhetorical goals: he treats a single sophist's rhetorical technê (art) in the context of the intellectual upheavals of fifth-century bce Greece, thus avoiding the problem of generalizing about a disparate group of individuals; he argues that we must abandon Platonic assumptions regarding the sophists in general and Gorgias in particular, opting instead for a holistic reading of the Gorgianic fragments; and he reexamines the practice of appropriating sophistic doctrines, particularly those of Gorgias, in light of the new interpretation of Gorgianic rhetoric offered in this book. In the first two chapters, McComiskey deals with a misconception based on selective and Platonic readings of the extant fragments: that Gorgias's rhetorical technê involves the deceptive practice of manipulating public opinion. This popular and ultimately misleading interpretation of Gorgianic doctrines has been the basis for many neosophistic appropriations. The final three chapters deal with the nature and scope of neosophistic rhetoric in light of the non-Platonic and holistic interpretation of Gorgianic rhetoric McComiskey postulates in his opening chapters. He concludes by examining the future of communication studies to discover what roles neosophistic doctrines might play in the twenty-first century. McComiskey also provides a selective bibliography of scholarship on sophistic rhetoric and philosophy in English since 1900.

Spaces of Masculinities

Spaces of Masculinities
Author: Kathrin Hörschelmann
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2013-03-07
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1134399189

Changing circumstances in Western and global societies have introduced new constraints and opportunities for men and the formation of male identities. Meanwhile, the emerging diversity of 'atypical' identities ('atypical' when compared with traditional conceptions of middle-class, white, heterosexual men) poses new challenges for the production and use of spaces. Spaces of Masculinities provides a comprehensive introduction to the innovative and diverse research on spaces of masculinity. Drawing on a variety of geographical research projects, the central concern of the book is to highlight the significance of research on masculinity in sociological and geographical work dealing with constructions of gender.

What Every Engineer Should Know About Business Communication

What Every Engineer Should Know About Business Communication
Author: John X. Wang
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2008-05-15
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0849383978

Engineers must possess a range of business communication skills that enable them to effectively communicate the purpose and relevance of their idea, process, or technical design. This unique business communication text is packed with practical advice that will improve your ability to- Market ideas Write proposals Generate enthusiasm for research De

Cicero, Classicism, and Popular Culture

Cicero, Classicism, and Popular Culture
Author: Marshall Fishwick
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2013-04-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1135797846

Learn why Cicero is considered one of the most important individuals in all of Western culture! Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) was a poet, philosopher, writer, scholar, barrister, statesman, patriot, and the linguist who helped make Latin into a universal language. His many influences in rhetoric, politics, literature, and ideas are seen throughout Western civilization. Cicero, Classicism, and Popular Culture explores the fascinating man behind the eloquence and his monumental effect on language, morality, and popularity of Western culture. One of the leading authorities on popular culture, Dr. Marshall Fishwick discusses the multifaceted man who may be, besides Jesus, the central figure in all of Western civilization. The author recounts his own personal quest of traveling the land and ancient cities of Italy, gleaning insights from people he met along the way who have knowledge about Cicero’s life and times. However, Cicero, Classicism, and Popular Culture is more than a simple search for the man and his accomplishments, a man whose mere words changed the way people think. This book shows in each of us the roots of our own ideas, beliefs, and culture. Cicero, Classicism, and Popular Culture discusses: Cicero’s rise to acclaim his affect on the language of popular culture common traits Cicero shared with Thomas Jefferson rhetoric, the art of oratory community two pivotal essays on friendship and old age vision of his reputation the search for peace Marshall McLuhan, Ciceronian Cicero’s Rome Cicero’s ancestral home of Arpinum Julius Caesar, politics, and the influences of Cicero the Roman republic and its downfall America as the new Rome much more! Cicero, Classicism, and Popular Culture is a startling, entertaining examination of the man who made Western culture what it is today. The book is insightful reading for educators, students, or anyone interested in one of the major forces in popular culture.

The Social Net

The Social Net
Author: Yair Amichai-Hamburger
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2013-02-07
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0191648221

In the past two decades, the Internet has come to dominate every aspect of everyday life. This has been a huge change for many of us, and, for the younger generation - born into this situation - there has been no other way of living. How does this new way of life affect our health and happiness, our well-being? How does it affect our relationships, our friendships? Has the definition of friendship changed now that we have hundreds of friends on Facebook? Why is it that some people find it so hard to talk to people in their daily lives but find it so easy on the Internet? People spend so much time on the Internet - so what do we actually do on there? Why are some people so aggressive and others exceptionally helpful? Are these behaviors that we see from the same people offline? How do we take decisions online and which groups would we rather belong to online where nobody knows us, rather than revealing our true identity to the outside world? The new edition of 'The Social Net' provides a comprehensive understanding of the social aspects of the Internet. It contains chapters on topics such as identity manipulation, online romantic relationships, online decision making, the internet and aggression, and online prejudice and discrimination. The book provides the reader with an understanding of both the negative and positive influences of the net and is an exceptionally useful guide for for how to use the net to improve wellbeing. Today, when there is so much negative publicity surrounding the Internet - despite our reliance on it - this book provides a much needed balanced understanding of the Net and its influence.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence
Author: Samira A. El-Sayed Mansour
Publisher: Dog Ear Publishing
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2017-01-31
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 1457546787

Whether in a familial setting or the workplace, emotional intelligence is the key to success. As an energizing power, it helps us not only maintain healthy social relations but also achieve self-satisfaction and self-actualization. In her book Emotional Intelligence: the Road to Success, Dr. Samira A. Mansour guides the reader through the benefits and effective use of emotional intelligence in a variety of situations, including cross-culture communication, family interaction, socialization of children, sociocultural negotiation, and organizational management. The book also includes a self-scoring assessment test covering three aspects of emotional intelligence. Success and productivity cannot be determined by IQ alone. By using EQ, or emotional intelligence, readers of all backgrounds can better understand and assess the behaviors, attitudes, motivations, lifestyles, management styles, interpersonal skills, and potentialities of those around them. Emotional Intelligence: the Road to Success will show them how.

Developmental Barriers and the Benefits of Disengagement

Developmental Barriers and the Benefits of Disengagement
Author: Martin Tomasik
Publisher: Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2010
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 3832525203

Social change confronts individuals with demands that index a new state of affairs as compared to what they were accustomed to. This book is a psychological investigation about how individuals deal with these demands in the domains of work and family when opportunities for their mastery are unfavorable. Theoretical considerations and empirical research suggest that with unattainable goals and unmanageable demands motivational disengagement and self-protective cognitions bring about superior outcomes than continued goal striving. Building on research on developmental deadlines by Jutta Heckhausen and colleagues, this paper introduces the concept of developmental barriers to address socioeconomic conditions of severely constrained opportunities in certain geographical regions. Mixed-effects methods were used to model cross-level interactions between individual-level compensatory secondary control and regional-level opportunity structures in terms of social indicators for the economic prosperity and family friendliness. Results showed that disengagement was positively associated with general life satisfaction in regions that were economically devastated and has less than average services for families. In regions that were economically well off and family-friendly, the association was negative. Similar results were found for self-protection concerning domain-specific satisfaction with life. These finding, however, seem to refer only to individuals who have found alternative fields of engagement such as a civic initiative or the parish community. This indicates that the central functionality of self-protection and disengagement is to free up resources for pursuing alternative goals that would be otherwise wasted into futile goal striving with the blocked goal. The results furthermore showed that dispositional optimism has a positive association with self-protection and disengagement under unfavorable ecologic conditions. All these findings suggest that compensatory secondary control can be an adaptive way of mastering demands when primary control is not possible.