(MIS) Communication in Intercultural Context

Communication is a process by which two or more people exchange ideas, facts, or feelings in ways that each gains a common understanding of the message. We live in a culturally diverse world. With team work becoming an integral part of today's corporate world, successful communication among the diverse members of a team has become a necessity. But very often communication breakdown occurs due to cultural differences which may lead to misunderstanding, suspicion, and even animosity. Culture refers to the beliefs, traditions, habits, and values controlling the behavior of majority of the people in a social-ethnic group. Effective communication with people of different cultures is a challenging task. People from different backgrounds may have varied approaches to learning styles, family structure, language, religion, and most other aspects of life. Very often, professionals become victims of misunderstanding when they encounter individuals from different cultures, races, religions, and nationalities in their intercultural communication behaviors. To understand properly the causes of miscommunication, it becomes necessary to understand cultural differences. Consequently, the present paper is an attempt to highlight cultural differences and how they affect communication process. This paper also suggests some measures to overcome culture differences that may create hazards in communication process.