Scholars & Practitioners getting together towards the development of Intercultural Competence

The Department of Cross-Cultural Psychology of Tilburg University and the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research (SIETAR) Nederland hosted a one-day symposium entitled “Advancing Intercultural Competence Development: Initiating the dialogue between researchers and practitioners”. The event took place on Wednesday, 16th of October 2013, at Tilburg University, south of the Netherlands. It was a success!

This event was part of SIETAR Nederland’s Elfstedentocht (‘Eleven City Tour’), a tour across the country where eleven major Dutch universities and applied universities involved in cross-cultural research are hosting a meeting for practitioners and scholars connected with intercultural studies.

SIETAR Nederland is committed to the development of Intercultural Competence and shares the idea that practitioners and scholars have a lot to learn from each other.

The topics discussed in the panels where related to one of the four concentration areas below:

·      Intercultural competences: What are they, how can they be assessed and developed, and how do they contribute to intercultural effectiveness?

·     Effectiveness of interventions: How do intercultural training, coaching and counselling contribute to intercultural competence development?

·    Diversity management: Developments and challenges for researchers and practitioners in addition, we welcome papers on cross-cultrual psychology addressing other areas

·    Cultural differences: Insights from research and practice

It is relevant to remark how diverse the presentations were under those four major areas. Intercultural competence is important from the medical clinics daily routine to corporate affairs. Wherever there is more than one culture (or sub-cultures) involved, there is a need for intercultural management and that is only possible to be performed with excellence by trained professionals – that is, intercultural scientists and practitioners with deep knowledge on intercultural communication theories & frameworks.

I had the chance to present the results of my MA in International Communications dissertation in a presentation named “Cross-Cultural Media Relations”, which was classified under the “cultural differences” umbrella.

My presentation and other interesting topics discussed in the Symposium are available at: http://www.tilburguniversity.edu/about-tilburg-university/schools/socialsciences/organization/departments/cross-cultural-psychology/Octconference/

"Intercultural competence is becoming a must-have skill in today’s business world no matter in which specific sector you work. Therefore, understanding cultural differences is strategic in enhacing one's capability to interact and communicate efficiently across national borders".

Lecture by and Dinner with Professor Geert Hofstede

Monday, 18th November 2013, Groningen - I get a last minute place to attend the International Partners Universities Event (IPUE) at Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands. I was extremely interested in attending this event because IPUE would be hosting as Keynote Speaker Sir Professor Geert Hofstede - Knight of the Netherlands Kingdom and one of the most influential management thinkers of the 20th century as ranked by The Wall Street Journal. Hofstede is without a doubt one of the brightest minds in the field of Intercultural Communication ever.

Professor Hofstede's speech on his "Cultural Dimensions and respective effects on communication patterns" was - to say the least - very inspirational and clarifying. It is impressive how he deeply understands national cultures in relation to its influence over communication patterns and present it in such a simple way. Hofstede makes possible for us to understand how national cultures may affect communication patterns and it is likely that the cultural dimensions become evident after we study his theories and compare to our own international experiences.

"Intercultural contacts are often violent and are as old as humankind", said Professor Hofstede referring to the innumerable intercultural encounters that resulted in conflict & wars throughout human history. "However, it is possible to learn successful nonviolent intercultural approaches", he added.

Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions have been used as essential theoretical background on Intercultural Communication by scholars & practitioners from all around the world for decades and continue to be essential literature in the current times.

                                                    Hofstede lecture at Hanze University, Groningen

Hofstede pointed to some of the characteristics an individual needs to be considered a "world citizen", which are as follows:

Experience

• Having worked in more than one country
• Having suffered culture shock and learned from it

Personality

• Intelectual curiosity including interest on history, geography, literature
• Stability, tolerance for the unexpected

Awareness

• Recognising cultural differences between societies
• Recognising one's own cultural programming

Communication skills

• Mastering at least one other language
• Understanding different communication styles

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After the enlightining speech at Hanze University, a selected group of students, scholars & University staff were invited to have dinner with Professor Hofstede and his wife in the city centre of Groningen - luckily, I was one of those.

I had the invaluable opportunity to talk to Professor Hofstede tête-à-tête for nearly half an hour about Brazilian national and regional sub-cultures, among other interesting subjects. It was a big inspiration to be seated beside such a genius but also quite interesting to see how such an internationally recognised personality can be such a caring & considering person. He is indeed a very special gentleman, gifted with the ability of seeing what everybody experiences but perceiving what most never did - and, moreover, transforming his findings into simple and didactic theories & frameworks. 

Flavio Oliveira and Professor Hofstede at t' Feith Huis - Groningen/NL

Monday 18th November 2013 will remain in my memory as a precious moment in time spent in the company of Professor Hofstede, his lovely wife Mrs. Maike Hofstede and other special people in a great setting - "echt gezelligheid"! This dinner was idealised by Mrs. Iekje Smit (Chairwoman of the Master in International Communication - Geert Hofstede Consortium, a joint MA programme that carries the Professor's name and from which I have graduated in July 2013) and well organised by Kirth Ramoutar (MIC graduate) - my big thanks to you guys for such an unforgettable evening.

~ keep on smiling :)

Culture, social networks and the future of public relations

Much have been said about communication and its relation to culture. Smith (1966) back in the sixties already pointed to the fact that "culture and communication are inseparable", and indeed they are. 

However, it is hard to understand why neither the communication scientific community nor communication practitioners in general have given proper attention to intercultural communication theories & frameworks in what refers to its utility in the practice of public relations across borders, which inevitably encounters a multi-cultural environment.

Culture permeates all aspects of human life and we are most likely to never perceive it. It is often quoted in cultural studies that "a fish would hardly realise the environment around it - water". The same happens to human beings when staring to its own culture which have a direct impact in the communication patterns used by and with a counter-culture. As Hall (1976) explained in his Iceberg model, most of one’s culture is unconscious. The majority of the cultural aspects each human being carries in its mind software - term crafted by Hofstede - remains unknown.  

Hofstede (2001) claims that "culture is more often a source of conflict rather than synergy". This assumption is presumably right. Nevertheless, if PR professionals dedicate sufficient effort in trying to identify & classify foreign countries as per its cultural orientations, it will consequently lead to a better understanding of the foreign target audiences to be reached, concomitantly, increasing the chances of a message being rightly understood and accepted.

In other words, what is required is to analyse the environment one is going to undertake public relations' efforts through an intercultural communication perspective. Then, after that it is important to establish a strategy to adapt/conform with the counter-culture in order to reach mutual understanding - transculturality, a middle ground between the cultures involved in the communication process, where every stakeholder involved is able to understand each other. After cultural differences and eventual conflicts are professionally managed, one should most likely encounter a state of cultural synergy.

Appropriately, Sriramesh & Verčič (2009, p. 9) add:  “Communication influences and is influenced by culture. Most definitions of the term public relations originating in the United States and Europe recognise that communication (both mass and interpersonal) is the foundation of the public relations profession”.

Reflecting on Sriramesh & Verčič statement on how communication is influenced by culture and vice-versa, it is reasonable to assert that communication processes carried out by public relations professionals in the current age of globalisation are in all probability a practice of intercultural communication.  

Therefore, it is imperative for any communication professional - specially for those within the PR industry - to develop intercultural competences and skills in order to increase success rates when communicating across cultures. This will allow a smoother relationship with the respective counterparts which are likely to come from a varied range of cultural backgrounds, each one holding different traditions, distinct ways of living, preferences and paradigms. 

Understanding cultural differences may be strategic in enhacing one's capability to interact and communicate efficiently across national borders.

The advent of internet and its increasingly important social networks have made this understanding and contact with other cultures much easier. What is basically needed for someone seeking to understand other cultures is to have the scientific knowledge to classify it (cultural studies, intercultural communication, sociology) and have a sensitive analytical view about foreign national cultures (soft skills like openness to other cultures, resiliance & flexibility).

If one has the knowledge and ability to analyse it under a sensitive critical view, it is possible to go further into the next stage of examining the communication patterns in relation to each of the cultural continua identified. Such knowledge can be acquired by executing some in-depth research into intercultural communication. 

That is certainly a ride worth taking where PR professionals have a lot to learn and much to use from intercultural communication into the traditional PR functions & practices - which is becoming inevitably an activity where it is needed to engage with stakeholders from a multitude of different cultural backgrounds.

Public relations and communication in general will soon become international-only activities - if they are not already. Even when acting local, communication & PR professionals are required to have a broad, international view of business and of the communication process - taking into consideration that with the development of internet & social media, any issue involving an organisation may generate global repercussion in a matter of minutes - if not, seconds!

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To sum up, global public relations is a worldwide stakeholder engagement & relationship management activity, which deals with a multitude of cultures in a progressively more digital & social world. International public relations is about people, is about connecting and engaging with strategic stakeholders through relevant content!

References:

Hall, E. T. (1966) Hidden dimension. New York: Anchor.

Hofstede, G. (2001) Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations, 2^nd ed., Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, Inc.

Smith, A. (1966) Communication and culture. New York: Holt, Rinehardt and Winston.

Sriramesh, K. & Verčič, D. (2009) Global Public Relations Handbook: Theory, Research, and Practice, 2^nd ed., New York, NY:  Routledge.

International Public Relations and Intercultural Communication

I strongly defend that International Public Relations (IPR) must make use of Intercultural Communication theories and frameworks in order to achieve the best results possible when dealing in a multicultural environment. I first presented this idea in my recent delivered MA dissertation entitled: "Cross-Cultural Media Relations: an investigation about the relevance of intercultural communication factors in the practice of media relations across different cultures", which was part of the graduation requirements at the Master in International Communication - Geert Hofstede Consortium, which was handed in to Hanze University of Applied Sciences (Groningen, NL) and Leeds Metropolitan University - with merit (Leeds/UK).

Intercultural Communication (IC) theories proposed by authors such Edward T. Hall, Trompenaars and Geert Hofstede may provide a robust set of tools to better understand how can national cultures influence the communication behaviour players provenients from the respective counter-culture. This can be crucial when crafting messages for target audiences not from the same culture as the writer(s)/creator(s) of the message.

Therefore, if one make use of those IC theories in conjunction with IPR and traditional public relations theories as also defended by Zaharna (2000, 2001) and Ihator (2000), it will bring a considerable upgrade to PR programmes executed across borders.

I am trying to diffuse this idea among scholars and practitioners as I recently did at Sietar's Nederland Symposium "Advancing Intercultural Competence Development: Initiating the dialogue between researchers and practitioners" that took place on 16th October 2013 in Tilburg, Netherlands.

I will continue to do so and I would be glad to hear the opinion from scholars and practitioners about this topic.

Thank you for your attention and have a lovely night :)


References:

Ihator, A. (2000) ‘Understanding the cultural patterns of the world – an imperative in implementing strategic international PR programs’. Public Relations Quarterly, 45(4): 38-44.

Zaharna, R. S. (2000) ‘Intercultural communication and international public relations: exploring parallels’, Communication Quarterly, 48(1): 85-100.

At last but definitely not least...

Hi there,

Long time I have been hearing advices from friends, colleagues and lastly by a former Professor that I should start a blog to diffuse my ideas on global communications.
I am Flavio Oliveira, PR addicted, social media activist and communication believer & scientist.

I will be blogging mostly about Public Relations in an international scope, its relation to Intercultural Communication and all in-between.

It starts today.. let's get to the business!

Wanna know what I think about Communication today? Have a look on this link!

Wanna keep also updated through my Facebook page? Please click here and like it!

I hope you will have an interesting ride.. Let me hear your thoughts as soon as they pop up in your heads..

A lovely night to you all :)


Best,
Flavio

 Photo credits: Alex Mitev  (Bulgaria) - www.alexstudio.bg