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Given the rising expansion of Western multinational companies (MNCs) to the African contexts, the development of expatriates and local employees has become increasingly important to the human resource management of these MNCs. This paper aims to provide critical lessons on cross-cultural communication competences for Western expatriates working in the sub-Saharan Africa business environment.

This paper is a qualitative phenomenology that makes use of lived experiences of senior expatriate staff working in Ghana in the form of direct interviews.

Results showed that cross-cultural communication competence is very important for Western expatriates’ functioning in sub-Saharan Africa. The findings also established a plethora of cross-cultural communication skills that are essential for Western expatriates’ successful adaptation and work outcomes in Africa.

This research argues that there is the need for the appreciations of the differing cultural patterns of expatriates and local staff, and this provides the underlying assumptions of intercultural and cross-cultural communication in global business.

A critical perspective of international business that has scarcely been studied offers lessons for Western expatriates working in sub-Saharan Africa.

The purpose of this paper is to explore students’ perceptions of the use of technology in cross-cultural communication and to compare findings with current trends in business.

Structured interviews with seven open-ended questions were used to explore students’ perceptions of the use of technology in cross-cultural communication.

Students learn how to use new technology in cross-cultural communication faster than businesses implement those technologies. Students tend to emphasize the use of video conferencing tools rather than e-mail.

Although data saturation has been reached, the sample size was relatively small. Students studying business participated in the study.

The findings of this study suggest considering changes to the curriculum and embedding work-based learning into academic programs.

This paper compares students’ perceptions with business expectations, revealing the areas in the content of the business communication classes that need to be changed.

Integrating anxiety and uncertainty management (AUM) theory and theory of organizing, this study aims to contribute to the knowledge management literature by examining the interdependent and bidirectional nature of knowledge transfer between expatriates and host country nationals (HCNs). Specifically, the authors investigate how receivers’ cognitive response to senders’ behaviors during their interactions becomes an important conduit between senders’ behaviors and the successful transfer of knowledge.

The authors used the actor partner interdependence model to analyze data from 107 expatriate-HCN dyads. The authors collected the responses of these expatriate-HCN dyads in Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, Vietnam, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and India.

Receivers’ interaction anxiety and uncertainty, as a response to senders’ relationship building behaviors, mediate the relationship between senders’ relationship building behaviors and successful knowledge transfer. When senders are expatriates, senders’ communication patience and relationship building behaviors interact to reduce the direct and indirect effects of both receivers’ interaction anxiety and uncertainty. However, when senders are HCNs, the moderation and moderated mediation models are not supported.

The study contributes to the knowledge management literature by investigating knowledge transfer between expatriates and HCNs using an interpersonal cross-cultural communication lens. The authors make refinements to AUM theory by going beyond the sender role to highlighting the interdependence between senders and receivers in the management of anxiety and uncertainty which, in turn, influences the effectiveness of cross-cultural communication. The study is also unique in that the authors underscore an important yet understudied construct, communication patience, in the successful transfer of knowledge.

Research is recognised as an essential part of planning and evaluation in most areas of marketing and corporate communication, including advertising, direct marketing and, increasingly, public relations and corporate communication disciplines such as employee communication and community relations. Understanding of audience interests, awareness, perceptions and information needs is critical to strategic planning of communication campaigns. Secondly, identification and quantification of changes in awareness, perception and, ultimately, behaviour is necessary to evaluate objectively the effectiveness of communication (ie the outcomes or results). Nowhere is research more important than in multicultural and cross‐cultural communication. International relations began with human migrations and trade and reach new levels today with globalisation, corporations, organisations and governments increasingly seeking to create consistencies and shared values across divergent cultural groups. They seek to create consistencies and shared values in relation to products (eg Coca‐Cola, IBM, McDonalds), policies (eg trade agreements) and in popular culture such as films, television programmes and news media. Social rules and shared values, ie the culture of communities, affect organisations seeking to communicate multiculturally and cross‐culturally at two levels. First, the “home” culture of the organisation wishing to communicate shapes policies, plans and products that are produced. Secondly, the cultures of audiences inform and substantially shape their interpretation and use of information. Often, multicultural and cross‐cultural communication is a case of “Chinese whispers” on an international scale. What one says or shows is frequently not what others hear or see. Studies cited in this paper show that culture is a vitally important factor in communication. Yet, companies and even governments attempt communication with little understanding of audiences which they wish to reach and with which they wish to build relationships and understanding. This paper examines cultural considerations specifically in the field of public relations and corporate communication in the Asia Pacific region which is comprised of a diverse range of cultures and has been identified as the largest market in the world. Thus, it is increasingly a focal point of global communication campaigns.

This paper aims to examine the effect of the cultural intelligence (CQ) of salespeople, who engage in cross-cultural selling, on the quality of cross-cultural sales presentations (CSSP) they demonstrate. Based on the self-efficacy theory, this research proposes that the effect of CQ on the quality of CSSP is mediated by sales self-efficacy (SSEF). Moreover, this research explores whether the effect of CQ on SSEF and the quality of CSSP can be moderated by the level of challenge orientation (CHO) that salespeople exhibit.

Survey data were collected from 282 salespeople who work at international tradeshows in Japan, India and Vietnam. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used for data analysis.

The results support the significant effect of sales-efficacy that partially mediates the association between CQ and CSSP. Moreover, the analysis of the moderating effect of CHO significantly shows that the positive association between CQ and CSSP is stronger for salespeople who possess low levels of CHO than those who possess high levels of CHO.

From the theoretical perspective, this research contributes to CQ literature by using the self-efficacy theory as a framework to provide a theoretical explanation as to why CQ could allow salespeople to perform better in sales communication with foreign customers. Moreover, this research broadens the knowledge of previous CQ research by showing that CQ might be particularly more important for individuals who lack CHO attitude toward the tasks they perform.

Relying on data collected from in-depth interviews and participant observation, as well as secondary data, this chapter compares the cross-cultural communication processes between easterners and westerners in an Asian cultural context, namely, that of Taiwan, as well as the potential influences of Confucianism and the theory of “manners of different orders.” Our data reveal that westerners tend to communicate with Taiwanese people in an outspoken and brusque way and to make few changes during the communication process. On the contrary, easterners are inclined to communicate with a gentler approach and make adjustments for the local culture. We also find that Confucianism and the theory of manners of different orders have strong influences on cross-cultural communication strategies and performance. This chapter provides evidence to support the arguments that the theory of manners of different orders may play an even more significant role than the individualism–collectivism paradigm in explaining the causes of better communicational performance in Taiwan and possibly mainland China. Implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are provided based on these findings.

The aim of the investigation is to identify enabling and disenabling factors in the development and operation of virtual teams; to evaluate the importance of factors such as team development, cross‐cultural variables, leadership, communication and social cohesion as contributors to virtual team effectiveness.

A total of 115 employees in virtual teams using an on‐line survey contributed a 55 per cent response rate. An on‐line survey combining both quantitative Likert scale and qualitative explanatory questions measured the following variables in addition to those above: team member roles and responsibilities, relationships and trust and team dynamics.

Results indicated that cross‐cultural communication improvement, managerial and leadership communication, goal and role clarification, and relationship building are most important to virtual team performance.

Further research focusing on particular sectors such as knowledge‐ intensive firms (KIF), including information and telecommunications, and research and development is needed to provide in‐depth insights into virtual team operations. In addition this research highlights potential issues in cross‐cultural composition of virtual teams and the need for further work on appropriate team training, selection factors in comprising virtual teams and communications.

While there is a growing body of research on knowledge and information economy issues and the changing sociology of work for example in the ICT sector and in tele‐remote work and call centres, empirical work specifically on virtual team operation is embryonic. This exploratory research begins to add to the understanding of variables important in the operational effectiveness of virtual teams.