Businesses face an increasingly diverse collection of customers, and many boast an equally multicultural workforce. Those responsible for communication in these organizations must often adapt their communication strategies and delivery to most effectively reach highly diverse audiences, and communicators must maintain awareness of numerous cultural considerations to craft effective messages.
Purpose
Many businesses have embraced diversity as a way of capitalizing on a larger talent pool, a way of more accurately reflecting changing customer demographics and in compliance with numerous equal opportunity employment regulations. Because employees and customers from different cultural backgrounds receive, process and respond to information in very different ways, though, diversity creates a number of challenges for business communication. For this reason, those responsible for drafting business communication materials must pay special attention to how a multicultural audience may receive an intended message.
Considerations
Drafting business communication for a diverse audience requires a number of specific considerations. According to Andy Gillett, who runs the communication website Using English for Academic Purposes, some considerations for intercultural business communication include the timing of delivery and the choice of words in written documents. Those delivering verbal messages must also consider the timing of both messages and responses, and oral communicators also should keep both tone and cadence, or speed of delivery, in mind when speaking with those who may not speak English as a primary language. Those who communicate in face-to-face settings must also be aware of their use of personal space, and in-person communicators should pay special attention to use of touch and nonverbal signals like posture and eye contact.
Cultural Factors
Cultural anthropologist Geert Hofstede identified five primary cultural dimensions that play significant factors in communication among diverse audiences, according to the communication website Changing Minds. These dimensions include power distance, or the perceived distance between those with authority and their subordinates, and individualism, or the loyalty to either self or community. Masculinity, or the subordinance of females, also plays a role in intercultural communication, as does the culture's tendency to concentrate on either long-term or short-term planning. Many cultures also have very high uncertainty avoidance, and members of these cultures prefer to have all information available before making a decision or taking action.
Applications
When composing messages for a diverse audience, business communicators must account for all of Hofstede's and Gillett's considerations. Communicators should carefully evaluate the method used for delivery, then craft a message to optimize the medium's strengths and deliver that message in a timely fashion. The message should provide as many facts as possible and use a friendly tone that carries some authority without seeming overbearing enough to intimidate audiences with a high power distance. Female communicators addressing an audience that has a high masculinity index may consider having a male colleague deliver the message. In addition, business communicators delivering messages to a highly individualistic audience should emphasize points that apply to the individual recipient, while those addressing collectivist audiences should emphasize points relevant to the community or workforce as a whole.
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