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Abstract
The article is focused on the significance of intercultural Communication in business in the 21st century, based on the concept of globalization, which implies interaction and, therefore the necessity of training future experts in business accordingly in order to be able to communicate successfully with peers belonging to different cultures. It points out some aspects referring to the nature of communication, categorization of cultures and the importance of good communication across language and cultural barriers.
Keywords: business, communication, globalization, skills, training
1. Introduction
In recent years experts in a wide variety of fields - scientific cooperation, academic research, business, management, education, culture, politics, diplomacy, and others - have realised how important intercultural communication is for their everyday activity. The internet, fast travel and international media have contributed to an easy communication among people all over the world. The concept of economic globalization means that we cannot function in isolation but must interact with the rest of the world. Many of the modern problems such as environment, poverty or international terrorism require cooperation between nations. Therefore, intercultural communication is no longer an option, but a necessity.
Globalization has made it possible for more business people to move cross-culturally. Intercultural business communication includes economic topics, and businessmen belonging to different cultures need to become sensitive to the variety of cultural values and to improve their communication skills that could directly lead to successful negotiations with other companies or corporations. Miscommunication may start from small linguistic misunderstandings to serious situations in which agreement may be differently interpreted and its process may be totally different from culture to culture.
Since intercultural communication includes not only linguistic elements , such as grammar, syntax and pronunciation, but also intercultural competence, such as turn taking, negotiating, opening or closing a conversation, it is quite hard for language teachers or trainers to point out the elements that are important
2. The Nature of communication
Whenever communication takes place there is a speaker (and/or writer) and a listener (and/or reader). In conversation and the exchange of letters the speaker or writer quickly becomes a listener or reader as the communication progresses.
When two people are engaged in talking to each other they are doing so for good reasons. Therefore, the speakers will...