Developing Cultural Fluency: The Goal of International Business Communication Instruction in the 21st Century

Abstract

Developing cultural fluency, the ability to cross cultural boundaries and function much like a native by regularly matching the receiver's decoded and the sender's encoded message meanings, is the goal of international business communication instruction in the 21st century. Cultural fluency, which is rooted in partially understood but powerful culture-communication relationships, can be developed through a variety of instructional means. Developing cultural fluency will help the business community cope with such important communication-related challenges as growing workforce diversity, increasing globalization, and the need to select appropriate communication technologies.