Reconsidering intercultural (communication) competence in the workplace: a dialectical approach

Abstract

Scholars and practitioners from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds (sociolinguistics, language education, communication, business, etc.) have investigated and promoted the notion of competence in intercultural interaction for many years. They have addressed complex issues and proposed culture general and culture specific models and applied these models in various contexts including workplace interaction. In this paper, we examine the assumptions about the cultural identities of workers in contemporary research and training in intercultural competence. These assumptions seem to reinscribe the colonialist traveler/cosmopolitan – focusing on individual characteristics, motivation, and skill sets, often through a Eurocentric lens. A dialectical perspective foregrounds individual characteristics of competence with larger societal attitudes and laws that impact the treatment of women, gays, and others. A dialectical perspective can help us better understand the opportunities and constraints facing different people in workplaces around the world. By complicating our understanding of competence and taking a dialectical perspective, we hope to advance theory and practice in this important topic area.

Chercheurs et praticiens de divers milieux disciplinaires (sociolinguistique, l'enseignement des langues, la communication, les entreprises, etc.) ont étudié et promu la notion de compétence en interaction interculturelle depuis de nombreuses années. Ils ont abordé des questions complexes et proposé des modèles de culture-générale et culture-spécifique et appliqués ces modèles dans divers contextes, y compris l'interaction dans les lieux de travail. Dans cet article, nous examinons les hypothèses sur les identités des travailleurs dans la recherche contemporaine et de la formation en compétences interculturelles. Ces hypothèses semblent réinscrire le voyageur colonialiste/cosmopolite mettant l'accent sur les caractéristiques individuelles, la motivation et les compétences, souvent par l'intermédiaire d'une lentille eurocentrique. Une perspective dialectique peut nous aider à mieux comprendre les possibilités et les contraintes auxquelles sont confrontées des personnes différentes dans des lieux de travail à travers le monde. En compliquant notre compréhension de la compétence et de prendre un point de vue dialectique, nous espérons faire avancer la théorie et la pratique dans ce sujet important.

Keywords:

• communication
• competence
• dialectic
• culture
• global
• workplace

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Judith N. Martin is a professor of Intercultural Communication in the School of Human Communication at Arizona State University, USA. Her principle research interests focus on the role of culture in communication competence and online communication; interethnic and interracial communication, as well as sojourner adaptation and reentry. She has published numerous research articles in Communication journals as well as other disciplinary journals. She has co-authored three textbooks on intercultural communication as well as co-edited books on White identity and culture and online communication.

Thomas K. Nakayama is a professor of Communication Studies at Northeastern University, USA. He has also held administrative and teaching positions at several universities, including two Fulbright teaching awards at the Université de Mons in Belgium. His research addresses how racial difference functions rhetorically in society, as well as how larger economic, political, cultural, and social contexts function to structure intercultural communication and interaction in particular ways. He is widely published in both US and international journals, and is the founding editor of the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication.

Notes

1 Kramsch (2012) notes that European educators, proponents of the intercultural competence approach, have recently moved to incorporate a discourse dimension in their study of intercultural competence. This would appear to bring the two strands of scholarship – intercultural communicative competence and intercultural competence – closer together.

2 We are aware of additional ‘components’ proposed by Language Education scholars (e.g. Byram's five Savoirs, the notion of interculturality) as well as Deardorff's (2009) comprehensive intercultural competence (2006) model, the Rainbow Model of Intercultural Communication Competence (Kupka et al., 2007), and others, but our critiques of the ABC model mostly hold for these other models as well.