Intercultural Communication Challenges in Business Case Study Analysis

This assignment analyzes a case study involving Jan Kowalski, a bookstore owner who expands his business to East Africa but encounters intercultural communication challenges with his local Kenyan staff. The analysis identifies Jan's mistakes, particularly the lack of understanding of cultural differences, leading to communication barriers and ineffective government proposals. The assignment suggests applying intercultural theories like the Iceberg theory, the Onion layer theory, and Hall framework to understand and address these issues. It emphasizes the importance of cultural sensitivity, awareness, and ethical communication in business. The solution recommends recruiting a diversified workforce, focusing on workplace diversity, and promoting intercultural communication to enhance business efficacy and decision-making. The assignment concludes that intercultural competence plays a vital role in improving business performance.

Intercultural frameworks

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................3
Where did Jan go wrong?............................................................................................................3
How could you help Jan better understand this cross-cultural problem?....................................5
Use intercultural theories to explain it and support your discussion..........................................5
What would be your advice to Jan?............................................................................................7
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Intercultural communication is defined as interaction within various personnels who are
belonging to varied cultures. Within intercultural communication people having different cultural
background establish communication with other individual in order to understand varied cultures
in prominent manner (Piller, 2017). The major purpose of intercultural communication is to
exhibit recognition regarding variety of culture. The given case study is based on Jan Kowalski,
who is running successful book store at Katowice during 2000and 2010's.
MAIN BODY
Where did Jan go wrong?
Jan is owner and manager at a successful book store and during operations at store he
went to explore East Africa with his wife for spending their holidays for 3 weeks. During their
holidays they decided to sell of their business and initiate a book distribution company in Nairobi
and this company is going to operate book distribution within eastern and southern countries of
African region. This decision proven to be high success giving as within four years he expanded
the business and recruited 18 local Kenyan staff.
The major mistake of Jan is that he recruited local Kenyan staff due to which intercultural
borders were created within their organisation. As employees are local Kenyans so this created
problem for Jan to meet cultural differences and eliminating complexities from business
operations. At the time of preparation of government contracts he found less cooperative
behaviour of his staff which was due to high barriers in communication and lesser cultural

diversity resultantly he found that their staff are not able to make efficient proposal which could
be understandable by all level and department of government office. Due to generation of high
cultural complexities Jan found that their employees are not responding in desired manner. This
made their employees to go on the path of rendering non communicative behaviour. On the other
hand their employees were not putting efforts to met government guidelines as this lead them to
face problem in making government proposal in the manner which was conveyed by the
department (Klyukanov, 2020). With the help of cross cultural staff communication can be more
effective and this may help the company to deal with varied people without facing any prominent
problem. Jan left behind within this approach and faced problems in communication which
impacted his government proposal in adverser manner.

How could you help Jan better understand this cross-cultural problem?
Intercultural communication is associated with establishing communication with varied
people having diversified background. Intercultural culture in the business is helpful in
exhibiting values, beliefs, social convergence to the employees which make them comfortable to
communicated in prominent manner (Papadopoulos and et. al., 2016). There are certain theories
which can be undertaken by Jan in order to understand cross cultural problem.
Iceberg theory is having three aspect in which organisation is required to undertake the
same so that behaviour of individual can be underlined and appreciated in prominent manner as
well. Iceberg theory is being divided in three constraints such as behaviour, beliefs and thought
pattern. The major problem faced by Jan is that he felt less involvement of his employees due to
which he faced problem in making his proposal and more communication errors created thereon.
Icerberg theory states that behaviour is apparent to culture, so at the time of entering into a new
culture time gap is to be given in order to get other people to understand the same meaning and
beliefs so that thought process can be made similar. Jan was not aware about intercultural needs
in his business so within this theory he can apply to exhibit cross cultural aspect in his
organisation.
Onion layer theory states that in the business layers are existed and this makes the
business processes and cultural application easier. This theory says that first layer is the
component of symbols, other layer is associated with traditions and the last layer is consisted
with cultural assumptions. So Jan was required to initiate making of proposal for outer level and
layer by layer this was required to go further by adopting a particular path. Beliefs and attitude
are hard to understand so this theory is helpful in making the organisation aware regarding
application of culture applications.
By making prominent efforts in understanding cultural significance interest and ideas of
varied cultural people can be understood along with high indications and adapting opinions
thereon. Within this Jan is required to be specific in his judgements and include all of his
workforce in making certain interactions with persons so that cross cultural aspect can be
introduced in the business.
Use intercultural theories to explain it and support your discussion.
The problem of cross culture is initiated at the time of establishing communication with
those people who are belonging to some different culture or nation. The issues associated with

cross cultural aspects are required to be understood by people so that early measurements can be
undertaken in order to resolve the same so by which business sustainability and effectiveness can
be maintained in prominent manner. People with varied culture have their own way or style to
communicate such as by using gestures or symbols so in every organisation cultural diversity is
the required aspect which is helpful in maintaining better communication and eliminating
barriers thereon so that business efficacy can be maintained for longer duration. In order to
communicate in better way HALL framework can be used by Jan which is elaborated as under:
Every culture is having their own intrinsic dynamics, propounded principles. According
to Hall framework high and low con text cultural factors are included which stats that
intercultural competence is a skill that undertake transformation of various information to
multicultural person (Ferri, 2018).
Skill: In the context of intercultural aspect various skills are required by individuals and
this is helpful for the management to handle business procedures in prominent manner. This
enables the individual to ensure that their emotions and beliefs are understood by the other
person form which communication is initiated. In the organisation cultural meanings are required
to be negotiated so that all the working people may grow up with ability to recognise their
interaction with another personnel. Jan mismanaged cultural diversity in their organisation and
recruited localite people which lead them to suffer form inter cultural complexity during filling
up government contract.
Perspective: Three perspectives are included in the theory such as intercultural
sensitivity, intercultural awareness, intercultural adroitness. Intercultural sensitivity is defined as
differences which are coming up due to cultural differences, intercultural awareness is defined as
getting understanding of variation in culture, intercultural adroitness is defined as flexibility
within management to adopt intercultural fluctuations. Jan has not made any efforts regarding
management of diversity and inter cultural aspect in his organisation and this generated cold
stress within working of business. Jan can put their efforts in order to boost diversity in their
business which may lead them to have efficient working staff so future complexities in
communication can be avoided.
Ethics: In order to understand intercultural aspect ethics are defined within intercultural
aspect. Ethical communication is something which is having a path for communicate and to
guide in order to make other sufficient that they perceive the same meaning. Jan has not made

any ethical rule which made his company insufficient in establishing communication within
employees (Calafell and et. al., 2017). On the other hand Jan is required to make prominent
ethical rules in which their employees are required to behave in order to understand significance
of cross cultural.
What would be your advice to Jan?
This is advised to Jan to recruit cross cultural and diversified culture people in this
business so that learning can be exhibited in order to understand religion, beliefs in prominent
manner. This is easier for Jan to work in better way so that acceptance within employees can be
boosted up. On the other hand ability and capability of employees are required to be understood
so that inter cultural relation can be uplifted and encouraged in effective manner. The major
recommendation to Jan is to focus on workplace diversity so that effective decisions can be taken
for business in order to achieve success.
CONCLUSION
From the above analysis of the case study it can be concluded that vital role is played by
inter cultures due to which ability of the business can be improvised in prominent manner. This
is required by the company that they promote intercultural communication so that policies
regarding the same is formed by the company by which flexible culture is formed and overall
efficacy is improvised. On the other hand with the help of varied culture in business any
information can reached in prominent manner so that process of decision making made easier.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Calafell and et. al., 2017. Critical intercultural communication pedagogy. Lexington Books.
Ferri, G., 2018. Intercultural communication: Critical approaches and future challenges.
Springer.
Klyukanov, I., 2020. Principles of intercultural communication. Routledge.
Papadopoulos and et. al., 2016. Developing tools to promote culturally competent compassion,
courage, and intercultural communication in healthcare. Journal of Compassionate
Health Care. 3(1). p.2.
Piller, I., 2017. Intercultural communication: A critical introduction. Edinburgh University
Press.