BUSN20017: Effective Business Communication Literature Review

This literature review essay examines effective business communication, particularly within multinational organizations. It analyzes the challenges arising from cross-cultural interactions, drawing on the article by Abdulai, Ibrahim, and Mohammed, which focuses on Ibis West Africa. The essay explores the importance of understanding cultural biases, non-verbal cues, and the impact of language differences. It delves into key concepts like high and low-context communication, the role of 'strangers' in intercultural settings, and the significance of non-verbal cues in conveying messages. Furthermore, the essay discusses the importance of capacity building and intercultural relationships to enhance communication. The review also analyzes the challenges in creating common meanings and understanding in cross-cultural settings, highlighting the need for effective communication strategies to overcome potential misunderstandings and misinterpretations within diverse work environments. The essay references additional literature to provide a comprehensive understanding of effective business communication and its implications for future research.

Running Head : LITERATURE REVIEW
Literature Review
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Topic - Literature review essay on Effective Business Communication
In the current business scenario, the business organizations are making good share of the
cross-cultural employees in order to keep their business at the pinnacle of success in the
highly competitive industry. As a result , there are different people from different cultures
contributing to the fulfilment of a common organizational goal (Trax, Brunow & Suedekum
2015). The communication across the cultures is an extremely challenging task beaches each
culture has a particular set of rules which the members take for granted. Few members in the
organizations understand the cultural biases as the cultural imprinted at a very early age. The
international business organizations have understood that the intercultural communication is a
subject of greater importance (Shortland, 2018). It is not just because of the globalization but
because of the domestic workforce which grows more diverse both culturally and ethnically.
The article of Abdulai, Mohammed and Ibrahim examines the effective communication in the
multi –varied cultures at the Ibis West Africa which has adopted various approaches.
The authors have pointed out the misinterpretation, misperceptions and the
misunderstandings of the verbal and the non-verbal cues in the creation of the common
meaning of messages characterised in the interactions between the local staffs and the
expatriates of Ibis West Africa. The article also recommends that the Ibis West Africa could
concentrate more on the capacity building and intercultural relationship among the
multicultural staffs in order to enhance effective communication in the multinational
organizations. The purpose of this essay is to conduct a literature review on the aspects of
effective communication across the businesses. The essay will further analyes the chosen
article from every angle and drag other relevant literature for better understanding. The essay
will describe the topic of the research article, describe the issues the articles addresses,
discuss the significance of the issues, analyse the major findings along with its significances
for future research in communication.

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The article provides the background of the selected organization that is Ibis which is a
Danish International and Non-governmental organization. The vision and the mission of the
company is to confront the causes of poverty and the inequality in the developing countries.
The company applied the concept of poverty in the widest sense having implied that the
absence of the opportunities for the material well-being, the access to the education and the
individuals as well as the collective rights to live in an environment of political influence and
power. As explained by the authors, there is a special reason behind the selection of this
organization for the case study(Abdulai, Ibrahim & Mohammed, 2017). The rapid growth of
globalization has lead Ibis to go beyond the area of origin in the Latin America and Africa for
offering services to the communities which have become impoverished.
In the literature review section, the article has highlighted the concept and the
importance of the multicultural communication. The concept of stranger and the effective
communication have also been reviewed. Apart from these, the concept of expatriation has
also been briefly elaborated. The concepts have been brought about for exerting impact on
the results which will be presented in the analysis(Abdulai, Ibrahim & Mohammed, 2017).
Regarding the definition of the concept and elements of the multicultural communication the
article asserts that the cultural diversity is the differences in people based on their own
identification with different cultural groups (Rockstuhl & Ng, 2015). As per their
observations, the cross-cultural communication occurs when a message is conveyed from a
particular person of one culture to another person belonging to a different culture. The
language, symbols and the behaviours differ from one person to another due to their cultural
orientation (McPhail, McNulty & Hutchings, 2016).
The authors have suitably utilized the grounded theory as their research methodology
along with the philosophical and the social constructive world view. It has also used
interviews, the qualitative research strategy for the generation of data. After the findings if

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the research, the authors put their discussions and the arguments forward. They argue that the
process of exchanging the messages and the creation of cross-cultural interactions does not
happen in an isolation of the socio-psychological and cultural contexts. During the study in
Ibis, a question had been asked about the intercultural communication challenges faced by the
local staffs and the expatriates. The response suggested that since English was not the official
language of the West Africans, they pay closer attention to what the opposite party says in
order to create a shared understanding. It means that they did not endorse English as a
standard knowledge. The authors analysed their responses and claimed that English is used
as the working language in Ghana but they feel difficulty in using the English language for
creating shared meaning while interacting with the local staffs in Ibis(Abdulai, Ibrahim &
Mohammed, 2017). The difficulty is partly due to the acquired English language from
different contexts and environments. Hence, the process of exchanging the messages and
establishment of meaning becomes dependent on the cultural context of communication.
Regarding the culture, the contexts and the communication, it is said that culture a set
of characteristics common among a group of people who are properly learned. This is a
revolutionary definition which suggests that culture is nothing but a shared pattern of
thoughts, norms and behaviors which are quite common in a particular organization or the
society (Weech-Maldonado et al., 2018). One of the biggest theoretical perspective that is
linked by the authors in this article is that the concept of communication among the different
cultures have been developed by the American anthropologists Hall. He postulated that the
concept related to the high verses low context of communication. Those people who are in
the context of cultures, have the information or the messages transmitted which are implicit
either in the shared beliefs or the physical settings. The low context cultures engage in the
exchange of messages through the explicit codes. Taken for example, a person who belongs

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to the higher context of culture is likely to talk around a point which will make people
understand what is said from that particular context(Abdulai, Ibrahim & Mohammed, 2017).
. Moreover, communication is also highly dependent on the situation and the person. It is
different from the low context people where each person is expected to have an equal
information access (Baruch, Altman & Tung, 2016). However, there are some limitations of
this theory as it is too simplistic for classifying the cultures or the societies into the low and
the high contexts.
As far as the concept of the stranger and the effective communication is concerned, it
has been explained that there is difference between the communication between the people of
a same group and people from a different group (Berkenkotter & Huckin, 2016). In the
context of West Africa, the communication across the cultures among the expatriates and the
local staffs of Ibis show that the expatriates are considered as the “strangers” as they are
people from different cultures. The concept of effective communication suggests that the
concepts of the effective communication and the stranger will be employed in order to
highlight the effects of the cultural variables among the expatriate workers of Ibis.
The empirical data also revealed that the local and the regional officers communicate
in their own local language apart from the English language. The authors further elaborate
that the cultural norms and the beliefs are the best reflected in the language one speaks.
Hence, having chosen English to be the working language of Ibis, it has reflected their
cultural values. In this regard, Hall’s postulation has been dragged who claimed that
communication is culture and culture is communication. It further implies that the cultural
variables are made meaningful by communication among the local staffs. It is also a way of
recognizing and misrecognizing which is supported by using local languages apart from
English. Taken for example, when the local language fails to keep up with the identities of

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the expatriates, misrecognition is implied. On the other hand, when the local language is
keeping with the local employees, it becomes recognition.
Moreover the communication between the strangers and the workers suggests that
there is not only a communication problem between the strangers and the locals but there is a
serious cross-cultural problem between them (Arvizu & Saravia-Shore, 2017). The authors
found a correlation between the lack of free flow of information and Hall’s theory of low and
high cultural context. It can also be said that the failure to share the information in a free flow
is a reason behind the com cultural and communication gap. As mentioned in the article ,
English is used as a mode of communication in West Africa Ibis and there is an
understanding of the language too among the native speakers along with the local staffs.
However, the socio-cultural contexts and communication relationships of the native speakers
are not understood by the native speakers.
The second important theme that is generated by the authors is the theme of effective
communication and culture which focuses on the analysing the challenges which tend to
become the barrier of conducting effective communication. The theme has been divided into
two subthemes such as the non-verbal cues in the intercultural communication and challenges
in creating the common meanings. The author further suggests that communication is
incomplete if there is no common understanding between the decoder and the encoder.
Communication is rather predicted on the rules and the principles that are culturally and
contextually grounded. The social; situations further determine the principles, the rules and
the regulation of communication. As pointed out by the authors of the article, the negative
consequences of such difficulty is misinterpretation, miscommunication and
misunderstanding. Such mislead aspects occur between the employees from different
backgrounds and the managers (Abdulai, Ibrahim & Mohammed, 2017).

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The non-verbal cues as pointed out by the authors predate the verbal communication
and also considered to be a central part of communication. It is the first means throu8gh
which people express themselves. It helps in the communication and interpretation of
information without using any language. It is further said that the non-verbal cues rely solely
on the implicit and tacit knowledge in every human being. After analysing the case of Ibis
West Africa, the authors show that there is a misinterpretation of the non-verbal symbols
which are used between the local staffs and the expatriates. It is also found from the
interviews that the non-verbal cues are not likely to be understood by the expatriates because
there is a culture difference. The non-spoken communication illustrates the use of the body
languages, the gestures, facial expressions and can be understood by the expatriates when
they are accustomed with the local system.
On a concluding note it can be said that the article of Abdulai, Mohammed
and Ibrahim have successfully examined the effective communication in the multi –varied
cultures at the Ibis West Africa which has adopted various approaches. The easy has
conducted a literature review on the aspects of effective communication across the
businesses. The essay has further analysed the chosen article from every angle and dragged
other relevant literature for better understanding. The essay has described the topic of the
research article, described the issues the articles addresses, discussed the significance of the
issues, analysed the major findings along with its significances for future research in
communication.

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Reference
Abdulai, M., Ibrahim, H., & Mohammed, M. A. (2017). Communicating across cultures in
multinational Ibis West Africa. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 58,
42-53.
Arvizu, S. F., & Saravia-Shore, M. (2017). Cross-cultural literacy: Ethnographies of
communication in multiethnic classrooms. Routledge.
Baruch, Y., Altman, Y., & Tung, R. L. (2016). Career mobility in a global era: Advances in
managing expatriation and repatriation. The Academy of Management Annals, 10(1),
841-889.
Berkenkotter, C., & Huckin, T. N. (2016). Genre knowledge in disciplinary communication:
Cognition/culture/power. Routledge.
Binder, J. (2016). Global project management: communication, collaboration and
management across borders. Routledge.
CrosHsieh, E. (2016). Bilingual health communication: Working with interpreters in cross-
cultural care. Routledge.s-Cultural Communication.
Holliday, A., Kullman, J., & Hyde, M. (2016). Intercultural communication: An advanced
resource book for students. Routledge.
McPhail, R., McNulty, Y., & Hutchings, K. (2016). Lesbian and gay expatriation:
Opportunities, barriers and challenges for global mobility. The International Journal
of Human Resource Management, 27(3), 382-406.
Rockstuhl, T., & Ng, K. Y. (2015). The effects of cultural intelligence on interpersonal trust
in multicultural teams. In Handbook of cultural intelligence (pp. 224-238). Routledge.

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Shortland, S. (2018). Female expatriates’ motivations and challenges: the case of oil and
gas. Gender in Management: An International Journal, 33(1), 50-65.
Trax, M., Brunow, S., & Suedekum, J. (2015). Cultural diversity and plant-level
productivity. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 53, 85-96.
Weech-Maldonado, R., Dreachslin, J. L., Epané, J. P., Gail, J., Gupta, S., & Wainio, J. A.
(2018). Hospital cultural competency as a systematic organizational intervention: Key
findings from the national center for healthcare leadership diversity demonstration
project. Health care management review, 43(1), 30-41.