A STUDY ON BARRIERS OF CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION: A CASE OF MULTINATIONAL COMPANY

Abstract

International business brings a number of benefits to a country. Nevertheless, different nationalities, languages and non-verbal languages may cause problems for cross-cultural teams working in a multinational company. The diversity of nationalities may lead to misunderstanding among organizational members, which can be considered as a barrier in communication. Moreover, it should be noted that English proficiency and non-verbal languages are likely to reflect communication barriers especially in the multinational company where English is an international medium of communication. Therefore, this study aims to understand how team members communicate with the cross-cultural teams in order to explore the communication problems faced by the cross-cultural teams focusing on nationalities, English proficiency and non-verbal languages. The paper also endeavors to understand how to create effective communication for cross-cultural team. Qualitative method was conducted to collect the data from 10 supervisors and managers who have been working in the multinational company more than 8 years. Analysis of the data showed that the differences in nationalities, level of English proficiency and non-verbal language are considered as barriers of cross-cultural communication in the multinational company.