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Solution
As evidenced in Schmidt et al. (2020), L&D strategies cultural differences entail an integration and maintenance of system of socially acquired values, beliefs and rules of conduct which impact enormous, accepted behaviours differentiated from one society group to the other. In other words, according to Barreto et al. (2021) defined the cultural differences as existence of a response to environments in which people are living in. Therefore, considering the provided definitions, it is important to argue that as result of the global environmental diversity, human beings end up responding in a manner that is relevant to the unique demands placed to them. This is the case in the findings presented by CIPD (2022) the organisation culture is a core area of the organisational life and it is relevant for business leaders in their operations. This is in the areas of HR, L&D and OD all found influencing organisation culture. The rationale of this is that organisations as systems are inclusive of human relationships and human interactions. Considering communication concept, Chbaly et al. (2021) identify this as a strategy of ideas exchange, thoughts, opinions, knowledge and data to ensure the communicated message is received and understanding clearly and purposely. In a different definition, Pongton and Suntrayuth (2019) identified miscommunication as evidenced by a phenomenon where in conveying of an issue, the message is understood differently.
As a result of L&D and training of different people in modern organisations with varying cultures, this has similarly impacted on communication increasing instances of miscommunication. As defined in Koyuncu and Denise Chipindu (2020), miscommunication in workplace are noted to emerge since the cultural differences existing contribute to people misunderstanding in engagement. Further, to explain the impact cultural differences have on miscommunication, Reinisch and Karimi (2020) study explored this area in-depth. The authors hypothesised that as a past best practice, organisations management and administration opted for establishing a common and unique communication style to deal with clients, partners and suppliers. This has since changed and today managers are prompted to start with pursuing a due diligence for understanding their stakeholders prior engaging them in communication. This is for avoiding instances where miscommunication would prevail. Further, Ummi (2020) report argued that through an embrace of verbal communication and body language, cultural differences often lead to miscommunication issues. This is since one verbal communication aspect or signs language could be meaning one thing in a certain culture and mean differently in a separate culture. Hence, through L&D and training opportunities, the authors recommended that for avoiding such miscommunications being prevalent, the managers and administration would ensure that they understand the languages basic practices considering that the cultural diversity elicit immense miscommunication issues.
From the reviewed literature, it is evidently clear that there are various cultural differences impacting communication and way of their consideration. One of the studies which has focused on evaluating this is Paxton et al. (2021) which identified the issue of context. For instance, high-context cultures are characterised by reduced reliance on verbal engagement and prioritising more on the non-vernal communication. Also, they tend to prioritise on actions and settings for obtaining meaning. For instance, in Yadav (2021) study, they had identified countries such as Japan, India and Saudi Arabia as high-context cultures. Conversely, the low-context cultures are found as prioritising on verbal communication and do not capitalise majorly on the different contextual clues. The study further identified low-context cultures as including USA, UK and Germany. A significant issue which lead to miscommunication as noted in Yuralevich et al. (2019) and linked with the cultural differences is stereotyping. Despite of the possibility of defining a culture in a particular manner, this is not an indicator that such things are true to every person and regional differences similarly being core. For instance, an employee working in Saudi Aramco from Malaysia is of significant distinction with an employee from Nigeria. Further, Kew (2021) highlighted that the miscommunications are as a consequence of roles and statis, personal space and body language. The authors further hypothesised that the roles and status of men and women for example could be impacting the extent in which male employees are found relating to female supervisors and comfort of a female employee in their engagement with a manager.
Hence, in summary, from the reviewed literature, it is evident that cultural differences lead to behaviour and personality differences such as body language, thinking, communication, manners, norms and more through capacity development strategies. All these aspects combined lead to miscommunication prevalence. A case example is where some of the cultures consider an eye contact as core with some of the cultures viewings such a practice as an act of rudeness or disrespect to others.
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