Blackwell Reference Online

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Major social changes of the twentieth century include international air travel, global business expansion, increased migration across national boundaries, and recognition of the civil rights of various minority groups. This means that individuals will frequently come into contact with people from other nations and from other cultural groups within a large and diverse nation such as the United States or Canada. When people consciously prepare for such contact, they may benefit from intercultural communication training programs. Intercultural training programs are planned efforts that have the goal of preparing people to interact effectively with culturally different others ( Brislin & Yoshida 1994 ; Bhawuk 2001 ; Landis et al. 2004 ). Programs are : budgeted, staffed by experts, sensitive to the needs and prior experiences of participants, scheduled for a time and place, and evaluated to determine if program goals have been met. Planned programs can be contrasted with an alternative, unfortunately still in existence. This is the “sink or swim” approach, where people are simply given international assignments, presented with an airplane ticket, and then have to survive in another country on their own. There are four goals in an intercultural communication training program . The same goals apply to international assignments (e.g., overseas business in Japan) and to intercultural ... log in or subscribe to read full text