Basic Requirements for Global Business Success: Cultural Awareness, Sensitivity and Competence

Abstract

As the impact of globalization is growing, the need for intercultural communication competence increases. In the present-day multicultural context, cross-cultural interactions are encountered on a daily basis, so, business people, like everyone else, are forced to escape the comfort of their culture-specific habits of mind and patterns of behaviour and thus be able to engage in effective cross-cultural communication with their business partners and clients. This article is based on a more extensive research study analysing the interaction between Romanian, French and Indian employees inside of a multinational company located in Romania. In order to gauge the level of cultural awareness and competence at corporate level, a 29-item questionnaire has been used, and conclusions have been drawn based on the respondents' answers to the questions, the most relevant of which are discussed here. The article aims to determine the extent to which the empirical data of this research coincides with the theoretical information that has constituted the basis for the questionnaire design.