nformation to the organization.
Intercultural relations in the organization of the future will assume greater importance for two reasons (Herr and Spiro, 1990, pp. 80 81. First, the work force in the United States is becoming more diverse in a racial and ethnic context, and second, American organizations are intensifying operations in other countries.
The management of intercultural relations is, to a great extent, the development of effective intercultural communication within the organization (Blai, 1989, pp. 70 73). Communication within an organization or between an organization and its external environment is not simply a matter of people and groups learning to speak to one another or to convey ideas to one another. On a more important level, such communication is the building of trust between the communicating parties. It is only when such trust is established that meaningful progress may occur.
In an intercultural environment, the greatest barriers to the development of trust and, therefore, the development of effective communications are ethnocentric attitudes and attempts by a majority to impose a cultural imperialism. Ethnocentrism is a tendency to judge other people or groups by the standards and practices of one's own culture or ethnic group, and, as a consequence, to view people from outside one's own culture with disfavor, and to regard one's own culture, race, or ethnic group as inherently superior to all others.
In the emerging global economy, the successful firm of the future will be the organization that learns to live effectively in a wide variety of cultural environments. The organizations that fail to develop effective intercultural relations will eventually become also rans.
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