issues are considered in greater detail in the following discussions.
The Management of Intercultural Relations in Organizations
Intercultural relations in the organization of the future will assume greater importance for two reasons. 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. 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.
Historically, in the United States, ethnocentrism on the part of the population majority has been manifested in racial and ethnic discrimination, and in an economic discrimination against members of lower socioeconomic groups, whether or not those people were also members of racial and ethnic minorities. In the conduct of international activities, particularly multinational business activities and military operations, American organizations have more ...