Intercultural communication management and lean global supply chains: A conceptual approach

Abstract

With the development of global value chains misunderstandings due to different cultural habits and rules are a relevant issue. Studies show that lack of intercultural competence results in enormous losses and frictions in negotiations, sales and customer relationships. Despite the merits of training seminars general training will not be sufficient to solve the challenges of intercultural management. What we also need is a different perception of Information Management Systems, which not only provide proper information transfer, but also contextual awareness on cultural differences and ambiguities. The discussion of requirements and consequences of cultural issues on the design of proper communication management is subject of this paper. It will be a conceptual approach exploring findings from psychology, sociology, organisational-anthropology and communication-management, but the paper will also describe appropriate developments in Knowledge-Management Systems. © 2008 International Federation for Information Processing.