What’s Missing in Our Training of Intercultural Business Communication

This paper examines the current approaches used in the training of intercultural business communication such as cultural patterns and skills, and points out that these approaches mainly reflect the etic or culture-general perspective. What is missing is the emic or culture-specific perspective. In order to promote intercultural research based on both perspectives, this paper details ethnography of communication and suggests ways of enhancing intercultural training. As an example, “guanxi” (connections) is examined in the light of the proposed approach. In addition, “guanxi” is also a culture-specific concept for communicating with Chinese.