Executive summary
This report takes on a personal, critical incident to illustrate various approaches in understanding cross cultural communications. It aims to explore the communication problems which arise from cultural differences. By way of a narrative inquiry and analysis, the critical incident is related to general workplace miscommunications which happen when verbal and non verbal communications do not cross the same level of understanding between the sender and the receiver. This report applies three specific theories: theory of verbal communications by Mellor (1990), theory of non verbal communications by Ekman & Friesen (1969), and theory of individualism and collectivism by Hofstede (1980) to ...