Spitzberg and Cupach (1984) define communication competency as the ability to achieve your goals while you fulfill relational and situational expectations (as cited in Cupach & Canary, 1997). Spitzberg and Cupach contend that communication competency is primarily comprised of two dimensions, appropriateness (meeting social expectations and social rules) and effectiveness (achieving one’s goals). Understanding the individual’s role in cross-cultural communication has gained the attention of several researchers (Gudykunst, 1998; Ting-Toomey, 1988).Gudykunst as well as others (Klopf, 2001; Ting-Toomey, 1988) have given us a framework for examining the role that general cultural dimensions play in the communication process. Gudykunst, in his 1998 book titled Bridging Differences: Effective Intergroup Communication, concludes that “culture influences our communication and our communication influences our cultures” (p. 44). Therefore, an individual’s cross-cultural communication is important in providing communication guidelines for how specific cultures and nations talk. Neither cultural level of competency nor the individual level of competency is adequate to reflect the new multicultural phenomena occurring in our global market. Therefore, a richer understanding of global negotiation will result from an integrative approach (individual factors and cultural factors). Thus, viewing cross-cultural communication in global negotiations offers important perspectives for the new global market.
Negotiator communication competency is essential for understanding the role that communication plays in global negotiations. The benefits of moving from a cultural generality model to a geocentric model that includes the individual negotiators’ cross-cultural communication is gre ...