#31210
Cultural Barriers to Internal Communication
Twenty years ago, I sat in the London offices of an American oil services company taking the conference brief for a CEO’s script. He was an oilman of the old school—no nonsense and pretty brutal in his management style. When his personal assistant came in with the coffee, she all but threw it over the guy and left the room with her nose in the air. “The natives are revolting,” he explained. “I made some redundancies this morning: everyone who arrived more than five minutes late.” It was my first experience of culture shock. For the Texan it was the most natural behavior; for the Brits, he represented a form of barbarism not seen since the Dark Ages. So how does a multinational firm communicate to audiences who have fundamentally different cultural values?
Wright, Marc. Communication World Bulletin (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Cultural Theory
#15111
Describes how technical writers can design usable, helpful tables of contents for both printed documentation and help files.
Wright, Marcia G. Intercom (2002). Articles>Editing>Information Design
