An Analysis of Turn-taking Behaviors and Topic Management Strategies in Intercultural Business Contexts: A Comparative Study of Individualism and Collectivism

With globalization, a rapidly growing number of bilinguals exchange information in intra-and intercultural settings, yet there is little systematic evaluation that compares communication behaviors of individuals in intra- and inter-cultural communication situations.This proposed research will build on earlier studies and an on-going study on turn-taking and topic management strategies in decision-making meetings conducted by Du-Babcock. She has studied these topics in connection with the first- and second-language communication of Hong Kong communicators and between Asian communicators and Western communicators. The study will also add the perspectives of associated research conducted by other associates. These researchers have collected and will additionally collect data in their countries (Japan, Finland, and Korea) and this data will be combined to form the data set for the study. This proposed study will represent a step to a better understanding of (a) the differences in intra-and intercultural business communication and (b) what intercultural communication looks like among different cultural groups.