You’ll critically examine issues related to cross-cultural business behaviour, cultural dimensions, the key role of language, critical cultural awareness, and training for intercultural sensitivity.
You’ll discuss the works of major intercultural researchers and the critiques they have received in order to contribute to a more widening debate of intercultural theory and research.
This course gives you grounding in the global economic environment and the opportunity to specialise in an area of business. You’ll also study an in-depth introduction to research methodology, appropriate to undertaking research at this level.
With an international outlook, MSc Intercultural Business Communication attracts students from a wide range of cultural backgrounds. By the end of the course, you’ll have a systematic understanding of intercultural business communication and competing theories of culture and communication.
You’ll also have the ability to critically and flexibly apply theoretical models to cross-cultural business contexts, including those of international marketing, commerce, advertising and tourism.
Lead Academics
Dr Phiona Stanley researches on how people engage in intercultural settings including working abroad, international education, and backpacker tourism, particularly voluntourism. She is an ethnographer, and uses interview-based research and autoethnography. She is particularly focused on how power relations operate in intercultural settings and exploring innovative ways of doing qualitative research, including storytelling within academic texts.
Dr. Nick Pilcher is the programme leader for the MSc in Intercultural Business Communication. He has taught in Japan, Singapore, Argentina and in the UK since 2001. He completed a PhD in 2007 entitled 'Mainland Chinese students and UK supervisors; perceptions and experiences of completing Masters Dissertations.' His areas of study are languages and culture, qualitative research, and education.
Dr Vivien Zhou is a Lecturer in Intercultural Communication and Deputy Programme Leader for MSc Intercultural Business Communication. She leads postgraduate modules in intercultural communication and intercultural competence and teaches undergraduate modules in similar subjects, including two modules with a focus on Mandarin Chinese (for beginners).
Dr Zhou’s research interests are broadly summarised as: thematically - intercultural communication (in education, the workplace, and the wider community), dialogue in interpersonal communication, cultural identity, the liminality of transitional experiences; methodologically - qualitative research, with a particular interest in narrative inquiry and researching multilingually.
