Teaching What Isn’T Being Said In Conflict Management: Understanding Nonverbal Behavior In An Increasingly Interconnected Yet Polarized World

Authors:

Abstract: Given that global and cross-cultural work teams are increasingly prevalent in the business world, this panel focuses a crucial skill and competency needed by our students, specifically, Teaching What Isn’t Being Said in Conflict Management: Understanding Nonverbal Behavior in an Increasingly Interconnected yet Polarized World. This panel is about how, using different media and approaches, we teach communication context to business students of different levels and from different cultures, especially in courses on conflict management and negotiation. Specifically, we focus on the unspoken, invisible meaning that is expressed not with words but around words, within relationships, through space, and across time. We discuss how cultural variation in communication norms, or the communication context surrounding a verbal message, can create ripples, or even waves, of miscommunication and possibly, conflict, and how we make this real for our students. We then unpack how diverse communication norms in a global classroom or workplace can work synergistically to support cross-cultural collaboration that positively impacts downstream organizational outcomes. In essence, we are heeding the call to prepare future responsible leaders to navigate the intricacies of the dynamic international and cross-cultural business environment, with a focus on conflict and negotiation.

Track: COMM

Keywords: Nonverbal Communication Behavior, Culture, Contextualized Communication, Diversity and Inclusion, Polarization