ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the challenging students' cultural complacency and as a starting point for their developing more elaborate protocols that take into account many distinctive national cultures and complex multicultural audiences. It argues that understanding basic differences between US culture and other cultures must underpin students' approach to the development of international written business communications. The special 1989 Technical Communication issue on document design emphasized the range of activities involved in creating communication that is simultaneously visually and verbally effective. In a broad sense, the US business culture contrasts significantly with other business cultures throughout the world. United States business culture prizes order, efficiency, directness, and effectiveness. Group-valuing organizations tend to use oral communication rather than written communication within the organization; however, individualistic organizations value written communications for their documentation value and because they assign individual responsibility. United States business organizations have affinities with both low and high power distance cultures.
