ABSTRACT
Nonverbal communication can be as much a source of misunderstanding as verbal, according to American business consultant, Elizabeth Ulrich. Communication styles, according to Professor Vas Taras of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, can create workplace challenges. One set of skills essential to success in a global economy, then, is the ability to communicate across cultures. Cultures universally respond to human problems and challenges by developing systems to deal with them. Most successful cultures develop economic systems, marriage and family systems, educational systems, and supernatural belief systems. The US population of 325 million is projected to reach about 335 million in 2020 and more than 400 million by mid-century. Census Bureau figures show that the immigrant population is becoming younger, a shift likely to foster more tolerance for diversity and perhaps accelerate assimilation. The number of people in the US over the age of 50 will increase by half.
