ABSTRACT
This bonus chapter deals with all the topics discussed in the book such as value orientations, presentations, oral, written and nonverbal communications, business negotiations, conflict management, business etiquette, problem-solving approaches, leadership, and interpersonal team dynamics from the perspective of virtual meetings. Technology-mediated communications are changing the intrinsic character of the process of communication. These media pose their own challenges when it comes to succeeding in communicative transactions. Cultural diversity may aggravate these challenges if interactants who participate in these technology-mediated communication channels do not comprehend intercultural communication requisitions. Multi-cultural teams are formed that obviate the necessity of geographic expatriations of the executives involved in transnational collaborative work. This gives a pseudo-complacency of being able to communicate without the need of factoring in cultural variables. As everybody is operating from the portals of his/her own home environment there is more likelihood of clinging to ethnocentric behaviours instead of developing culture enlightenment. Ignorance or undervaluation of cultural barriers may exacerbate the communication process as the interactants are not talking face-to-face and have to complete their tasks in the stipulated screen/audio time limits. There are more chances of communication breakdowns, misunderstandings, cognitive dissidence, conflict emergence, and negotiation interlocks in virtual workspaces. Even phatic talk entailing business etiquette may fail as people may undermine the importance of culture-specific etiquette norms in networking acts, which are as important in virtual business as they are in face-to-face settings.
The chapter discusses how these problems may manifest themselves in virtual environments and how culture training can be imparted virtually to equip managerial leaders with online communication skill enhancements to deal with the strengths/weaknesses/opportunities/threats of the online medium. The chapter introduces some communication experiments and innovations that may enliven the inherent impersonal character of virtual medium by deploying more engagement techniques, personalization methods, and networking loops for fostering interpersonal cohesions for more productive task outcomes. It also discusses how one can update and upscale one's camera/audio projections for self-branding one's online identity.
