Intercultural communication and interaction problems in the framework of international business event-management

? Not expressing embarrassment or confusion because of the behavior of the partners that can seem strange by virtue of diverse cultural backgrounds;

? Watching for what you say and for how you do it. Dana Loewy and Mary Ellen Guffey (2010) state that it is extremely important to make sure that you are understood correctly, that the interlocutor got exactly that sense and meaning that you had put in your words. Because your speech will always be based and depend on your own background, mood and many other factors;

? Mind your frame of reference. Dana Loewy and Mary Ellen Guffey (2010) proposed the idea that the way we feel and see this world is perceived and viewed through our frame of reference that is formed by our own personality, education, knowledge, expectations, experience, culture and other factors. It leads to that businessmen and businesswomen have different attitudes toward communicative situations and may demonstrate bias. International business involves many different approaches to events, negotiations, cooperation, so it is needed to express politeness and tolerance;

? Develop your language skills in order to understand communicative situations better and prevent miscommunication. No matter how great your idea about business or intention towards your foreign partner is, it will not make any sense if you cannot express it in an adequate way;

? Respect the ideals of speech freedom;

? Prepare in advance by learning information about cultural habits of the people you are going to meet in order to show yourself as a very intelligent person that lays to himself or herself. However, International Association of Business has provided a code of ethics in business communication. According to Scott Thompson and his work “About ethical communication in business” the IABC code of ethics expect communicators to be accurate, truthful and honest, support human rights (freedom of speech) and respect cultural diversity with its values, habits and beliefs. They are abandoned from participating in any unethical practices and maintaining conflict escalations. In this way, ethical communication is able to build trust and strong relationships between the parties if they show mutual respect and respect for human rights and differences. In external area it will improve company's reputation for social responsibility. In this way, Dana Loewy and Mary Ellen Guffey (2010) suggest that critical and creative thinking will help businessmen and businesswomen to develop their own proper models for ethical communication. It means that people have their own opinion about others (about foreign partners in our case) based on evidence and reason, so that their attitude will not be biased and causes by cultural destructive stereotypes.

From Lumen on-line courses on Business Communication Skills for Managers one may learn 7 main principles of this process - communication should be concise, clear,objective, consistent, relevant and complete. They affirm us that acknowledging these aspects we will communicate ethically. For example, if a person stands for his or her opinion as the only right one - it is not ethical as we must be objective. I may conclude by saying that effective communication is the foundation of the whole world of business, internal and external.

These days oral and written communication skills are included in the top of characteristics that employs are looking for in candidates. (Dana Loewy & Mary Ellen Guffey, 2010).

Employees need to realize it and improve their skills, learn more information about this aspect and pay much attention to ethics in business communication in order to show greater performance, achieve more goals, bring more benefit and profit, and boost the growth of his or her company.

1.4 The English language in international business communication

As I have already mentioned, the not stopping globalization of the market, trading and emergence of international connections and collaborations have resulted in the phenomenon that specialists from different countries and enterprises come together to make business decisions and realize them in life. These people, as a rule, have absolutely diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds so the main problem is in the fact that they need to simply communicate in some way. (Pamela Rogerson-Revel, 2007).

There is no doubt that English has become the worldwide used and global language in past several decades. It is considered to be the international language for all the life spheres when it comes to cross-cultural integrations: it is used as the widely accepted language of tourism, trading, shipping and airline industries, commerce and many other fields. Still you, being in a foreign country and environment or at the business meeting with representatives of other cultures, always have a hope that you can understand and be understood with the help of this very language. (E. Trimbon, 2017). It is the fastest spreading language in the history of the humanity and now it is spoken by 1,75 billion people all over the world - that is every fourth person among us. (Tsedal Neeley, 2012).

Why did it actually happen that exactly English had gained this level of influence and power? It should be mentioned that it has been constantly moving around the Earth since the Englishmen settled in America in 1607. So it did because of the result of colonial British expansion that had caused United States, Canada, Australia and India to become British colonies; and in the beginning of the twentieth century it became extremely influential. And even after the post-colonial period many English institutions have stayed in different countries - the usage has not stopped. The position of the USA with its strong economy, politics and military achievements was the second reason for the language to start being considered as very powerful and important as it was a way of communicating in such organizations like NATO and the IMF. (Pascal Chauvot, 2010). After all, the British themselves caused the spreading of the language around the globe. The constant mobility of people all over the world together with expanding opportunities in cross-countries trading have boosted the necessity in the development of some international language.

And eventually English has become the standard way of communication for all significant official units in a huge number of countries with a large variety of their own native languages. According to the British Council web-site, English is spoken by approximately 380 million people as the first language and by 750 million speakers as a foreign one. The European Union, for example, consists of 27 states and there are 54 in the Commonwealth of Nations. And English is one of the main official languages in these organizations. There is a special term for business English - BELF (Business ELF or a Lingua Franca English). And it used to denote the one that is spoken by speakers whose mother tongue is not English. Furthermore, it does not exclude BELF speakers having contacts with EMT (English as a mother tongue) and ELF speakers in the international working area. (Pamela Rogerson-Revel, 2007).

As it can be seen it is a global language for business and it is standard not only for significant spheres but also for “little” key specializations like an aircraft captain, an airport or a train station worker, computing, engineering, technology, medicine and law. Moreover, the finance field and the stock markets around the world require the language proficiency. And in the modern world, due to the Internet, it is spreading much more and much faster. Nowadays this language shows that it is necessary for working on-line. For example, a web-site of some shop, written in English, has more chances to attract people from the whole world and organize worldwide shipping. Properly described products and services are easier to be sold as they get more attention and a bigger audience. (E. Trimbon, 2017). I can state that people that do business, especially international one, need to know the English language in order to enter this “world”. Welch and Piekkari (2005) called it an essential attribution of international business. It is very important not only to be able to speak, but to write as there exist many ways of non-verbal business communication - emails, presentations and, of course, important documentation and contracts which are written in English. The successful entry into this sphere depends on a person's knowledge of basic business terminology, ability to acknowledge detailed and specific vocabulary and express his or her thoughts in a proper manner. (E. Trimbon, 2017). It is where people, working in the conditions of international business, may face a problem of not being able to stand for their opinion and position in a workplace interaction, have poor credibility and power, are not engaged in decision making and are not heard because of low level of the language.

They can be not ready for accents, special constructions, unfamiliar words and collocations; and can express their thoughts in an improper way. (Pamela Rogerson-Revel, 2007). As a consequence, prestigious and serious companies demonstrate a special need in employees who know the English language and can be in a contact with foreign clients, partners and suppliers. Some of them organize special courses for workers to improve their skills and qualifications because they understand the importance of the level not of the simple communicative and written English skills but of the professional language for particular spheres as well. (Pascal Chauvot, 2010). Haithman Alshibly (2014) provides the statistics that illustrates that 25 percent of today's jobs require employees to interact and cooperate with representatives of foreign countries. Speaking about international business meetings, it should be noticed that in a situation when partners from different (but not English-speaking) countries meet, they will communicate via the English language. Though in this case they can use a so-called “standard” or “international English” that does not require advanced vocabulary or perfect grammatical structures - it is rather simplified and is necessary to just express your opinion and correctly understand the other person. For example, the difference between past simple and past perfect, not using of academic and formal style do not make any sense any longer because the objective is different - effective communication. However, this type of English is not strongly recommended for those who have to meet foreign partners or attend international events. It is still essential to show one's professionalism and level when it comes to speeches or projects and products presentations. (Pascal Chauvot, 2010).

Moreover, any international business event, held anywhere, means using English for communication: all speeches, presentations and discussions between representatives of different countries will be in this language. In order to recognize, acknowledge and perceive information participants have no choice but know English. It will be an absolute collapse for a company if its employee will not manage to present the service or product properly or will not understand the offers and variants of others. After all, no one would want to sign a contract with a person who cannot competently provide his or her message: people simply are not able to close a deal or, at least, understand each other if they cannot communicate. Exactly that is where we can notice the problem of multicultural contexts - they may not speak “the same language” (even if it is English) and experience communication breakdowns that can lead to one party that would believe that the other is not competent enough. But having knowledge about cross-cultural interaction and the importance of cultural diversity can smooth the issue and benefit to one's business when it comes to partnerships with foreigners. (Pamela Rogerson-Revel, 2007).

Accordingly I can provide the following reasons why employees must learn the English language if they want to enter the global business arena: Competitiveness - if you want to sell something, you have to be able to communicate with a diverse range of people from different countries so that you can expand your business. Companies that suffer from poor language policy are essentially restricting their development and growth and lose to the markets that can establish contacts with foreigners. What is more, modern reality is that potential employees compete as well because those who know the language are in the priority position to those who do not. Now it is not enough to be a local worker - you need to be a global one. (Tsedal Neeley, 2012);2) Globalization of tasks, aims and resources - the problem may occur in case when employees from different countries have to work together as a team to achieve corporate objectives and strategy. The process would be much easier and more comfortable without communication breakdowns that can lead to crushes in decision making. (Tsedal Neeley, 2012);3) Cross-cultural integration - since English has already been accepted as global, it is the only way to communicate across cultures (of course if you do not know the language of a particular country you have a business with). (Tsedal Neeley, 2012). In this way, I can highlight the following perspectives for the viewing of English in international cooperation: barrier, power and contributor. (Jennifer Storozum, 2013).

In her work Storozum (2013) claims that it can be a barrier when parties that speak different languages have to communicate with each other and when it prevents the establishing of relationships with partners that could benefit to the outcomes. On the other hand, it can facilitate interaction flows because persons that can speak the language have more opportunities to build and maintain contacts. And lastly, they have enough power to achieve success in the workplace as they have more “open doors” in front of them and they can cross the boundaries. Overall, the English language has been global for so many years in all the life spheres and necessary in the modern world so that it is taught as an obligatory subject at schools and universities in a huge number of countries. Of course, there are other languages that play an important role in business - Chinese in trading, French in fashion, etc., but no one can predict their future influence. However, the importance of English in business is obvious: if we come to any successful office, organization or company we will see it. This is a today's reality - functioning at the international level requires staff to be excellent English speakers, writers and readers. (Naved Z., 2015).

In this way, according to Tsedal Neeley (2012), who is working at Harvard University Business School, international companies all over the world make English their official language. For example, “Rakuten” organization in Japan (the largest on-line market) has been pursuing the goal of becoming the number one in this sphere, and its CEO Mikitani believed this kind of policy would be the key to achieving the desired outcome, and he requalified 7000 employees so that they learnt business-English. Eventually the company has gotten more significant contacts and acquired on-line branches in France, USA, Britain, Canada, Germany and established cooperation with major organizations in Indonesia, China, Thailand and Brazil. Half of all the workers now have an opportunity to engage in international communication and business, some directors do not even speak Japanese but it does not prevent “Rakuten” from aggressive growth and development. Furthermore, Berns (1995) stated that English was not an official language in Germany and the Netherlands but it had diverse social, cultural, commercial and educational functions that could benefit to expanding and “outing” the boundaries of these countries.

The significance of English in international business is obvious and reflected in many sources as the importance of effective cross-boundaries communication has become an essential issue to address - it helps to establish strong relationships, mutual respect, high productivity and profitable results in work. It ca be claimed that in order to live and thrive in a global economy companies need to overcome language barriers - and English is the best option for now.

2. Intercultural communication and interaction as related to international event-management

2.1 The concept of intercultural communication and interaction and their correlation to international business event-management

As I have claimed before, the modern world can be characterized by the constantly growing number of ways of communication between representatives of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Actually the history of cross-cultural interactions is as old as the existence of humankind. I have already discussed the occurrence of global business connections but general intercultural communication has existed as long as people themselves.

The first contacts appeared in the Stone Age when ancient men and women began migrating and trading. The Silk Road is considered to be the most significant movement in the global intercourse because it was connecting the whole Eurasia. Its roads were used by philosophers, warriors, religious wanderers and tradesmen from different parts of the mainland. These people were spreading out outlandish goods, ideas, habits and thoughts, and doubtfully they had to communicate with local inhabitants in order to trade and deliver their knowledge effectively. During this process they were facing contrasting and opposing worldviews, practices and cultural values. For this reason we have gotten the term “intercultural communication”.

These several facts illustrate that globalization has not appeared recently - the process of interaction between people from different countries and cultures has been existing since the beginning of time. And technology invention and implementation has simply reinforced it. (McDaniel E. & Samovar L., 2013). As a general rule, in order to analyze intercultural communication it would be correct to start with defining culture itself. Actually scholars all over the world agree that there does not exist one certain and unique definition of the word “culture”. It depends on the field of science that addresses it and the perspective from which it is considered. Anyway, the world “culture” has its roots in the Latin word “cultura” that used to name the process of cultivation and later - upbringing, education and development. (Asoyan U. & Malafeev A., 2000). As you can see, this notion has a wide range of definitions and meanings in various areas of human life. And it is the subject of investigation in philosophy, history, cultural studies, linguistics, arts, ethnology, psychology, economics, etc.

The most general explanation would be - the complex of the humanity's achievements in production, social, and moral and spiritual sense. These achievements mean an activity in its most diverse expressions and realizations including all forms and methods of human self-expression and self-awareness, the accumulation of skills and abilities by the society as a whole. Culture also appears as the manifestation of human subjectivity and objectivity: character, competences, knowledge and abilities).

Furthermore, it is a set of rules that prescribe a certain way of behavior to a person having a managerial effect on him, organizing the life process and creating specific material and spiritual values. On the whole the source of the culture origin is thought to be people's activity, cognition and creativity. Populations that live separately from each other create different cultures, though between which partial exchange may occur. Culture is constantly changing and people are able to study it and make this process the simplest form of adaptation to changing external conditions. Today scholars consider culture not just as a product of biological evolution but as its integral element and the main mechanism of human adaptation to the extern world.

Each culture ought to be viewed as a unit. As a result, the concept of “cultural relativism” has emerged - the opinion that one person can accept and understand the actions of another person by using the concepts of his culture and its elements (habits, rites, etc.) - through understanding the system of symbols. (Zenkin S., 2001). Edwin McDaniel and Larry Samovar (2013) claim that culture is related to very diverse fields like healthcare, popular media, corporate management, psychology, marketing, public relations, advertising, etc. But anyway, it is a complex that encompasses belief, art, knowledge, custom, law, morals and all the other habits that are expressed by a human as the part of the whole society.

Moreover, culture brings people of one society together, unites them as they have so many things in common - it provides individuals with their personal identity and the feeling of belonging to a particular group. And though one specific definition for this notion does not exist, according to Edwin McDaniel and Larry Samovar (2013) there is an accepted list of constituents that make its general characteristics:

* Culture is learnt: people do not know how to function effectively in their culture right from the moment of their birth but they quickly begin to adopt and assimilate this knowledge through interactions with others, observations, through ways of behaving, thinking and feeling that are communicated to them. Also culture is acquired with the help of national arts, history, folklore, religion and other sources. It is related to the process of teaching the person of how to act properly within his or her cultural environment;

*Culture is transmitted intergenerationally: it is claimed that people learn their culture, firstly, from their families' members, peers, teachers, media sources, books or personal supervisions and remarks. And the members of their generation have gotten the information about how to act, behave, say things and express feelings from the previous generation and sources. In this perspective, culture always represents humans' connection with the past and with the future as cultural features will continue to be transmitted;

*Culture is symbolic: the way of communication, non-verbal expressions, gestures and images are the symbols that carry specific meaning that reflects a particular culture. It is the usage of these symbols that allows people to be engaged in various forms of social companionship that are used to transmit culture;

*Culture is dynamic: I have already stated that culture is constantly changing with the process of time. Besides technical progress and inventions, social movements and innovations (the women's or gay rights' movements), the world experiences a great amount of cultural borrowings - many countries eat Italian pizza or Japanese sushi, people follow foreign cultures' lifestyles as they seem healthier (diets), etc. In this way, humanity is adopting different cultural features and traditions all the time, so culture is extremely flexible and circulating;

*Culture is ethnocentric: it is a common phenomenon that people evaluate others according to the standards and criteria of their own cultures, as due to the latter they are provided with a strong perception of group identity.

It is not a rarity that sometimes individuals are assured that they live in the greatest country on the planet (for example, the United States are famous for the propaganda of their “exceptionalism”), that their traditions and beliefs are the most correct and desirable for the nation's well-being or that, in principle, their whole lifestyle is the best. There is no doubt, that it always leads to ethnocentrism increasing and development among people all over the world, and this in turn will cause a variety of conflicts in cross-cultural communication. It is normal to feel confused while facing unfamiliar forms of cultural expressions bit it is not normal to judge them and believe that they are unworthy. For this reason, people should learn to accept this diversity and function within it.

Though, in the framework of my research I analyze culture as a set of established traditions and worldviews. In this term, it is the key factor that distinguishes one group from another. And these differences are considered to be those barriers to effective interaction as representatives of different cultures demonstrate absolute discrepancy in their behavior traits, opinions and manners which can lead to misunderstandings, confusing situations and even conflicts. Though the problem is that people do not start any interaction from a completely pure and neutral perspective - they carry their own range of values, beliefs and assumptions that compose their identity.

And this means that, anyway, we all view the world through the prism of our own cultural backgrounds which often leads to prejudice against those who differ from us. That is why all people that interact with various cultures should know characteristics referred to different cultural types in order to perceive these differences and develop intercultural intelligence and competence, which I will discuss later. According to Edwin McDaniel and Larry Samovar (2013), intercultural communication as a field of investigation and academic discipline is relatively “green” - for the first time it was introduced approximately 70 years ago.

The horrible consequences of the World War II prompted people to analyze the phenomenon of communication and to analyze the concept of culture as many nations required the total reconstruction and sometimes mutual help. In this way, international connections and commerce after this period has gotten the attention of many scholars because they wanted to find the effective ways of doing it. Edwin McDaniel and Larry Samovar (2013) explain the concept of intercultural communication as the process that happens when a person from one culture wants to deliver a message to a person from a different culture so that the latter understands the meaning correctly. In order to be a good communicator not only in a person's native cultural area but also in other ones, he or she needs to realize that it is obligatory to be sensitive and tolerant to various cultural inheritances. It can benefit to personal accommodation to situations in which people may face cultural shock, confusing moments connected with weirdness of foreign habits and positive interactions without prejudices and regardless race, gender, religion, age, nationality, social class. (Hybels S. & Weaver R. L., 2012).

Effective intercultural communication depends on communicators' ability to deliver and perceive information properly. In order to do this they should be able to recognize each other's manners of behavior and learn to accept and respect them. The successful intercultural contact depends on the following aspects:

*respect for the foreign cultures and all the constituents related to them;

*not build biases and prejudices;

*awareness of various cultural codes;

*skills to bridge diversities. (Looper, H., 2015).

Furthermore, Edwin McDaniel and Larry Samovar (2013) provide several cultural components that should be acknowledged in terms of studying of intercultural communication (as they all are interconnected and function simultaneously):

*Perception.

People conduct and direct their lives in reliance on how they perceive this world, and this process is always influenced by culture. In simple words, our ideas of how to feel, smell, taste, hear, think about what is good and what is not, or ideas towards the concept of beauty, of self among the others - all these things are guided by our perception. As a matter of fact, exactly this component is critical in terms of intercultural communication because representatives of different cultures perceive the world differently. Socio-cultural elements that are related to perception are beliefs, values and attitudes.

*Cognitive patterns.

Culture also influences problem solving approaches and reasoning which differentiate people with different cultural backgrounds in many life spheres. And in business this aspect plays an important role - these differences often lead to conflicts as businesswomen and businessmen demonstrate absolutely contrasting ways of thinking, analyzing, negotiating and overcoming issues. It proves that people need to understand that cognitive patterns vary from to culture, and to learn how to adapt to them.

*Non-verbal behavior.

Non-verbal behavior is also a big obstacle on the way to successful intercultural interaction. It comprises gestures; eye contact; facial expression; posture and touch; the usage of silence, space and time. These non-verbal activities may carry even more sense and meaning than the words that are spoken. And they may seem so strange and unfamiliar that it can lead to big misunderstandings. Sometimes representatives of one culture may find non-verbal activity of the ones from other culture even insulting. It is especially important to take it into consideration for those who want to interact with business partners during some events because workplace should be the neutral zone for everyone if successful international cooperation is a primary goal.

*Contextual influences.

In terms of cultural diversity context defines what is expected to be right in one culture, can be expected to be wrong in the other one. And it is important to be aware of cultural rules guiding this context.

Today intercultural communication is being examined in different perspectives: national governments' interactions; economic relations; scientific and medical cooperation; global business and cross-cultural marketing, the art of negotiations, conflictology and management, contacts between business entities or employees or buyers and suppliers, etc. (McDaniel E. & Samovar L., 2013). As I have already discussed, the key factor that influences all the processes of any business is communication.

Exactly for this reason it is essential to take into consideration intercultural one in a global context as in this case interaction occurs between representatives of different countries and cultural backgrounds respectively. Done consciously and effectively, it can have a great impact on business outcomes. I have proved the fact that nowadays many organizations find it quite challenging - to maintain efficient communication. It is not always easy to work within a group of people that are culturally diverse - because the time, the way, the manner, even the place where you say or do some things reveal people's cultural background.

Therefore, as these aspects differ in various countries there can occur many nuances that can become barriers in communication and on the way to completing tasks or make a decision in a team, and that cause a real discomfort between colleagues. And these failures may lead to harmful consequences for business. The main reason for misunderstandings' existence is that people do not manage to deliver and receive the information in a proper way. It is a very common problem in the international relationships context as businessmen and businesswomen have to function within cultural diversity.

Messages may be perceived as rather unclear or even confusing which is a great foundation for future communication breakdowns or serious conflicts. The notion of cultural diversity is being constantly mentioned in all the life spheres of the modern world as people today are able to change the places of living and move to foreign countries, or they can work there or with them, or they can just travel. Since the most developed countries propagate the tolerance to any diversity that can be reflected by human beings, cultural one is considered to be one of the most determinant in people's interactions.

According to Torabully K. and Carter M. (2002), cultural diversity is the presence of a quantity of different cultures that have diverse, unique and distinctive features. And sociologist Dr. Caleb Rosaldo (1997), whose specializes exactly in this issue, uses the notion of cultural diversity with the concept of multiculturalism as they are interchangeable. He defines it as a behavioral system that respects and recognizes the existence of all different groups in a society or organization, acknowledges their socio-cultural differences and encourages the constant contribution to company's empowerment. He also provides seven significant aspects that constitute multiculturalism:

* Respect for the distinctions and contradistinctions;

* Valuing other cultures' traditional foundations;

* Recognition of affluent cultural diversity;

* Acknowledging the reasonableness, stringency and actuality of different ways to express culture;

* Celebrating more than even tolerating and just respecting the differences in order to create a unity within diversity;

*Encouraging the contribution of the representatives of diverse unities;

*Empowering people to be critical to their own biases in order to boost their strengths and reach their maximum potential.

Despite of the globalization that sometimes obliterates, erases and makes these specifications imperceptible, most people want to keep and maintain their initial characteristics, want them to be respected and valued by others not only at home but in any part of the world and in any life domain.

This diversity may be expressed in language, clothes, traditions, religions, moral attitudes or worldviews. No one can count this notion but some people use the amount of languages existing as the indicator. And some scholars actually have come to a conclusion that rapid development in all the spheres, imperialism, immigration and overpopulation have influenced countries in such a way that many languages have disappeared. It can prove the fact that cultural diversity that still “lives” must be maintained and preserved, though it is doubtfully that it will continue to reduce anyway in terms of homogenization. Business world is not an exception, so businessmen and businesswomen have no choice but to act in the conditions of cultural diversity existence and look for the effective ways to communicate across cultures effectively. (Torabully K. & Carter M., 2002).

In addition, the acknowledgement of it can help them respect and understand better the ways of living and simply being that are not always similar to their own. That is why, in the process of business event with participants from different countries people will be able to build mutual trust and comprehension that will be a perfect foundation for future strong relationships. Moreover, it is always beneficial to get acquainted with new ways of thinking and doing business that can demonstrate representatives of different cultures.

They have an opportunity to acquire useful skills, knowledge and experience while communicating with each other. (Rosaldo C., 1997). In this way, communication in the today's workplace is more difficult than it can seem from the first look - especially in the conditions of interacting with diverse cultures. In this perspective, intercultural communication in business implicates:

* Expression of cultural differences encouragement in international business and cooperation;

* Protection of cultural uniqueness: businessmen and businesswomen should be aware of cultural features of their foreign partners, value them and take into consideration while interaction;

* Avoiding of imposition of your own values and habits on others as they may be inconsistent;

* Staying tolerant and neutral in cultural diversity;

* Encouraging the use of materials (within the workplace) that can enhance cultural diversity and intercultural communication concept awareness;

* Biases and prejudices avoidance;

* Welcoming, accepting and respecting ideas that can differ from your own;

* Businessmen and businesswomen should create a link between the social perception and commercialization perception of culture which means that some goods and services are created with the basis on cultural features of their creators and sometimes cannot be criticized or totally changed. (Torabully K. & Carter M., 2002).

It can be seen that the concept of intercultural communication should be thoroughly analyzed by those whose business and desired outcomes of anything depend on successful and effective interaction with representatives of different cultures. Because cross-cultural misunderstandings still exist (and will exist maybe even forever) and causes many problems and obstacles. Successful organization of an international business event and participation in it partly depends on intercultural theories awareness. Because at the stage of preparation it will help to add something or vice versa exclude from the plan or program.

2.2 The role of intercultural competence and intelligence in the successful international business event-management

In discussion of the ways of how to make intercultural communication successful I must mention cross-cultural awareness (knowing its aspects and features according to which cultures are divided), intelligence and competence as these notions are necessities in the issue given. Many scholars claim that effective international interactions (when it comes to communicative process) cannot be discussed and even exist without the concept of intercultural competence (IC) and intelligence (ICI). (Deardorff, 2008; Spitzberg & Changon, 2009; Zaharna, 2009). Deardorff (2008) defines ICI as ability to function, act and behave in any intercultural context. And IC is a capability to be culturally intelligent - to acquire and develop knowledge, skills and attitudes that are correlated with culture and that would benefit functioning across cultural diversity that can occur in any life sphere - at the workplace, as well. IC helps to avoid confusing incidents while communicating with foreigners and other harmful incidents that can harm business. As I have already mentioned, according to Deardoff (2006), IC has three main and basic elements:

*Knowledge - specific knowledge about culture, self-awareness of one's own culture, awareness of global cultural trends and issues;

*Skills - ability to listen, accept, be patient and view the world from the perspective of other people;

*Attitudes - respecting cultural diversity, rejecting biases and judgments, demonstrating curiosity through viewing diversity as another chance to learn something new, tolerance and ambiguity.

Cultural intelligence notion is used specifically in the context of business as it is considered to be able to help in escaping misunderstandings that definitely influence the whole work process. Moreover, the application is quite popular in business-coaching programs as organizations begin to understand the modern tendencies of globalization and the necessity to educate their employees regarding these facts. (Simkhovych D., 2009).

However, cultural differences, that are often the key reason for communication breakdowns, can be bridged in case that interlocutors make some effort and realize the importance of acknowledging cultural diversity. Pinto (1990) provides four conditions for effective cross-cultural interaction and intercultural competence: business intercultural management

? Technical condition: there must be the mutual understanding of the language that interlocutors use to communicate. It implicates that:

-They can listen to and hear each other;

-They understand each other's codes and signs;

-Or technical equipment used to deliver the information (radio, phone, television, etc.) well functions.

?Cognitive condition: all the interlocutors speak at the similar intellectual level. It means that:

-The subject of a conversation is familiar and clear for all parties;

-All the parties recognize each other's intellectual manners.

?Interpretative condition: the used words, phrases and signs must carry the same interpretation for everyone. It claims that:

-Interlocutors give identical meaning to what they say and to how they act and behave;

-Interpretation becomes more challenging in case the language one party speaks is not the native language of the other one.

?Affective condition: interlocutors understand the emotional sense of each other's words, expressive means and actions. It means that:

-They must be aware of how different cultures express one or the other emotion, feeling or attitude;

-They are prepared to face extremely different types of expression and communicate in these conditions.

In this way, cultural competence and intelligence are about being aware of diverse characteristics related to different cultural types and respecting them in order to function effectively in cross-cultural communication. Why is it important for international business events? Doubtfully, many communication breakdowns are happening all the time between representatives of diverse cultures, and as I have already proved business cannot exist without communication. (Lahiff J. & Penrose J., 2004). That is why it is essential to mention all the important features, so let me provide the aspects that distinguish cultures.

Edward Hall's cultural concepts.

Edward Hall, cross-cultural scholar, introduced several concepts that define cultures according to their specific and unique differences. He is the author of many theories and models that are extremely significant in intercultural communication studies. His works remain relevant in the modern reality and are used in improving intercultural competence and intelligence skills in many spheres.

*Tip-of-the-iceberg and bottom-of-the-iceberg cultures.

As we all know, an iceberg has two sides - the upper one which is visible and the bottom one that is under the water so it is invisible. For that reason, cultures are compared to icebergs: they all have some obvious features and those that stay hidden.

Every culture demonstrates specific traits that are quite obvious at first sight. Clothes, food, language, arts and music, gestures and eye contact, celebrations and games - these are those things that can be noticed while looking around and watching people. But this impression is rather superficial. When a person decides to explore the culture more thoroughly, he or she faces the bottom of the iceberg which is more considerable and which weighs much more than the top (the ratio is 90% to 10%). Hall (1966) divided this part into two categories: the unspoken rules and the core. The first branch comprises non-verbal means of communication, ways of interaction, expression of emotions, personal space attitudes, perception of manners, body language, concepts of beauty and oldness, behavioral norms. It can take much time for a foreigner to notice these aspects because they can be revealed in the process of rather long personal interaction.

Finally, the iceberg's core means those characteristics that define a particular culture as they are usually unique. Here Hall (1966) has included the role of class and age in a society, the concept of family and children, the role of sex and gender, the idea about leadership, attitudes towards nature and animals, the degree of tolerance for changes, the notion of friendship, norms, assumptions, beliefs, expectations, values, prejudices and the notion of “self”. *High-context and Low-context cultures. Edward Hall (1976) introduced this concept in order to define cultures according to how much context people put in their messages - in other words, to what degree these messages are explicit or implicit. In high-context cultures communicators put more implicit meaning in their messages and prefer more non-verbal communication. Much data is left unspoken because the way things are said is more significant than the words themselves. In this way, people of these cultures prefer personal interaction to cell phones or any other gadgets. Moreover, they are rather closed to others, appreciate long-tern relationships with limited circle of persons and value personal space, so it would be quite challenging to establish friendly or close relationships with them. China, Japan, France, Africa, India, Brazil, Greece, Hungary are bright examples of such a mode. In low-context cultures it is important for a communicator to be explicit so that others understand the meaning of his or her message without barriers. People in this kind of countries prefer more verbal communication and expect the knowledge and information to be clear, accurate, precise and accessible. What is more they are distinguished by their openness to others and the love of logic, “dry” facts, straightforward communication and short-term relationships. Speaking about expression of reactions, they are usually visible and external. Obviously, it is rather easy to establish a contact with representatives of low-context cultures and maintain effective cooperation. Great Britain, the United States, Australia, Germany, New Zealand and Canada are the greatest examples of this type of culture.

* Time and behavioral norms in inpolychromic and polychromic cultures.

It is very important to understand how people use time and act in different cultures, especially for global business. Great number of obstacles and issues may occur when various cultural backgrounds meet and reveal contrasting approaches to these two aspects that influence the productivity. Time is money. In monochromic cultures time is an essential resource that cannot be wasted. Moreover, people from such countries do not support the idea of doing many things at a time - they require orderliness in everything.

They tend to create timetables and schedules in order to plan their duties in advance. As a consequence, time frames are strictly followed so that the task will be completed on the proper day. Actually total concentration on work is the recipe for success. That is why interruptions are inappropriate for businessmen and businesswomen. During business events they often do not understand why their partners or interlocutors answer their phone calls or are not punctual as it is considered as an impolite and unprofessional behavior. An important fact that monochromic people are usually low-context. (Hall E., 2000). The United States, Germany, Netherlands and Northern Europe are the examples of monochronism. Polychronic cultures view time as a resource that is rather flexible. They do not think that planning is necessary so people tend to do several things at a time. Businessmen and businesswomen do not feel uncomfortable when being distracted, and managers often have open doors in their cabinets and constant meeting with colleagues. What is more, it is not a problem to change plans or take more tasks spontaneously. A distinctive is that it is normal for them to be late for an event or a meeting. (Hall E., 2000). France, Brazil, Africa and Arab cultures can be referred to polychronism. Accordingly, people that interact with the representatives of such cultures should be aware of these facts in order to establish desirable relationships.

* The concept of space. Hall (1966) called a study of space and its influence on people's relationships as “proxemics”. Space means the distance that people prefer between each other in order to feel comfortable. It is determined by cultural background. For example, Japanese need less space because they experience limited space in their country because of a great number of inhabitants and a small territory. In addition, Americans are used to vast areas and bigger homes, so they need greater distance. This factor is individual and needs to be verified in each particular case. It concerns not only personal space but also the one in the office, at home, etc. He distinguishes four different zones that are characterized by particular distance: intimate space, personal space, social space and public space. Intimate distance is correlated to one for touch, embrace or whisper. In a close phase it is 1 to 2 cm, and in a far phase - 15 to 46 cm (6 to 18 inches); Personal distance indicates interactions between friends or family members. In a close phase it is 46 to 76 cm (1, 5 to 2, 5 feet) and in a far phase - 76 to 122 cm (2, 5 to 4 feet); Social distance determines acquaintances. In a close phase it is 1, 2 to 2, 1 m and in a far phase - 2, 1 to 3, 7 m; Public distance relates to public speaking. In a close phase it is 3, 7 to 7, 6 m and in a far phase - 7, 6 m and more. Sometimes space becomes a serious reason for confusing situations and misunderstandings. It is especially important for businesswomen and businessmen to take it into consideration if they want to avoid conflicts and conduct successful international business.

2. Geert Hofstede's cultural dimensions. Geert Hofstede (1980), Dutch sociologist, offered a theory which encompasses a set of indicators that determine cultural characteristics of different nations and countries. *Power distance. Power distance is the characteristic that reflects the rigidity of the social hierarchy that exists in it and the degree of acceptance of such an hierarchy and inequality by members of this society. However, it describes not exactly the phenomenon of hierarchy but its influence on people's interactions. It is divided into high power distance and low power distance. Representatives of the first type tend to view power and authorities as inevitability and believe that everyone has his or her own place in life and society. Concerning workplace, businessmen and businesswomen cannot disturb CEOs and directors any time thy want and strictly obey orders and established rules. Moreover, in low power distance countries employees are used to having the power that is accessible, open and democratic. It is normal to participate in decision-making and express various ideas and opinions. Likewise, workers never hesitate to clarify information and ask questions.

Fig. 1. Richard Lewis Communications web-site, 2019