1 The Crucial Role of Research in Multicultural & Cross-Cultural Communication

Research is recognized as an essential part of planning and evaluation in most areas of marketing and corporate communication, including advertising, direct marketing and, increasingly, public relations and corporate communication disciplines such as employee communication and community relations. Understanding of audience interests, awareness, perceptions and information needs is critical to strategic planning of communication campaigns. Secondly, identification and quantification of changes in awareness, perception and, ultimately, behaviour is necessary to objectively evaluate the effectiveness of communication (i.e. the outcomes or results). Nowhere is research more important than in multicultural and cross-cultural communication. In international relations that began with human migrations and trade and reach new levels today with globalization, corporations, organizations and governments are increasingly seeking to create consistencies and shared values across divergent cultural groups. They seek to create consistencies and shared values in relation to products (eg. Coca-Cola, IBM, McDonalds), policies (eg. trade agreements), and in popular culture such as films, television programs and news media. Social rules and shared values – that is, the culture of communities – affects organizations seeking t