Advancing collaboration: best practices for cross-cultural communications in virtual environments [Innovation and digital technologies in Languages for Specific Purposes]

Higher education institutions are doing a disservice to their students if they are not training students in cross-cultural competencies. In this research, the authors surveyed respondents who have worked within educational and business-related globally distributed, cross-cultural/cross-language teams to learn of the ways teams communicate using technology in remote interactions. The researchers used content analysis of survey results to examine the data for patterns and assessment in how online connections allow multicultural/multilingual collaborators to work together in collaborative environments that include traditional and non-traditional communication styles while examining the environments for clear communication and accessibility for globally-distributed teams. Best practices emanated from the research and the literature are presented