Intercultural competence as a modern requirement to young specialists

Abstract

Nowadays, the world has no boundaries for living and work of people. Young specialists have and take any opportunity to study or work, and probably to stay, in some other developed and prospective country. The main problem they face is poor knowledge of the language and culture of the country they are going to move to. That is why a great attention should be considered on getting knowledge of not only foreign language, but on studying cultural differences of the country, they plan to move to, and their native country. Thus, the issue of international competence is of crucial importance for everyone living in the modern world. The article is devoted to the issue of intercultural competence and argues importance of the skill for cross-cultural communication for young specialists in any branch of economy. The work considers all aspects of the concept. Particular attention is paid to six intercultural constructs, such as the attitude of openness, the attitude of curiosity, knowledge of cultural selfawareness, knowledge of cultural worldwide frameworks, skills of non-verbal and verbal communication, skill of empathy, and gives details about each of them. The research proposes intercultural dimensions, such as power of distance, uncertainty index, masculinity and femininity, long/short orientation. Within the last dimension, there is specification of such concept as high context cultures and low context cultures with the examples of each category. The work presents the idea of cross-cultural adjustment, which includes the stages of so-called honeymoon, cultural shock, adjustment and mastery. The research suggests some key success factors for people who are going to go abroad. There are interesting examples of cultural differences of countries, particularly Nordic ones