You’ll critically examine issues related to cross-cultural business behaviour, cultural dimensions, the key role of language, critical cultural awareness, and training for intercultural competence.
You’ll discuss the works of major intercultural researchers and the critiques they have received in order to contribute to a more widening debate of intercultural theory and research.
This course gives you grounding in the global economic environment and the opportunity to specialise in an area of business. You’ll also study an in-depth introduction to research methodology, appropriate to undertaking research at this level.
With an international outlook, MSc Intercultural Business Communication attracts students from a wide range of cultural backgrounds. By the end of the course, you’ll have a systematic understanding of intercultural business communication and competing theories of culture and communication.
You’ll also have the ability to critically and flexibly apply theoretical models to cross-cultural business contexts, including those of international marketing, commerce, advertising and tourism.
Learn more about how Intercultural Business Communication can enhance your business skills from our lead academics on the programme.
How will my degree reflect sustainability and sustainable development?
The Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME) – established under the UN Global Compact – places a clear onus on Higher Education to ‘transform management education and develop the responsible decision-makers of tomorrow to advance sustainable development’. The Business School is a PRME signatory, and we seek to influence professional practice and policy nationally and internationally, helping to drive key societal, economic and environmental impacts.
Our mission is ‘to empower communities to apply business knowledge for positive societal impact’ and we work constantly to embed practical actions into our curriculum, to promote sustainability and relate these to the key ideas of sustainability, as reflected in the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes now reflect one or more of the SDG, and our research is targeted to solve real world problems, mapped against the criteria used in the Times Higher Education’s Impact Ranking.
The most recent annual league table for Sustainability - compiled by People & Planet, the UK’s largest student campaigning network - again places Edinburgh Napier in a top 3 position among Scotland’s 19 universities. This reflects their assessment of our performance across a range of environmental and ethical considerations, which include carbon reduction and management, and education.
What is distinct about equality, diversity and inclusion?
Edinburgh Napier University is enriched by the diversity of perspectives, cultures and backgrounds brought by all within our global community. We are committed to a positive environment where diversity and inclusiveness is celebrated and everyone is treated fairly regardless of sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, disability, age, ethnic origin, religion or belief, marital or civil partnership status or whether pregnant or on maternity leave. We commit ourselves to providing a learning, working and social environment that is free from discrimination, prejudice, intimidation, stigmatisation and all forms of harassment and bullying.
The Business School's vision: 'To be the Business School for empowerment, enterprise and employability for all'.
Our mission statement: 'Empowering our communities to apply business knowledge for positive societal impact'.
Lead Academics
Dr Phiona Stanley researches on how people engage in intercultural settings including working abroad, international education, and backpacker tourism, particularly voluntourism. She is an ethnographer, and uses interview-based research and autoethnography. She is particularly focused on how power relations operate in intercultural settings and exploring innovative ways of doing qualitative research, including storytelling within academic texts.
Dr. Nick Pilcher is the programme leader for the MSc in Intercultural Business Communication. He has taught in Japan, Singapore, Argentina and in the UK since 2001. He completed a PhD in 2007 entitled 'Mainland Chinese students and UK supervisors; perceptions and experiences of completing Masters Dissertations.' His areas of study are languages and culture, qualitative research, and education.
Dr Vivien Zhou is a Lecturer in Intercultural Communication and Deputy Programme Leader for MSc Intercultural Business Communication. She leads postgraduate modules in intercultural communication and intercultural competence. Her research areas primarily concern the intercultural dimension of human identity, communication and relations, particularly the narrativity of individuals’ lived experiences of interculturality. She is particularly interested in how intercultural communication studies can benefit from intellectual dialogue across linguistic, disciplinary, and epistemic traditions.