Business Communication skills of Bulgarians within a Multi-cultural Environment

Maya Yaneva

University of National and World Economy (UNWE), Sofia

Abstract: Communication is one of the most powerful tools in our private and business lives. A lot of researchers list [1] open and clear communication among the top priorities of business organizations. It takes months or even years to recover the damages of inappropriate communication within organizational functions and business partners. This paper aims to present a study in the field of interpersonal and intergroup relations. The study has been conducted within an international company, covering the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) region. The multinational company is one of the global leaders in the business field it operates in, with 146 offices across 22 countries and territories, and over 75,000 employees speaking 48 languages. The primary focus of the research is on interpersonal communication in management. More specifically, how the multi-cultural, multi-lingual and multi-level communication is impacting the business environment. The reason executive business leaders of EMEA took a decision of the EMEA management to conduct anonymous survey for the whole region among 11 countries and more than 30 locations, was to find a better interoperability and alignment between the sales, account management and operational leaders. The survey was completed within one month and included all heads of departments and their teams. The responses were anonymous and were summarized in a broken down by department/office short presentation with a summary of the survey findings, and was then provided to the heads of departments/offices for review and action planning. The paper analyses the results related to the Bulgarian office of the researched company and provides further recommendations as to how to address the issues resulting from the survey.