Black and White Communication

The literature on interracial and intercultural employer/ employee communication remains scarce despite the growing number of studies in the area of cross-cultural communication. Yet the bulk of our intercultural contact with others occurs in the work place. It is possible that a predisposition against research in this area exists because of the limited amount of theoretical literature to guide any research undertaking. Kochman (1983) has advanced an ethnographic position in the study of black and white cultural styles that might add to the theoretical literature on intercultural communication in general and be applied specifically to studies of the work place. In effect, Kochman argues that blacks and whites tend to assign dissimilar meanings to verbal and nonverbal behaviors. The result of this divergence in assignation creates numerous misunderstandings when blacks and whites communicate in