The book helps you and ,your organization, to understand how cultural diversity affects your life and your work: as stated in the subtitle, it is "A GUIDE TO DEVELOPING INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE"

The book is well structured, easy to read and stuffed of usefull hints, like "When interacting interculturally,
we must be able to suspend our automatic behavior to act more appropriately." and "Increased interpersonal competence allows us to engage with our own thoughts and feelings and to identify alternative courses of action that can lead to more successful interactions with others."

I received the book as Netgalley reviewer.

Contents (top level)
1 Working in a Multicultural World
2 Building Intercultural Competence through Reflection
3 Situating Intercultural Interactions
4 Understanding Culture
5 Understanding Individual Differences
6 Understanding Situations
7 Managing Feelings
8 Communicating across Cultures
9 Moving Forward
Appendix A: Cross-cultural Studies
Appendix B: Comprehensive Reflection Assignment

The world of today is so different of the world only a couple of years back. Especially if you are living in Europe, in any big city you might notice the linguistic, cultural and ethnic diversity, which a direct influence on the working habits and culture in general. You just need to go to your Asian supermarket or wait for your pizza or shaorma at the fast food next door. In order to be able to be part of this new diverse world, declarations of supporting 'multi-kulti' are not enough.
The first stage of the interaction has to do with the way in which the narrative is being written. How we react and what we understand out the contact with 'the other'? Are we ready to go beyond the declarative level and the basic stereotypes inherently associated to various ethnic groups?
Working in a Multicultural World by Luciara Nardon is a real 'guide to developing intercultural competence', meaning it offers a step-by-step learning process to anyone keen to manage efficiently the multicultural interactions at work and abroad. In the author's words, it helps 'to develop constructive ways of thinking about intercultural interactions and acquire the skills needed to deal with the complex multi-cultural reality of today's workplace'.
Offering more examples and practical insights and less theoretical background, the book helps to improve the level of inter-cultural communication in various work situations. Communication is the main dimension around which the entire process is built and developed, either it is about developing empathy or revisiting the main story of the intercultural and multicultural interaction. Very useful are especially the short exercises at the end of each section, allowing an evaluation as well as the revision of the main habits and practices.
A book recommended especially to those dealing with multicultural diversity at the workplace on a daily basis, as well as to anyone preparing for a career in the field of cultural studies, with a practical interest in creating trainings and workshops for international companies and teams.

Good introduction to multicultural word and 101 tools.

I got this book from NetGalley and I am really grateful. I have read similar works in the past and I am genuinely interested in Intercultural Communications, which is what initially drove me to request this book. I was pleasantly surprised by both the cover and the contents. The cover is simple, sleek and modern and inside, there are plenty of graphs and charts that make it all very easy to understand. The book is easy to read. The language is not too academic and I think that's important for this type of publication. I feel like the Ms. Nardon's book is not only a good choice for someone who is invested in the fields of multiculturalism and communications, but also for a person who just wants to learn a bit more about the best way to communicate across cultures.
I deducted one star because I wish there was more color incorporated in the tome and also because I felt like the writing was a little repetitive at times. That is normal for an academic type of publication as sentences can be longer. If something can be explained with 7 words, it will usually be said in 25.