Intercultural communication competencies in the Indian Information Technology industry

Abstract

Low employment rate, owing to lack of aptly skilled workforce, is one of the major concerns of the Indian Information Technology (IT) sector. The study employed ranking-type Delphi method with an aim to identify those communication competencies which the employers of the Indian IT industry deem crucial for intercultural business interactions. A panel of 10 experts was created, and a total of 3 iterations were administered to achieve a satisfactory level of consensus among experts regarding the most important intercultural communication competencies (ICCs) for the Indian IT industry. Initially, a list of 25 competencies, identified through literature review, was sent to experts to be ranked. After the third iteration, the study provided a set of 10 ICCs for which there was strong agreement among the experts. Challenges and limitations have been discussed in brief.