Global understanding

Global communication must move beyond the western bias that continues to shape it

 
Recently, I attended a Danish sales manager’s lecture on his experiences with international clients. The talk was accompanied by a slideshow. A colourful slide caught my attention. Under the headline “A Globalised Company”, it visualised a world map with Europe, and the logo of a well-known company, at its centre. From there, connectors were organised, star-like, around the company logo, which was clustered in Northern Europe. The star reached out to Southern and Eastern European countries, as well as to emerging economies. Special emphasis was given to India and China. Somehow this perception of globalisation got me thinking. I started to pay more attention to the communication of the ‘global’ around me. Headlines such as “The Chinese Copy Danish Cookies” or “Cheap T-Shirts From China” leapt towards my eyes. When my bank’s stakeholder magazine dropped into my mailbox one morning, I realised a pattern in European public and corporate ways of communicating global relations.

Iris Rittenhofer

Iris Rittenhofer has been an associate professor at the Aarhus School of Business since March 2206, having previously held roles at Universities in Aarhus, Aalborg and Bielefeld. She holds a Phd and an MA, and has served as a board member for the Danish Women’s Museum. Earlier in her career, she worked as an instructor for Moesborg Communication, and as a development consultant at DISCUS.