Intercultural Issues in Virtual Professional Settings

The purpose of the introductory chapter is to underline some of the issues at stake, producing the synthesis of a case study as an example of intercultural business communication online. Considering the channel and the need for a company to construct its identity in relation to an unpredictable global audience, this study follows a three-dimensional concept of space (Soja 2001). A mixed methodological approach, both quantitative and qualitative, has been adopted, although reference to numerical data is made only to support discourse analysis (DA) and critical discourse analysis (CDA). Indeed, DA and CDA are, in this case, the best approaches to describing business communication that implies a high level of intercultural interaction.