Badania nad komunikacją międzykulturową: dotychczasowe paradygmaty i perspektywy badawcze

The article gives an overview of past and present intercultural communication studies based on a review of journal articles from the last decade. It also introduces a qualitative approach to studying cultural encounters and learning processes in organizations through narrative inquiry and narrative analysis. We propose that this narrative approach should be moved closer to the intercultural communication realm because it may serve as a tool for getting access to and achieving an understanding of how culturally diverse individuals tell about and reflect upon cultural encounters. The process of storytelling allows narrators to (a) re-experience and reflect on their (inter)cultural encounters, (b) give sense to those experiences, and (c) make sense of their current and previous psychological needs, perceptions of and expectations toward contacts with cultural Others. Analysis of stories about critical cultural encounters in a specific context allows the researcher to gain deeper insight into the process of intercultural communication whereby individuals make sense of challenging cultural experiences and construct their identity and potentially engage in cultural learning processes.