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...ional culture, as well as business relationships in the particular business sector. The unwritten rules about how to be a good member of a group are called “culture”. Any culture provides moral standards about how to be an upstanding group member; it defines the group as a “moral circle”. It inspires symbols, heroes, rituals, laws, religions, taboos, and all kinds of practices, but its core is hidden in unconscious values. Any groups are classified based on national, religious, or ethnic boundaries, and also on occupation or academic discipline, on club membership, adored idol, or dress style [3]. In the global and modern world, people can belong to many groups, but to achieve the goals, it is necessary to cooperate with members of other groups carrying other cultures. As regards engineering students, in their professional activity after the graduation from the university they can face the need to be able to communicate also across different organizational cultures, as well as other cultures, but the most important basis (which is related to all kinds of cultures) is awareness and acceptance of national cultures, therefore the cross-cultural competence that involves intercultural unde...

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...ect of business relations, cross-cultural competence is one of those that should be useful, if developed during the foreign language study courses of engineering students. Professional skills alone cannot ensure promotion in work. The future specialists should be ready to understand their peers and react accordingly in compliance with the given situation. They should also be able to form external relationships that help firms strengthen and extend their traditional competences while responding to the demands of globalization, mass customization, enhanced quality and rapid technological change [1]. To ensure strong relationships and successful cooperation among the future engineering specialists, not only professional engineering-related and language skills play a vital role. Similarly general and specific cross-communication skills as such can help ensure the necessary results as well. Usually people in organizations typically spend over 75 % of their time in an interpersonal situation; thus it is no surprise to find that at the root of a large number of organizational problems is poor communications. Effective communication is an essential component of organizational success whether ...

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...s of language, but also to guarantee that the students are aware of the cultural backgrounds and able to make the appropriate decisions as regards the perception of different cultural characteristics of their foreign partners during the process of cross-cultural communication in their future professional activity. The building of cultural awareness may not be an easy task, but once accomplished, it definitely helps a job done efficiently in a foreign environment. Discussions and reading about cultures helps build cultural awareness, but opinions presented must be carefully measured and tested [4]. ENGINEERING FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT Jelgava, 26.-27.05.2011. 504 As mentioned above, foreign language teachers should choose appropriate materials and methods for the development of cross-cultural competence of engineering students, as it is quite difficult to develop such skills especially for students whose future profession is not related to humanities. There are lots of materials that can be used during the study process, but the cross-cultural competence is impossible to develop without practice, therefore students are to be motivated to take part in conferences and different other intern...