Themes from the author's research into cultural interfaces and cross-cultural encounters have implications for organization development (OD) and training for internationalizing business and developing competencies for working effectively with people of diverse cultures. These themes are: (1) unawareness in the United States of cultural unawareness and the efficacy of recognizing this unawareness for developing effective intercultural interactions; (2) people learn what they have learned to learn and are motivated to learn--not from experience, "committed" OD and training are required for developing international and intercultural expertise; (3) effective intercultural relations rest heavily on motivation and appropriate values; (4) certain values, motivations and personality traits are necessary but not sufficient for effective intercultural communications and interactions; (5) unfamiliarity with the complexity of culture, the utility of cross-cultural perspective, the distinction between reality and reality-as-perceived, and the tendency of humans to assess others with yardsticks of their own culture all hinder effective interactions; (6) limited awareness of the influence of culture and Eurocentric bias applies also to social science knowledge. Education, training, and OD interventions focused on these themes are essential to develop competencies for working effectively with people of diverse culture. (Contains 62 references) (Author/DB)