Cross Cultural Issues Essay Example for Free

Cross Cultural Issues EssayWith hot topics like globalization and cross-cultural opportunities in the Asia pacific rim, one might think it would be easy to look for the implications of cross cultural issues. Rather, what the writer comprise was a significant discussion both around the periphery but little in-depth analysis. Discussion prevailed on the socio-economic and technological ramifications. Others resources focussinged on the wording issues but little work was intuitively available on the subtleties of cross cultural issues one may encounter.Based on experience working in the Asia peace-loving rim for two years as a PMO Manager, and training PMs in umteen European countries, I decided that understanding international socio-cultural issues encountered in business is requisitely at the ticker of the issues companies leave behind encounter in globalizing operations. Therefore, the writer will approach the crosscultural issues from a personalized understanding found on his many months of first hand mis pass ons in understanding cultural issues encountered in Asia pacific.I will base my observations of cross-cultural issues on my experiences in working most closely with one-on-ones from China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, and India. Naturally at that place argon more countries in the Pacific Rim but these mentioned provided the most opportunity for interaction. I want to in any case acknowledge the contributions of my wife, Helena Shiu Leung Chow Ballow, whom I initially met in Asia. Her wisdom, coaching, and meaningful insights on the many differences mingled with Western and Eastern business and cultural practices were, and remain till this day, illuminating, helpful and daunting.Introduction Clearly we all understand to some(prenominal) degree the impact of cultural issues in communications. If nothing else, we eat encountered situations where language was the barrier. still language may be the smallest of the issues when dealing with other cultures. Even when we pull out our Translation Guides or employ translators we may get pass some of the language difficulties. scarce from the writers experience, language is the least of the issues. Ingrained and systemic patterns of cultural behaviours can be so subtle as to wholly deny meaningful communications.I found a really good example of beneficial how considerably cultural variances can cause communications problems. In this case the issues was psychological filtering of appearance or gesture. I would think is would also be easy for the reader to extrapolate this example into some experiences that may have encountered pull d admit in the West. Timofeev (2002), in an article in National Concepts and globalisation, provided the following example The idea or rather the hypothesis that underlies this paper was stimulated by a trivial chat with a assistant of mine.Being a linguist by trade, Russian by origin and living in Finland, she is easy aw atomic number 18 of cross-cultural discrepancies and provided me with a curious example. It was a TV commercial of an international brand of Persil laundry powder. Two young ladies were shown sitting in a crowded place, some restaurant or a cafe. One of the ladies notices quite a peculiar manner her friend has chosen to wear her wristwatch. It was placed to a higher place the cuff of her blouse. It turned out in a second that the only reason for placing her watch there was to cover some stain that regular detergents failed to deal with.Oh dear, you should use Persil instead So everything was straight and simple. But before that, when the attentive and thoughtful lady was describing her version of her friends peculiar manner of wearing her watch in Finnish (and I reckon that the German, French and English versions were quite similar to that in Finnish), she said You atomic number 18 such a busy person. You have to wear your watch so that it can always be seen. While in Russian the same lady made quite a different guess Your watch must be terribly expensive since you wear it so that everyone can notice it. The Russian version, when translated into English, seems to be full of irony it describes the ladys manner as showing off. It would definitely undermine the main design of the ad, which was to provide a friend and those watching the commercial with thoughtful advice about using detergents. (p. 1) To understand the issues we must start with a framework definition of culture. There are just too many definitions of culture, and even speaking the same language, we might get off tract pretty quickly. So, the writer did some research and decided on the following foundational definition of culture upon which to proceed.This is summarized by Kim (1999) As the author himself confesses that there are 160 different definitions of the term culture and picks up the definition of scholar Clyde Kluckhohn. According to him, ending consists of model ways of t hinking, feeling and reacting, acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiment in artifacts the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i. e. historically derived and selected) ideas and attached values. continued 2004, 2005 Dennis G.Ballow, Sr. , PMKT, Inc. , All Rights Reserved Globalization and Cross-Cultural Issues in Project Management, page 2 Another scholar, Triandis, presents a psychological perspective to the description. agriculture is a subjective perception of the human made part of the environment. And this includes the categorization of social stimuli, associations, beliefs, attitudes, roles, and values individuals share. Culture thus is a melting pot consisting of many things gathered over a period of duration in which religion and language play a great role. (p. 228)Now, with a definition of culture in hand, and a real life example to back up the idea, we will look at some rela tively common cultural issues that impact communication, and thus, also have implications for Western corporations working in the Asia Pacific Rim. Cross-Cultural Issues and Implications I will present the materials in a table format such that it may be easier to digest.A simple summary provided by Bhagat et al (2002 provides a good stepping-stone for analysis of the cross-cultural issues Cross-border transfer of organizational knowledge is most effective in terms of both velocity and viscousness when the type of knowledge (i. . , human, social, or structured) being transferred is simple, explicit, and in count onent and when such transfers involve similar cultural contexts. In contrast, transfer is least effective when the type of knowledge being transferred is complex, tacit, and systemic and involves dissimilar cultural contexts. (p. 204) accede 1 Cross-cultural Implications Asian (China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan) and the West Cross-culture Dimension Langu age Implications Asian Perspective Not that complicate to the Asian. Foreigners should have more respect and learn the language.American Perspective English is the international business language so everyone should use it. Implications It is generally good practice to localize materials when feasible. Local words and expressions sometime just do not properly translate for English and may actually be offensive. A focus on team activities and collaboration vs. individual competitive activities is preferred. Individualism vs. Collectivism Strong Collectivism The Asians depend more on groups or institutions to determine what they should do and emphasize loyalty to the group.They are more probably to cooperate with others to avoid risks and reduce responsibilities. Their value systems appreciate duty to the group and harmony among its members while pursue personal goals is viewed rather negatively in Asia. The Asian person does not consider contracts as sternly as the Americans. The y think there will always be changes and the contracts can be reasonably limited according to changes. Instead, they tend to pay more attention to relationships than contracts.Strong Individualism They rely on their own view to determine what they should do. They tend to work alone and are reluctant to cooperate because their individualism and manful culture view cooperation in general as a sign of weakness and place a high value on independence and control. Americans place greater importance on contractual safeguards than the Asian. They accept that contracts can ensure that their partners tendencies to focus on individual goals and aspirations do not interfere with their own individual goals and aspirations.Cooperation Nothing is cast in stone for the Asians. Authority is seldom, if ever, challenged. But when encouraged and trust is gained by the instructor, students will interact better, and challenge each other in a negotiative manner as not to micturate a save face problem. This takes much longer that you will ever plan so take time to let the process work itself through. Asian employees seldom have the chance to really move into in the decision-making process. So activities requiring decisions may well take longer. continued