Everyday life exists of meeting familiar and unfamiliar faces. Unfamiliar faces, habits, beliefs and cultures are what constitutes ‘The Other’. Travelling and working abroad makes us much more aware of ‘The Other’. In the ‘Understanding the Other’ series of blogposts you learn more about the deeper, underlying layers of other cultures. In the process you become more aware of your own culture and life choices, opening the door for personal development and improving your social interactions with other cultures and lifestyle, either at home or abroad. Image by Free SVG.
Culture
Malewski (2005: 65) provides a very simple definition of culture: “the sum of characteristic choices made by a group of people”.
A detailed definition
Historically societies have developed different cultures, consisting of shared behavior, beliefs, values and symbols, to deal with the problems of external adaptation (managing relationships with the environment) and internal integration (managing relationships among people).
Solutions to the problems of external adaptation include assumptions regarding control and uncertainty, the nature of human activity, and the nature of truth and reality.
Solutions to the problems of internal integration include assumptions regarding the importance of relationships over task achievement, relationships with superiors and subordinates, and relationships with peers (Schneider & Barsoux 2003: 35).
How culture is shaped
Culture can be seen as a control mechanism for governing behavior and generating trust and is often the result of human choices under particular conditions that are shaped by forces such as geography, political influence, religion and language. Many aspects of a culture are learned during the formative years of childhood and are therefore difficult to unlearn.
This is not to say a culture is monolithic or fixed. People can decide (at least to a certain extent) which aspects of their culture they want to shun or embrace, for example by choosing a particular consumer lifestyle or working for a certain company. However, it usually takes travelling to another environment to help people realize the extent to which they have unconsciously adopted the choices and solutions they grew up with, and that other options exist (Malewski 2005).
Below the surface
Often the realization of the power of culture only comes in retrospect. As culture only has tacit impact on business processes and results it tends to be downplayed or neglected. Yet, in a study of international businesspeople, managers rated inter-cultural sensitivity as the most important criterion for success in foreign assignments. The same study also found that when actually deploying people for foreign assignments, this was one of the least considered criteria, coming well below professional experience and reputation as criteria for selection and placement decisions.
Related books (which include all references)
