Communication Course 10

In our global culture we know that there are frequently language differences that affect how people communicate with one another. However, there is often much more involved in communicating with people of different nations than simply having information translated into the appropriate language. Cultural differences, backgrounds, and frames of reference must be considered, evaluated, and understood in order to make sure that a message is communicated in a way that will best be understood. In addition the receiver of the message must also be aware of these aspects of project/programme purpose interactions, so that effective communication skills such as listening and feedback can be used to make the message that is received is interpreted as closely as possible to the one that is sent.

Even when people from the same culture, speaking the same language interact, there are a number of possible barriers to understanding that may appear. These barriers are multiplied many fold when we communicate with someone from another culture.

Module Introduction

The emerging challenges for communicating and organizing in a global/local marketplace (think globally, act locally) are based on understanding the interrelationships among cultural differences, communication behaviors, and organizational relationships both within and outside of the organization.

Labeled the Global Village by Marshall McLuhan, this trend leads toward a greater and greater expansion of the local village to global proportions. Over the past few decades, the world has become smaller and smaller because of the rapid advances in communication and transportation technologies. Physical boundaries between people of different nations and cultures are fast disappearing as a result of the creation of the global village.

Rather than a purely global perspective, though, we also need to look at communication, production, marketing, and a whole variety of organizational tasks from a local or country level perspective as well, not just from the global level.

1. The Global Challenge

There has been a meteoric rise of Multinational organizations (MNEs) and a related increase in international trade and investment in the past few years. The United Nations reports that transnational organizations have become central organizers of economic activity in an increasingly integrated world economy.

When a organization has branches and subsidiaries in a number of countries, effective communication is not just a necessity between foreign divisions and organizational headquarters, it is imperative and will become an ever more present part of organizational life. In addition, MNEs need to communicate with investors, creditors, suppliers, governments and government agencies, and beneficiaries around the world. Also, annual and other organizational reports are prepared for audiences in many different countries.

With MNEs becoming an ever-increasing aspect of international organizational life, it is more and more critical to understand the necessity and importance of communication in the global nature of project/programme purpose and organizational processes.

It is not just that MNEs are a fact of global project/programme purpose life, but also of project/programme purpose within any particular country as well. Using the United States as just one example, we can see the effect of globalization within a country. At the beginning of the last decade the United States was the home of over 3,700 parent organizations, second only to Germany, with over 13,000 affiliates, second only to China.

2. The Local Challenge

It is interesting, though, that rather than a purely global perspective, we also need to look at communication, production, marketing, and a whole variety of organizational tasks from a local or country level perspective as well, not just from the global level. Gross and Kujawa state that: “Because of language, ethnic, and religious differences among beneficiaries, personal selling, by its very nature, is largely country- or subcountry-bound.”

In other words we must no only understand and comprehend not just the global village, but also important and salient localities and countries. In an attempt to take these local perspectives into account, Fortner has recast the concept of the global village: “What has actually been created, to alter the metaphor, is a ‘global metropolis.’” The global metropolis implies that while we have the ability to communicate with and travel to other cultures around the world, there is no single global culture.

Also, to communicate with foreign affiliates requires understanding not just a purely global perspective. We also need to look at production, marketing, and a whole variety of organizational tasks from a local or country level perspective as well, and how they affect our communication behavior with foreign affiliates.

3. Cultural Perspectives and Frames of Reference

Before we can explore cultural differences and frames of reference—and how they affect our communication, we need to look at the nature of culture itself. Communication scholars Myron Lustig and Jolene Koester define culture as “a learned set of shared interpretations about beliefs, values, and norms, which affect the behaviors of a relatively large set of people.”

This definition implies that culture creates a perceptual frame of reference that forms the basis for the way people interact with one another through language and nonverbal behavior. Having shared beliefs, values, and norms means that members of the culture have a similar way of thinking about how the world operates and how people should behave in it.

Perception is the process by which we select, organize, and interpret the stimuli that are assaulting us from our environment into a meaningful and coherent representation of the world. It is through our five senses—touch, taste, sight, hearing, and smell—that we take in our environment, attempt to make sense our of it, and in turn evaluate and make decisions about the world.

We perceive the world based on our individual experiences, our education, our religious upbringing, our work experience, and so forth; in sum, we perceive the world from out past experience. In short our perception of the world is based in large part on our cultural background. We see the world the way our culture teaches us to.

Our cultural background creates our frame of reference. Our frame of reference or attitude set is that unique set of beliefs, attitudes, values, and past experiences that create a set way of looking and perceiving the world. And it is our frame of reference, which forms the basis for how we interpret messages that we receive.

4. Learning About Culture

Enculturation is the process by which we learn about our first culture—and any subcultures that we are born into. It is how we are socialized and how we learn about the culture where we are born and reared. Our instructors in this enculturation process are our parents and other relatives, care takers like babysitters or nannies, religious teachers—priests, rabbis, imams, or whatever person is appropriate given our religious beliefs—our playmates and their parents, the media; the list goes on and on.

The culture and any subculture or subcultures we are born into are not necessarily the only ones we learn about. For any number of reasons we may encounter a different culture. Part of that encounter is learning about the other culture. Acculturation is the process of learning about a new culture.

Acculturation includes taking on the characteristics or attributes of the other culture. It means adopting new ways of doing things, new habits, and probably new frames of reference and attitude sets.

We often learn about a new culture before we encounter that culture directly. This is especially true with the advent of the Internet. It is very easy to do a search on any variety of aspects of the culture we want to find out about. In some ways there is almost too much information for us to absorb about a culture we want to gain knowledge about.

Getting to know a new culture is the product of a number of different factors, including the mass media and mass communication, popular culture, language, family, interaction networks, and propinquity. We get to know about another culture by taking with others about it, seeing it in the mass media, and by being a part of it.

5. Adjusting to a Different Culture

The acculturation process is one we go through when we learn about a new culture. We might not make an active effort to get to know the new culture, but we will become acculturated nonetheless. When we do encounter another culture we see it, smell it, taste it, touch it, and hear it. We come to have a direct experience with a new culture—and with individual members of that culture.

There are many reasons we encounter another culture. We might want to be just a short-term visitor or we know the encounter will last the rest of our lives because we intend to remain in the new culture. We might even go to a different expecting to make just a brief stay, but remain for months or years.

The sojourner is a visitor to another culture. This visit might be for a short time or for a long time, but the mind set is that of someone who will go back to their own culture. Tourists, students, diplomats, and people doing project/programme purpose in another country are all sojourners. They intend to return to their own country once their goal has been achieved.

Refugees go from one culture to another, but they have left their own culture under duress. They are fleeing from some sort of adversity. Whatever the cause, refugees often feel that they will someday return to their original culture. While this desire to return is not always realistic, it is frequently a part of the refugee’s mentality.

Immigrants are people who chose to leave their home culture and country to make a new life in another culture and country. They have made a free choice to move from one culture to another.

6. Culture Shock

When we visit another culture we see it, smell it, taste it, touch it, and hear it. We come to have a direct experience with a new culture—and with individual members of that culture.

That experience may seem strange to us. The sights are not those we are used to. The place has a different smell. The food is very strange. The sounds are unusual. This culture that is new to us seems odd and unusual. Our encounter with this new culture that is new to us doesn’t quite feel right.

Encountering a new culture can be scary. We experience stress and discomfort with our new surrounding and with new cultural expectations and perceptions. Our normal ways of interacting and communicating with others might no longer work for us. We no longer recognize the patterns of behaviors that we have used for most of our lives.

Our value system, our beliefs, and our norms—the ones we learned from our own culture—might be very different from the beliefs, values, and norms in the new culture. Our usual way of perceiving the world doesn’t seem to work very well any more. Our assumptions feel like they are no longer valid. We can no longer take for granted what we usually took for granted. We are probably experiencing culture shock.

Culture shock occurs when enter a new culture and feel the stress of not being able to rely on our past assumptions and frames of reference. We can no longer take for granted what we have for all of our lives.

Trying to fit in with, to adapt to a new culture is often very difficult. We need to figure out all over again how to negotiate what used to seem like simple interactions. This adaptation might also mean unlearning the old cues used to take for granted.

7. Easing the Adjustment to a New Culture

Here are some suggestions for easing culture shock:

� Be aware of culture shock. Do not minimize it. Be aware of how you respond to new situations.

� Talk about your response to this new culture with others.

� Keep a journal and write about your response to the new and any culture shock you are feeling.

� Identify:

o Your assumptions and frames of reference about yourself, other people, and the world in general

o Your assumptions and frames of reference about the new culture you are encountering

o Any conflict between these assumptions

� Focus on positive aspects of the adaptation and adjustment process.

� Try new things.

� Meet new people.

� Seek the support of others.

� Be aware of your feelings.

� Slow down interactions when you need to, don’t overreact.

� Take time for rest and reflection.

� Appreciate and enjoy the unexpected and different; take delight in learning about a new culture.

� Maintain a sense of humor.

We learn our first language—our mother tongue—and the nonverbal cues that are part of our communication interactions with very little, if any conscious awareness. Both verbal and nonverbal cues become part of those things we take for granted about our culture. Because so much of a language is based on culture, translations sometimes create major problems.

Even if we might speak the same language, there can also be wide variations in our understanding and in the way we use that language. Jargon is the specialized language that is used by members of a profession to facilitate and enhance their communication interactions. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, academics, information systems specials, and just about any profession you can think of has its own jargon. To become a more effective communicator, avoid jargon when it will only confuse your others.

Communication isn’t just what you say; it is also how you say it. A large part of our communication interactions with others is nonverbal. While verbal communication is symbolic and arbitrary. Nonverbal communication is not symbolic. “Please shut the door,” said in a pleasant tone is a very different message from “Please shut the door,” said in a nasty, sarcastic tone.

You might not say anything to a coworker as you rush pass each other in the hall as you are both going to different meetings, but you do smile and wave. You will wear certain clothes to come to a typical day at work, but very different attire for the organization picnic. All of these messages carry information from their nonverbal cues.

To become a more effective communicator, it is important to be aware to both verbal and nonverbal cultural differences and how these affect our interactions.

With the rise of MNEs and branch and subsidiary offices throughout the world and as more and more people migrate around the world from one country to another, more and more we will find ourselves working with people from other countries and other cultures. We need to understand different perspectives and frames of references that people from other cultures have, especially with regard to the workplace.

Every culture has a unique way of looking at work and work-related attitudes. Based on data collected in 40 countries, Geert Hofstede suggests that there are four dimensions of work-related values that differ from culture to culture. Those dimensions are: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism-collectivism, and masculinity-femininity.

Power distance explores the relative power, hierarchical, and status differences between employees and their supervisors or managers.

The uncertainty avoidance dimension examines people’s openness to change, their willingness to take risks, and how they deal with change, ambiguity and unpredictable situations.

Individualism-collectivism looks at whether a person prefers to take individual and independent action or prefers conformity and interdependent action. This dimension also explores how much reliance a person places on the self versus the group in the organization.

Masculinity-femininity explores whether people are assertive and achievement oriented or whether they are nurturing and socially supportive. It also refers to whether gender roles in the culture are clearly defined or not.

Being aware of these cultural differences is not enough, however. We also need to accept the differences for what they are and not judge them. People have been taught by their cultures to perceive the world in certain ways. Their ways are not necessarily any better or worse than our own, just different. Once we are aware of, and accept these differences, then we can find ways to effectively and productively work with people from other cultures.

Communication scholars Myron Lustig and Jolene Koester propose several ways to become competent in communicating and interacting with people from other cultures. Here are some of their suggestions that can help you more effectively work with others:

� Display of Respect: This is the ability to show respect toward others and to value them as fellow humans.

� Orientation to Knowledge: This is the awareness that each person has an individual way of perceiving the world, one based on cultural background.

� Empathy: This is the ability to try to understand other peoples’ cultural perspectives.

� Relational Role Behavior: This is the ability to establish harmony in interpersonal interactions with people from other cultures.

� Tolerance for Ambiguity: This is the ability to cope effectively with are new and uncertain circumstances. It means being able to adapt easily to new cultural situations.

� Interaction Posture: This is the ability to view other cultures in a nonjudgmental manner.

Assignments

1. A _____ ______ implies that while we have the ability to communicate with and travel to other cultures around the world, there is no single global culture.

3. This occurs when we enter a new culture and feel the stress of not being able to rely on our past assumptions.

4. It explores the relative power, hierarchical, and status differences between employees and their supervisors.

1. ______ Effective communication is imperative and will become an even more present part of organizational life.

2. ______ To communicate with foreign affiliates, we need to understand production, marketing, and organizational tasks.

3. ______ Culture creates a perceptual from of reference that forms the basis for the way people interact with one another through language and nonverbal behavior.

5. ______ The culture and subcultures we are born into are the only ones we learn about.

Brislin, R. (Ed.). (1977). Culture learning: Concepts, applications, and research. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii.

Fortner, R. S. (1993). International communication: History, conflict, and control of the global metropolis. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Harris, P., & Moran, R. (1996). Managing cultural differences. Houston: Gulf Pub. Co.

Culture – A learned set of shared interpretations about beliefs, values, and norms, which affect the behaviors of a relatively large set of people.

Culture shock – Special transition period and the acorganizationing feelings after entering a new culture.

Acculturation – Taking on the characteristics or attributes of the other culture by adopting new ways of doing things, new habits, and probably new frames of reference and attitude sets.

Jargon – A specialized language that is used by members of a profession to facilitate and enhance their communication interactions.

1. Explain and define the four dimensions of work-related values that Geert Hofstede provides.

The four dimensions are power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism-collectivism, and masculinity-femininity. Power distance explores the relative power, hierarchical, and status differences between employees and their supervisors or managers. Uncertainty avoidance examines people’s openness to change, their willingness to take risks, and how mush people feel that it is appropriate to follow rules in their organization.

We can be aware of culture shock, talk about your response to this new culture with others, keep a journal, identify assumptions and conflict, focus on positive aspects of the adaptation and adjustment process, try new things, meet new people, seek the support of others, be aware of your feelings, slow down interactions, take time for rest and reflection, appreciate and enjoy the unexpected, and maintain a sense of humor.

Display of respect, orientation to knowledge, empathy, relational role behavior, tolerance for ambiguity, and interaction posture can all help you work effectively with others.

1. Display of respect		A. The ability to view other cultures in a nonjudgmental manner.
2. Empathy		B. The ability to try to understand other peoples’ cultural perspectives.
3. Orientation to knowledge		C. The ability to show respect toward others and to value them as fellow humans.
4. Relational role behavior		D. The ability to establish harmony in interpersonal interactions with people from other cultures.
5. Tolerance for ambiguity		E. The ability to cope effectively with new and uncertain circumstances.
6. Interaction posture		F. The awareness that each person has an individual way of perceiving the world, one based on cultural background.

1. Sojourner		A. Going from one culture to another, leaving their own culture under duress.
2. Refugees		B. Visitor to another culture.
3. Immigrants		C. People who choose to leave their home culture and country to make a new life in another culture and country.
4. Acculturation process		D. Occurs when we enter a new culture and fee l stress of not being able to rely on our past assumptions and frames of reference.
5. Culture shock		E. The process by which we select, organize, and interpret the stimuli that are assaulting us from our environment into a meaningful and representation of the world.
6. Perception		F. Trying to learn new cultural patterns.

Communication Course 10: Communication and Global Cultures

Assignments