Cultural differences

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Cultural differences

• Denise Oram and Mike Headon
• Centre for Applied Internet Research
• North East Wales Institute, Wrexham,UK

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• 1 What is culture?
• Why are cultural differences important?
• Approaches to the problem
• Difficulties involved
• Some solutions

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Culture

• Organisational
• National

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Organisational culture

• company history and tradition
• leader influence
• technology
• industry competition
• legislation and company environment
• procedures and policies

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Organisational culture (contd)

• missions
• visions
• values and beliefs
• organisation
• resources
• (Goodman, 1997)

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National culture

• A shared set of beliefs, attitudes, norms,
  values, and behavior organized around a central
  theme and found among speakers of one language,
  in one time period, and in one geographic region
• (Triandis, 1995)

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A synthesised definition of culture

• A dynamic mix of national/geographic,
  organisational, and professional or disciplinary
  elements in constant interaction with one
  another
• (Heaton, 1998)

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• every worker in the industrialised countries uses
  computer-based information systems for daily work
• systems involve relationships between individuals
• relationships between individuals are guided by
  systems of ethics
• computer-based information systems present new
  and unresolved ethical problems
• cultural differences need to be reconciled
• ethics is a highly conceptual field

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• Words obtain meanings in the context of
  collective actions by groups of people
• (Stamper, 1991)

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• Its not what comes out of the mouth its
  whats inside the head

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• requirements elicitation
• or
• requirements negotiation?

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• Those are my principles if you dont like
  them, I have others
• (Marx Groucho)

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Steinmann Lohrs constructivist dialogue
ethics (1996)

• procedural approach to ethics
• derived from the practice of life
• conflict resolution based on consensus, not power
  structures
• consensus solutions are better and more stable
• harmony is the normative ideal

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CAIRtools Inc!
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Hofstede

• Power distance
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Individualism
• Masculinity/femininity
• (later) Long-term/short-term orientation

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Trompenaars Hampden-Turner

• Universalism/particularism
• Individualism/communitarianism
• Affective/neutral
• Specific/diffuse
• Achievement/ascription
• Time orientation (past, present, future)
• Internal/external

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