Cross Cultural Communication

1
Cross Cultural Communication

• Chapter 13
• Reconciling
• Cultural Dilemmas

2
Learning Outcomes

• Awareness of Cultural differences
• Reconciling Cultural Dilemmas

3
Awareness of Cultural differences

• Systematic understanding of other cultures helps
  international managers to avoid potential traps
  and pitfalls in dealing with people of other
  cultures.
• Cultural awareness is the understanding states of
  mind, your own and those of the people you meet.
• There may be an infinite range of potential
  errors, but seven dimensions of culture provide a
  frame of reference for analyzing ways in which
  people attribute meaning to the world around them.

4
Reconciling Cultural differences

• Ten steps which are useful in achieving
  reconciliation
• the theory of complementarity
• Using humor
• Mapping out a cultural space
• From nouns to present participles and processes
• Language and meta-language
• Frames and contexts
• Sequencing
• Waving / cycling
• Synergizing and virtual circling
• The double helix

5
The theory of Complementarity

• Theory of Complementarity proposed by Danish
  scientist Niels Bohr
• The ultimate nature of matter is manifested both
  as specific particles and as diffuse waves.
  Nature reveals itself to us as a response to our
  measuring instruments.
• There is no one form out there, but forms will
  depend on how we perceive them and how we measure
  them.
• All seven cultural dimensions have two extremes.
  They are not separate but different, on a
  continuum between rules and exceptions.
• Things are more or less similar to the rule, or
  more or less dissimilar and hence exceptional.
  Rules can not be defined without also knowing
  what exceptions were. The terms are therefore
  complementary.

6
Using Humor

• Its possible to have dilemmas through humor,
  which signals an unexpected clash between two
  different perspectives
• Values taken to extremes often suggest that the
  opposite value is really present, rather than the
  proclaimed one
• Corporations who announce that they trust their
  people may end up breaking into their offices at
  night and rifling their desks.
• For the lowdown on what really happens in the
  corporation, cartoons stuck on the walls of
  employees offices are often incisive satires of
  the official line and reveal what the dilemmas
  really are.

7
Mapping out a Cultural space

• Another effective process for exploring dilemmas
  is to turn their two horns into axes to
  create a cultural space.
• Examples
• A. given the pluralism of local initiatives in
  Europe, is it possible to exercise any strategic
  leadership from US Headquarters which is
  applicable to all the units concerned?
• (universalism particularism dilemma)

8
Mapping out a Cultural space

• B.Given the obvious desirability of getting our
  best products on to the market according to the
  value of their achievements, is it possible to
  attain this while giving the autonomous RD for
  high-potential products the space they needed to
  mature?
• (achievement ascription dilemma)
• C.Given the need for a quick response to very
  swiftly changing markets in the USA, is it
  possible to keep ourselves committed to a
  long-term vision developed at our center in South
  Korea
• (short-term long-term dilemma)

9
Mapping out a Cultural space

• The descriptions of these dilemmas are provided
  in Pg.202 of the text and diagrammatically
  represented in
• Fig.13.1 ( Dilemma A)
• Fig. 13.2 ( Dilemma B)
• Fig. 13.3 ( Dilemma C)
• The dilemmas must be mapped before reconciling
  it so that everyone has a clear definition of
  what has to be reconciled.

10
From nouns to present participles and processes

• A noun is a person, place or thing. But value
  is none of these and we get into difficulty when
  we use nouns like universalism or particularism,
  loyalty or dissent to describe the horns of a
  dilemma.
• As a step on the road to reconciliation, if
  these nouns are converted into present
  participles, ending in ing, they will be
  transformed into processes
• Universalizing particularizing
• Individualising communing
• Achieving ascribing ( status)
• Sequencing time synchronizing time
• It helps to get rid of hard edges and render
  the value as a process requiring the
  participation of people.

11
Language and meta-language

• Language also helps in achieving reconciliation.
• It is done by using a ladder of abstraction and
  putting one value (or horn of a dilemma) above
  the other, that is, by using both an object
  language and a meta language and allowing them to
  dovetail.
• Famous Quotation from Scott Fitzgerald
• the test of a first rate intelligence is to
  hold two ideas in your mind at the same time and
  still retain the capacity to function. You
  must,for example, be able to see that things are
  hopeless, yet be determined to make them
  otherwise.
• At first glance, it appears to be contradiction,
  but it is not. Contradictions cancel each other
  out.
• Meta Level Be determined to make them
  otherwise
• Object level see that things are hopeless

12
Language and meta-language

• Example one small unit has achieved
  extraordinary success.
• Meta level ascribe importance to this strategy
  world wide
• Object Level admire and reward this form of
  achieving
• Top management encouraged achievement in
  particular unit and ascribed universal importance
  to the strategy employed, so that other
  business units can benefit from emulating the
  particular achievement
• Here both particularizing universalizing and
  achieving and ascribing have been reconciled.

13
Frames contexts

• Meta level frames the object level.
• Thinking in frames and contexts useful because it
  contain and constrain the picture or the
  text within them.
• to see that things are hopeless can lead to
  despair, unless framed by a determination to
  make them otherwise.
• Text and contexts are reversible, as are the
  picture and frame.

14
Sequencing

• Sequencing the processes over time
• It is possible to go wrong and then correct, to
  particularize and then generalize, to observe
  outer trends and dynamics and then direct
  yourself at your objective.
• So I can later
  So that achievement
• I study achievement
• now I ascribe status to
• 
  to this
  project/technology
• ascribe to its lessons
  is likely to
  follow

15
Waving / cycling

• Instead of assuming values as things ( I.e.,
  colliding billiard balls), we assume they are
  wave-forms.
• They are like water waves, sound waves,
  electro-magnetic waves, light waves etc.
• Wave form between the axes shown in Fig.13.6
• Here we first err, then correct, then err again,
  then correct again and so on. Entire process is
  called error correcting system

16
Waving / cycling

• The creation of wave-form between universalizing
  and particularizing shown in Fig.13.7
• This is a diagram of how particular exceptions
  are encountered and noted before encompassing
  them within changed or reformed rules
• The idea of error correction by rendering wave
  form as a cycle assumes that we will periodically
  get things wrong and have to make a second try
  or circuit before improving on both axes.

17
Synergising and virtual circling

• Term synergy from Greek sunergos to work
  with
• When two values work with one another they are
  mutually facilitating and enhancing
• The company that has recently been seen to be
  achieving the project makes it far more likely
  that senior management will ascribe greater
  importance to it in next years strategy
  deliberation.
• The virtuous cycle looks like Fig.13.8

18
The double helix

• Model of Models DNA, the double helix molecular
  structure ( Fig.13.9) being used here as
  metaphor
• Double-helix model summarize the steps to
  reconciliation.
• The ladder of protein synthesis has four rungs.

19
The double helix

• Ladder of values synthesis has seven rungs.
• The twisted ladder is full of complementaries
• When the pairs come together unexpectdly it can
  be funny
• We can use uprights on each side of the ladder as
  cultural space for mapping
• The twisted elements of the ladder constitute a
  growth process
• Each twist of the spiral speaks the language of
  growth and contains coded instructions
• Each turn of helix is framed and contexualized by
  the helix within and around it, containing and
  constraining.
• The process is sequential. It constitutes waves
  and cycles, with synthesis producing growth and
  synergy
• In short, the double helix helps summarize all
  nine processes by which values are reconciled.