Lecture 20 - Cross-Cultural Communication

• What is Culture?
• Influence of Culture
• Workplace Culture
• Working with Different Cultures
• Whose culture should we follow?

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Cross-Cultural Communication

• What do we mean by culture?
• We tend to think of it as race/country of origin
  
  
• Dictionary definition:
  The customs, civilization, and achievements of a particular time or people
  
  
• Many different aspects, including:
  • Race
  • Gender
  • Religion
  • Education
  • Occupation
  • Community
  • Background
  • ...?
• Accepted ways of doing things
• Accepted ways of thinking about things
• Accepted ways of interacting
• We are all involved in many different cultures

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Influence of Culture

• Culture determines many things about communication, including:
  • How we deal with conflict
  • How we express affection
  • How we greet each other
  • How we make decisions
  • How we expect decisions concerning us to be made

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What determines workplace culture?

• Company policy
  • Company-sponsored social events (birthday biscuits, christmas parties, etc)
  • Tea breaks and facilities
  • Policies relating to internet usage
  • Flexible working hours
  • Sick leave, maternity/paternity leave, compassionate leave, etc.
  • How (or indeed if) good work is recognised and rewarded
  • Structure of management hierarchy
  • Attitude of management - separate, "godlike" figure, or "one of us, with a bit more responsibility"?
  • ...?
  
  
• The surrounding culture
  • Type of society
  • External influences - regulations, financial pressures, political climate
  
  
• Individuals
• ...?

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Working with different cultures

• Different cultures may exist within a company
  • Marketing departments versus programmers or engineers
  • People with different cultural backgrounds
• Companies may deal with other companies:
  • With different corporate cultures
  • From different social cultures
• Companies may merge

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Whose culture should we follow?

• Who stands to gain from the situation?
  • Do you want to buy from me?
  • Do you want to sell to me?
  • Do you want me to do you a favour?
  • Am I in your country?
• Ultimately - are you expecting someone else to make an effort?
• Are you prepared to demonstrate that you are willing you make that effort yourself?

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