Griffin_04

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The role of culture
Overview
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Please send me (john.lehman_at_uaf.edu) email
containing the following

• Subject ICC class
• Your name in Chinese
• Your Chinese name in Pinyin
• Your English name if you have one
• Your email address
• Please put the last 4 on one line with commas
  between them
• Xxx, lei yuehan, John Lehman,john.lehman_at_uaf.edu

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Please email me (john.lehman_at_uaf.edu) me the
following separated by commas)

• Your Chinese name
• Your Chinese name in pinyin
• Your English name if you have one
• your email address
• E.g. I would put xxx, Lei Yuehan, ohn Lehman,
  john.lehman_at_uaf.edu

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Learning Objectives 1

• Discuss the primary characteristics of culture
• Describe the various elements of culture and
  provide examples of how they influence
  international communications
• Identify the means by which members of a culture
  communicate with each other

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Learning Objectives 2

• Discuss how religious and other values affect the
  domestic environments in which organizations
  operate
• Explain Hofstedes primary findings about
  differences in cultural values
• Explain how cultural conflicts may arise

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Culture

• Culture is the collection of values, beliefs,
  behaviors, customs, and attitudes that
  distinguish one society from another.

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Characteristics of Culture

• Learned behavior
• Interrelated elements
• Adaptive
• Shared

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Figure 4.1 Elements of Culture
Language
Communication
Social structure
Culture
Religion
Values/ attitudes
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Social Structure
Individuals, families, and groups
Social stratification
Social mobility
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Language

• Primary aspect of cultural groups
• Shapes how people think
• Whorf hypothesis structure of the language
  influences structure of thought

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Examples Yes and No Across Cultures

• Latin America
• meaning of manana
• Japan
• meaning of yes versus yes, I understand

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Nonverbal Communication

• May account for 80-90 percent of all information
  transmitted among members of a culture by means
  other than language.

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Forms of Nonverbal Communication 1

• Hand gestures
• Facial expression
• Posture and stance
• Clothing/hair style
• Walking behavior
• Interpersonal distance

• Touching
• Eye contact
• Architecture/interior design
• Artifacts and non-verbal symbols
• Graphic symbols

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Forms of Nonverbal Communication 2

• Art and rhetorical forms
• Smell
• Speech rate, pitch, inflection, volume
• Color symbolism
• Synchronization of speech and movement

• Taste, symbolism of food, oral gratification
• Cosmetics
• Sound signals
• Time symbolism
• Timing and pauses
• Silence

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Gift Giving and Hospitality

• Gift-giving is a major difference between Chinese
  and American culture
• Expectations of hospitality also differ

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Religion

• China
• government regulation
• Europe
• government support
• US
• government hands-off
• active competition/marketing

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Values and Attitudes

• Values are the principles and standards accepted
  by the members attitudes encompass the actions,
  feelings, and thoughts that result from those
  values.

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Values and Attitudes
Time
Age
Education
Status
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Theories of Culture

• Halls Low-Context, High-Context Approach
• Cultural Cluster Approach, e.g.
• Greater China cultural area
• 9 nations of North America
• Hofstedes Five Dimensions

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Halls Low-Context High-Context Approach

• An approach to understanding communication
  based on the relative emphasis on verbal and
  nonverbal cues to transmit meaning

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Figure 4.2 High- and Low-Context Cultures
German Swiss Scandinavian U.S./
Canadian British Italian Spanish Greek Arab Vietna
mese Japanese Korean Chinese
Low Context
High Context
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Hofstedes Five Dimensions
Social Orientation
Power Orientation
Uncertainty Orientation
Goal Orientation
Time Orientation
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Social Orientation
Individualism Collectivism
Relative importance of the interests of the
individual versus interests of the group
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Power Orientation
Power Respect Power Tolerance
Appropriateness of power/authority within
organizations
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Figure 4.4 Social Orientation and Power
Orientation Patterns
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Uncertainty Orientation
Uncertainty Uncertainty Acceptance
Avoidance
Emotional response to uncertainty and change
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Goal Orientation
Aggressive Passive
What motivates people to achieve different goals
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Time Orientation
Long-term Short-term outlook
outlook
The extent to which members of a culture adopt a
long-term or a short-term outlook on work and
life
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The nature of communication
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The person who sends the communication

• Has a message
• The message is influenced by cultural context
• He encodes the message
• into one or more media

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Encoding
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The person who receives the communication

• receives the message
• from one or more media
• influenced by cultural context
• She decodes the message

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Decoding
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Sources of misunderstanding

• Poorly thought out message
• Poor encoding (e.g. bad writing)
• Unclear cultural context
• Inconsistent media (e.g. words do not match body
  language)
• Poor transmission

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Sources of misunderstanding 2

• Poor reception (did not hear clearly)
• Inconsistent media interpretation
• Unclear cultural context
• Different cultural context
• Poor decoding (e.g. did not understand)
• Preconceived answer