Culture Flashcards Preview

All Notecards > Culture > Flashcards

Flashcards in Culture Deck (81)
Loading flashcards...
1
Q

Culture

A

Basic beliefs, attitudes, values, behaviors, and customs shared and followed by members of a group, which give rise to the group’s sense of identity.

2
Q

Cultural settings

A
  • When two or more people get together to perform some task.
  • As people interact within the cultural setting, they exhibit behaviors that are the result of their culture.
  • Settings occur at work, home, school, a house of worship, or a place for recreation.
3
Q

Culture is only part of an individual’s makeup and shares spaces and can be affected by

A
  • Individual’s personality, which is a product of inheritance and experience.
  • Human nature, which is universal—such as feelings of joy or loss.
4
Q

Culture is the “software of the mind”

A
  • Mental programs that predispose us to patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting
  • We simultaneously run these programs to carry out our daily tasks - sometimes creating conflicts and overloads
5
Q

Layers of culture

A
  • Center - basic assumptions (implicit culture)
  • Middle - norms and values
  • Outside - artifacts and products (explicit culture)
6
Q

Explicit characteristics of culture

A
  • Easy to appreciate
    • Ex: language, dress, manner
7
Q

Implicit characteristics of culture

A
  • Take time to experience, discover and understand
    • Ex: world views and cognitive habbits
8
Q

Understanding the layers of culture

A

Like an iceberg, can only see the tip (explicit culture) and going deeper down are the beliefs and values which are the foundation

9
Q

Artifacts and products layer of culture

A
  • Culture’s obvious features
    • Includes: food, dress, architecture, humor and music
    • Artifact could also include climate
10
Q

Organization’s observable features are often referred to

A

Organization’s climate

11
Q

Dangers in using only climate to understand culture

A
  • May result from actions of a few individuals or external forces
  • Distinct from culture
12
Q

Norms and values

A
  • Culture’s shared and stated sense of acceptable behaviors— what is right and wrong
  • May include country’s rules and regulations
  • Companies mission statement and code of conduct
13
Q

Basic assumptions

A
  • Culture’s core beliefs about how the world is and ought to be.
  • May be unspoken, and members may not even be consciously aware of them.
  • Cultures with similar norms and values can have different basic assumptions
14
Q

Cultural intelligence

A

Ability to recognize, interpret, and behaviorally adapt to multicultural situations and contexts

15
Q

Aspects of cultural intelligence

A
  • Cognitive
  • Motivational
  • Behavioral
16
Q

Cognitive aspect of cultural intelligence

A
  • Thinking, learning, and strategizing.
  • Involves developing a knowledge of cultural differences and similarities.
  • Being able to use that knowledge to determine how best to handle a cross-cultural situation.
17
Q

Motivational aspect of cultural intelligence

A
  • Effectiveness, confidence, persistence, value congruence, and the level of attraction toward a new culture.
  • Enables one to genuinely enjoy cultural differences rather than feeling threatened or intimidated by them.
18
Q

Behavioral aspect of cultural intelligence

A
  • Individual’s range of possible actions and responses to intercultural encounters.
  • Enables one to be flexible and adapt in multicultural contexts.
19
Q

Most effective way to enhance cultural intellegence

A

Pay equal attention to all three components of cultural intelligence

20
Q

Three Culture Theories

A
  1. Edward T. Hall—high- and low-context cultures
  2. Geert Hofstede—dimensions of culture
  3. Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner—cultural dilemmas
21
Q

Edward T. Hall—high- and low-context cultures

A
  • Context level affects communication and relations:
    • High-context culture
    • Low-context culture
22
Q

Edward T. Hall—high- and low-context cultures question to identify culture’s context

A

How much context or unspoken background does someone need to understand a statement or behavior

23
Q

Low-context culture

A
  • A statement’s meaning is encoded in its words only.
  • What you say is what you mean
24
Q

High-context culture statement meaning

A
  • Includes the verbal message and the nonverbals and social and historic content attached to the statement.
  • What you say is not necessarily what you mean
25
Q

High-context culture

A
  • “No business until I get to know you personally.”
  • Require a lot of background
  • Complex, long-standing network of relationships (blurred lines between work and social lives)
  • History of common experiences - Interactions and interpretations of events is usually not apparent to outsiders
  • Rules are complex and not plainly expressed -Usually applied with flexibility
26
Q

Low-context cultures

A
  • “It’s not personal. It’s just business.”
  • Less history with relationships
  • Not a large database of experience
  • Explicit communication
27
Q

Situations where levels of context create potential for misunderstandings

A
  • Negotiations 360-degree performance reviews
  • Training meetings
28
Q

Geert Hofstede—dimensions of culture includes

A
  • Power distance
  • Individualism/collectivism
  • Uncertainty avoidance
  • Masculine/feminine
  • Long-term/short-term
  • Indulgence/restraint
29
Q

Power distance dimension of culture

A
  • Way that power is distributed in a culture
  • How an unequal distribution is perceived by the culture’s less powerful members
30
Q

High power distance culture

A
  • Class may be inherited at birth and will closely define and individual’s rights and opportunities
  • Social position is not changed
31
Q

Lowe power distance culture

A

Minimizes the importance of class differentiation

32
Q

Individualism/Collectivism

A

Contrasting visions of how members of a society relate to each other

33
Q

Individual cultures

A
  • Clans and family are less important than individual achievement
  • Ties are loose, self-reliance valued
34
Q

Collectivist culture

A
  • One’s membership in a group is more important than one’s individual identity.
  • The group can provide security, protection, and access to opportunity.
  • Strong cohesive groups: protection is exchanged for loyalty to group
35
Q

Uncertainty avoidance

A

How members of a culture feel about uncertainty and lack of clarity.

36
Q

Cultures that avoid uncernity

A

Tend to be more rigid about rules and uncomfortable with change (which always applies risk)

37
Q

Masculine/feminine

A

The extent a culture embodies specific traditional gender images

38
Q

Masculine culture

A
  • Oriented toward competition and achievement
  • Gender roles tend to be more distinct and rigid
39
Q

Feminine culture

A
  • Empathetic, nurturing, and collaborative
  • Greater sharing of roles between the sexes
40
Q

Long-term/short-term is also referred to as

A

Normative/pragmatic

41
Q

Long-term/short-term

A

Way the culture sees the effect of the past on the future.

42
Q

Long-term

A
  • Normative culture
  • Use traditions as a guide and values loyalty to those values and ideas
43
Q

Short-term culture

A
  • Pragmatic culture
  • Believes that its actions today can shape its future
44
Q

Indulgence/restraint

A

How the gratification of desires is viewed.

45
Q

Indulgent culture

A

Believes in fun and pleasure

46
Q

Restrained culture

A

Controls its desires according to social norms

47
Q

Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner

A

Seven dilemmas that illustrate points of cultural tension

48
Q

Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner—cultural dilemmas include

A
  • Universal/particular
  • Individual/communitarian
  • Neutral/affective
  • Specific/diffuse
  • Achieved/ascribed
  • Sequential/synchronic
  • Internal/external
49
Q

Universal culture

A
  • A defined set of rules is applied to each case.
  • Resulting in consistency and sense of impartiality or equal treatment
  • The rules themselves may be partial to particular groups
50
Q

Particular culture

A
  • Context of each case is considered
  • Fairness is achieved by considering factors and relationships that may have influenced the action in question or should influence the response to the action.
51
Q

Individualist culture

A

Members are free to consider their own needs and opportunities when taking action

52
Q

Collectivist cultures

A
  • Members must consider how their actions will affect the entire group.
  • Less “free” personally.
53
Q

Neutral/affective

A
  • Addresses attitudes toward displaying emotion
  • To a member of a neutral culture, someone from an affective culture may appear to be overly emotional, and the validity of those emotions may be doubted.
54
Q

Neutral cultures

A

Control outward expression

55
Q

Affective cultures

A

More likely to display emotions in public

56
Q

Specific/diffuse

A

Boundary between private and public lives

57
Q

Specific cultures

A
  • Firm boundary between public and private lives
  • Restrict public contacts from entering into one’s personal life
  • People who attempt to cross the line into a personal relationship may be perceive as intrusive
58
Q

Diffuse cultures

A
  • Public contact may be allowed access into one’s private life once certain conditions have been fulfilled (ex: time, introductions from other people)
  • If the access is rejected, the person may be perceived as cold or standoffish.
59
Q

Achieved culture

A

Individuals are judged according to their own merits—what they have achieved.

60
Q

Ascribed culture

A

Individuals may be judged by class, wealth, gender, or family connections.

61
Q

Sequential cultures

A
  • See time as linear.
  • Plans, productivity, and the future are important.
62
Q

Synchronic cultures

A
  • View time as more flexible and forgiving
  • Schedules can be changed to accommodate the demands of traditions or relationships
63
Q

Internal culture

A

Individual charts his or her own path

64
Q

External culture

A

Individual plays a part in a story directed by fate.

65
Q

HR obstacles to trying to understand multicultural organizations

A
  • Ethnocentrism and parochialism
  • Cultural stereotypes
  • Cultural determinism
  • Cultural relativism
66
Q

Ethnocentrism

A
  • Our way is the best way and we are not interested in other ways of reaching a goal
  • Possible to alter views with time, experience and training
67
Q

Parochialism

A
  • There is only one way to solve a problem or reach a goal
  • Such a rigid mindset that may not easily be changed
68
Q

Cultural stereotypes

A

Perceptions of a culture are applied to all of the culture’s members, often in a negative manner.

69
Q

Cultural determinism

A
  • Culture defines behavior and therefore excuses some actions and makes changes impossible.
  • The culture made me do it - absolves individuals for responsibility for their actions
70
Q

Cultural relativism

A
  • There are no absolutes.
  • Norms and values vary by situation and cultural perspective.
71
Q

Malicious compliance

A
  • When headquarters develops standardized programs that fail to recognize local differences and forces them on their foreign subsidiaries
  • Local managers know the programs will not succeed in their standardized form but agree to implement them and watch them inevitable fail and increased resistance to future programs.
72
Q

How to negotiate cultural differences

A
  • Cultural domination and cultural accommodation
  • Cultural compromise
  • Cultural synergy
73
Q

Cultural domination and cultural accommodation

A
  • Essentially about assimilation.
  • I assimilate your beliefs, or you assimilate mine.
74
Q

Cultural compromise

A

Both sides giving up some values in order to meet in the middle.

75
Q

Cultural synergy

A

Creating a third way—finding what works well in each culture and removing barriers to communication and collaboration, including language and policies.

76
Q

Cultural dilemma reconciliation steps

A
  1. Recognize
  2. Respect
  3. Reconcile
  4. Realize
77
Q

Recognize step of dilemma reconciliation

A

Create awareness of cultural differences

78
Q

Respect step of dilemma reconciliation

A

Appreciate the value of difference

79
Q

Reconcile step of dilemma reconciliation

A

Resolve differences by finding a common path

80
Q

Realize step of dilemma reconciliation

A

Implement solutions and institutionalize them in the organization

81
Q

Synergistic solution to reconciliation

A
  • Managers consider to the how much a conflict is cultural and find the assumptions that may be contributing to the dilemma.
  • Alternatives are created by leveraging points of cultural siilarities
  • Feedback from both cultures is collected to check and adjust solution as needed