LNG11106 Intercultural Business Communication Assignment Sample
An Essay on Debate between the Cultural Dimension Approach an Anti-essentialist Perspectives of Cultural Complexity
Cultural dimension approaches
Culture is fundamentally an integral fabric of the perspectives and thoughts of an individual and no individual can separate themselves from the cultural values and attributes. Every business organisation involves culture that can be considered as the global culture. Cultural perspectives include attitudes, beliefs, traditions and values that can be started in a group of people. In the present era, the business world is becoming more global and the potential workers are more likely to face co-workers from other countries with different values, cultural and perspectives (Madhumitha and Narayanan, 2018). The validity and reliability of the collected data are proved through the secondary collection of data and the differentiation and evaluation of different cultural frameworks.
There are different cultural dimension approaches proposed by different researchers. According to the cultural dimension model of Hofstede, there are mainly six dimensions of culture that display the assumptions, perspectives and cultural beliefs of the individuals so that one can easily cope with the cultural differences with the establishment of emotional intelligence. The psychologist Greet Hofstede has conducted research across 50 countries with the employees of IBM. The main purpose of this research is to identify the cultural distinctions and differences from one country to another (Kristjánsdóttir et al., 2017). According to the Hofstede model, the power distance dimension shows the high power index and low power index. The high power index reflects the level of acceptance of bureaucracy and authority of the higher degree or status. This index is distributed unequally while the lower power index evaluates the equality of power through the appropriate distribution. The high power index countries are Latin America, African and Asian Countries where the superiors take care of the subordinates and subordinates show respect and loyalty towards the authority. The low power index is mainly found in Denmark, Israel and Irelands where people value the equality concept rather than the class inequalities. The people from the high avoidance towards the uncertainty can be found in Mediterranean culture, Germany, Poland and Japan and based on formal rules, structure and standards. According to this dimension, division from these rules are unexpected and undesirable and these types of people have a tendency to involve conflict and seek consensus while taking fewer risks (Beugelsdijk and Welzel, 2018). The lower tendency to avoid uncertainty is found in countries like Jamaica, China, and the United Kingdom. The people originating from these countries are more comfortable with the unstructured situations and they want to provide value to the individual choices and creativity. The masculine cultures are found in Japan, Mexico and Australia. The individuals from these countries believe in ambition, achievements and assertiveness. The feminine culture is found in Scandinavian society where people value tender objectives like quality of life and weak compensation. These types of individuals try to balance work and life and they can even leave their jobs to take care of their loved ones. The individualism perspectives if the individual is ‘I’ centralized and believes in the right to privacy and personal spaces. This type of community seeks for self-centric development and growth and believes in the personal opinion (Huang and Crotts, 2019). It has been observed that the people from the individualism cultural dimension believe in the task over the relationship while the contrast idea is presented in the concept of collectivism. In this regard, the cultural community for the collectivism mindset believes in ‘we’ centric attributes, they believe in social and organisational harmony and focuses on building intercultural relationships among the group members or society rather than focusing on the task. These types of individuals seek for organisational goal achievement or the acquiring of a common goal. On the other side the short term oriented community is found in Australia, Latin America, USA, Muslim countries and Africa while the long term oriented community are found in east Asian countries, central Europe and the eastern countries. The community with the short-term oriented mindset mainly believes in the social consumption and spending, sacrosanct tradition that provides universal guidelines for good and evil and believes in personal stability and steadiness and also believes that a good individual will do the same (Budur, 2020). On the other hand the community with the long-term oriented mindset mainly adopts the circumstances and the environmental objectives and believes the goods and evil are dependent on the circumstances and they are adaptive towards the tradition and the changed environment. (Gerlach and Eriksson, 2021). Another cultural dimension lies with the idea of indulgence and restraint. Indulgence culture is observed North and South America, part of Sub-Sahara African and the Western Europe while restraint cultural prevails in the Eastern Europe, Muslim countries and in the Asian countries.
Another research study provides the concept of an iceberg model of cultural perspectives that provides the idea of the interrelation of the iceberg and the cultural differences of individuals. The iceberg theory of culture proposed by anthropologist, Edward T. Hall can be utilised to recognize the visible and invisible differences of cultural modes. The iceberg model of culture is originally described on the basis of the iceberg of polar seas. As icebergs are visible in the seas only 10% and the 90% are invisible and deep, similarly, the cultural distinctions are 10% external or the surface of the culture while 90% are internally deep cultural that can be recognized with more investment of time and effort (Istrate, 2019). There are mainly three pillars of the ice-berg model that describe the organisational culture with more detailed and deeper understanding regarding behavioural competence and cultural difference. Visible cultural practices are the initial step of the iceberg model that focuses on the visible cultural events and practices. For instance, an individual from a specific cultural who is visiting a different cultural perspective can get a cultural shock through the different outlook, dressing style, lifestyles, forms of choices or the way of greeting each other, this variation of cultural objectives helps to establish a deeper understand regarding the behaviour of people through the proper identification of attitudes, values, beliefs, expectations that can drive a specific culture (Rao, Murugaiah and Ticora, 2018). The second step of the ice-berg model describes how finding patterns and habits can make it easier to recognise cultural perspectives and work together in a diverse environment. Looking for the patterns and habits of the individuals helps to achieve the root of any issue in order to resolve it. The third and final concept is the internal and mental modes or the unspoken things (Dan, 2020). According to Hall, 90% of cultural perspectives are underlying and hidden. These cultural perspectives involve non-verbal communication, emotional attributes, concept of personal space, and definition of beauty, contextual behaviours or basic idea of manners. These objectives are learned through the investment of more effort and time as these objectives are internal and not visible. However, the core understanding of the ice-berg model helps to understand the conscious and subconscious objectives of cultural dimensions (Dhadphale, 2017). Indulgence of a society reflects the openness of the society that allows the community to have free gratification towards the enjoyment of life and the restraint indicates the suppressed gratification that controls the community through social norms and strong cultural barriers.
Thus, culture involves those psychological behaviours and aspects that are expected from a specific cultural group. Cultural is mainly involves shared values beliefs and assumptions under a group of people and each of the individual is expected to learn the attitudes, behaviours and perspectives of others in order to correctly act, think and feel, the cultural can be significantly describes through five ways such as learned culture, shared culture, dynamic cultural systematic culture and symbolic culture.
Cultural dimension with anti-essentialist perspectives
The essentialist paradigm mainly displays the idea that cultural root is in human nature. Thus the essentialist perspective is fundamentally characterised by the concepts of holistic, being static, bounded and deterministic. Conversely, the non-essentialist perspectives state that the cultural dimensions mainly are influenced by the human condition rather than of human nature (Rhodes and Mandalaywala, 2017). Thus, non-essentialist perspectives are contrary to the essentialist perspectives-the idea of dynamic with changes and continuity. Non-essentialist paradigms are described as internally driven, heterogeneous, changeable and blurred boundaries. Thus the notion of essentialist and non-essentialist paradigm of cultural dimensions can be presented in the following table:
| Essentialist paradigm | Non-essentialist paradigm |
| Based on human nature | Based on human condition |
| Static | Dynamic |
| Homogeneous | Heterogeneous |
| Holistic | Internally driven |
| Deterministic | Changeable and dynamic |
| Bounded | Blurred boundaries |
Table 01: Essentialist vs. Non-essentialist paradigm of cultural dimensions
The non-essentialist paradigm of cultural dimensions is mainly based on the identity implications and the notion of multicultural organisations. The critiques of the non-essentialist paradigm of culture mainly involve the 5-7-9 model of cultural dimensions. In this regard Hofstede’s model of culture reflects 5, Trompenaaries and turner’s model reflects 7 and GLOBE reflects 9 dimensions of culture (Humphreys, 2021). However, the underlying notion of culture can be understood with the value orientation model of Schwartz. The value orientation model mainly describes the complex principles that are the output of three determinants such as cognitive, directive and affirmative. The directive element mainly describes the value orientation concepts based on human action. This idea displays that there are limited common human issues that different societies have different choices in the selection of the solution based on the assumption (Zilliacus, Paulsrud and Holm, 2017). The value orientation mainly depends on the characteristics of human nature, relationship of human with nature, time focusing attitude, the human activity modality and man to man relationship.
According to the theory of Hofstede, there are mainly five dimensions of culture that involve power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and individualism vs. collectivism, masculine vs. Feminine orientation and the idea of time orientation.
Hofstede’s cultural dimensions (5): A wide number of employees have been taken into account in order to construct ranges of cultural dimensions and there are mainly six cultural dimensions according to this theory. Power Distance: High power distance involves the concept of hierarchy or bureaucracy in the cultural aspects. According to the high power index, the employees must show respect to the higher ranking officers and authority while the lower power index identifies the decentralised decision-making objective, participative management style and emphasis of the power distribution system. Individualism vs. Collectivism: individualism refers to the aspect of an individual to attain personal objectives and goals such as self image of self-value while collectivism property in an individual reflects his ability to emphasize on the well-being of an entire group or achievement of a common goal. Uncertainty avoidance index: the high uncertainty in the individuals indicates the lower tolerance for ambiguity, risk-taking and uncertainty and these behaviours are shaped and controlled through strict organisational rules and culture while lower uncertainty indicates the ability of high tolerance towards ambiguity and uncertainty (Beugelsdijk and Welzel, 2018). Masculinity vs. Femininity: masculinity and femininity is described as “tough vs. tender” that considers equality and attitude towards equal gender roles. Masculinity refers to assertiveness, gender roles, the concentrated behaviour towards the materialistic achievements and the wealth-building quality of an individual while femininity refers to the fluidic gender roles, modestly, prioritizing the quality of life concept and nurturing –attitude. Long-term vs. Short term orientation: long term oriented personalities mainly focus on perseverance and persistence, long-term development through futuristic objectives and goals while short-term orientation in an individual mainly prioritizes short-term success or quick result. However later Hofstede has included another dimension called Indulgence vs. Restraints: indulgence of a society reflects the openness of the society that allows the community to have free gratification towards the enjoyment of life and the restraint indicates the suppressed gratification that controls the community through social norms and strong cultural barriers (Zhou and Kwon, 2020). Thus, through the understanding of each cultural dimension, an individual can recognise the cultural perspectives and behaviours of others that will make him work with a diverse group of people.
Cultural dimensions of Trompenaars (7): The researcher has conducted research over 40 countries in 46000 managers in order to identify the cultural dimensions of different people in an organisation. According to Trompenaars’s theory there are mainly seven cultural dimensions. Universalism vs. Particularism: Universalism mainly focuses on the treating of all cases the irrespective of loved ones or friends. Thus, universalism is mainly dependent on the roles rather than the relationship. The Universalist culture involves the US, the UK, Canada and Australia while particularism mindset prioritizes the relationship rather than rules. The particularize countries includes China, Latin America, Korea and Russia. Individualism vs. Communitarianism: individualism cultural states that the outcomes are dependent on the choices and these types of decision-makers make any decision without consulting with others (Jumayev, U., 2021). On the other hand communitarianism believes that there should be a strong essence of loyalty inside a group and the decision-making process is slower and everyone has involvement in it. Neutral vs. Affective: neutral cultural allows not sharing emotions and these types of individuals are rational and cool while affective cultural allows sharing emotions even in the professional field. Specific vs. Effuse: In Specific cultural, the personal and professional life are kept separated while in diffusive culture, people believes that personal and professional lives are interconnected. Achievement vs. Ascription: in the achievement culture, individual beliefs that achievements like job titles and recognition should be earned based on skill and knowledge while ascription culture allows one to believe that they have achieved the status based on their social status, age or education (Ntongai, Senaji and King’oriah, 2019). Sequential time vs. Synchronous time: sequential time culture allows people to believe that time is valuable and thus the allocated tasks need to be performed within deadline while asynchronous time culture believes that time is interchangeable and thus the deadlines and the plans can be flexible and thus punctuality does not have more importance. Internal direction vs. external directions: Internal direction involves the idea of self-oriented achievements while external culture believes that winning is a less important factor and building relationships is more important for better achievement.
GLOBE theory (9): In the first section of the GLOBE project, it has been identified that there are hundreds of items that are related to social culture. This project has involved 17000 middle managers from 62 cultures that have measured the cultural practices and values of each country (Castillo-Palacio, Batista-Canino and Zúñiga Collazos, 2017). According to the GLOBE project there are mainly 9 dimensions of culture. Performance orientation culture mainly describes the collective rewards and incentives provided for performance excellence and improvement. Assertiveness is the level to which individuals remain confrontational and assertive and aggressive towards the relationship with the other individuals. Future orientated behaviours influence individuals to plan, invest and delay gratification for futuristic goals. Human orientation behaviours encourage individuals to be fair, caring, generous and kind to the other individuals. Institutional collectivism is the decree to which the collective action and collective distribution of rewards and encouragements are performed in the organisational setting. In-group collectivism is the degree to which an individual expresses the loyalty, pride and cohesiveness in the organisation while gender egalitarianism is the degree to which the concept of collectivism minimizes the concept of gender inequality (Taherimashhadi and Ribas, 2018). Power distance culture influences the community to endorse and accept the power difference and authority and the uncertainty avoidance concept involves the degree to which an individual tends to avoid the uncertain aspects.
Thus the three models of cultural dimensions are displaying different dimensions although there are similarities between the Hofstede model and the GLOBE project.
Intercultural business communication
Intercultural business communication in international business management can be constructed through subjective outcome assessment and heterotropic recollection. In this regard, the researcher needs to think beyond the cultural perspectives frameworks to establish a communicative environment. The concept of teamwork can encompass the multiplicity of interactions and processes in order to focus on communicative efficiency (Caputo et al., 2019). According to recent studies, the intersection of teamwork and the cultural frameworks can be established to foster an effective cultural diversity and communicative environment in a business environment. However, according to the point of view of the researcher, in order to establish a cross-cultural communicative environment, it is important for a Human Resource Manager to develop an emotional intelligence perspective. The emotional intelligence will help to understand the insight and the cultural objectives of the individuals that will further help in the development of appropriate strategy. However, in this regard, the EQ along with the cultural intelligence will help the human resource executives be able to interpret and understand the actions and perspectives of individuals from different cultural backgrounds. Moreover, the development of CQ will involve the components such as intrinsic motivation component that influence the Human Resource professional to motivate of provide confidence to the people in the cross-cultural issues and challenges, knowledge component helps to gather understand how much the workers have understanding and knowledge about the cultural perspectives of the other individuals and the acting and planning component helps the Human Resource executive to understand how the organisational setting or the workforce is prepared in the adaption of the cross-cultural situation or environment. Moreover the development of cross-cultural training within the employees can foster the inter-personal relationship along with the intercultural business communication under an organisational setting. The involvement of cross-cultural training will not only foster the business communication but also helps the individuals to understand the different perspectives, values and beliefs of the individual based on the community, location and cultural background of the individuals. Moreover, it is very important to engage cross cultural training along with the development of CQ in order to understand the underlying perspectives and internal beliefs of the individual. Moreover the effective consideration of the perspectives of others can reinforce the intercultural business communication as it this regard the individual from different cultures will feel valuable and the intercultural communication tone will be respectful and negotiated. Moreover, while conducting intercultural business communication research regarding different countries and the cultural perspectives needs to be conducted while having education regarding the cross-cultural objectives and communication skills. . It can be based on choice of words, communication mode, or on the context of communication. (Cutler, 2018) Thus, with the effective involvement of cultural intelligence, cross cultural training and showing respect towards the cultural perspectives of others can foster intercultural business communication and can effectively build an intercultural relationship among the employees in an international business environment. Thus, intercultural business communication will not only strengthen international relationships but also increase organisational productivity and efficiency under an interactive atmosphere.
References
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