PANHA CHIET UNIVERSITY Bachelor Programs Intercultural Communication in The Global Workplace Fifth Edition Iris Varner & Linda Beamer Facilitator: Mr

PANHA CHIET UNIVERSITYBachelor Programs

Intercultural Communication in The Global WorkplaceFifth Edition

Iris Varner & Linda Beamer

CHAPTER 3 Getting to Know Another Culture

Facilitator: UON SOKCHEA

MEd, MBA & PhD Can. (+855) 17 56 52 87

PANHA CHIET UNIVERSITY, PUC Intercultural Communication Chapter 3: Getting to Know Another Culture May, 20014

Facilitator: Mr. UON SOKCHEA, MBA, MEd, and PhD Can. Tel: 070 94 38 39 & 017 56 52 87 Email: [email protected]

Ways to Study Culture• Understanding a culture opens the door to

understanding how people see and make sense of their world.

• Research Approach to studying Culture– Studies that focus on a culture as a whole– Studies that focus on the individual

• Studying whole culture – Researchers can use emic and etic approaches.– Emic studies – Studies that concentrate on one culture

alone– Etic Studies – Studies that look for factors that exist in

more than one culture



• The Global Study – large-scale studies have also resulted in generalizations about whole cultures.

• Cultural Generalizations – whole cultural studies give us conclusions that are generalizations about the culture

For example, from culture-based research we learn that Chinese culture has these values – face (public esteem), a reciprocal network of connections with others and lasting membership in group• Studying Individuals – Another way to study

culture is focus on individual member of a culture.



Ways to Study Culture

• Culture as a Theoretical Construct – Culture itself can do as the basic for making theories. (Read in your course book on page 99)

• Generalizations and Stereotypes– Generalization is a written or spoken comment for

something very basic, and based on limited facts. We use generalization in order to compared cultures

– Stereotype is a fixed idea that people have about what someone or something is like, especially an idea that is wrong, for example racial/sexual stereotypes




– In 1725, refer to a historical development in printing – stereotype was hard flexible image of the type: stereo is from Greek word meaning hard, firm.

– What does this have to do with stereotype of people?

Stereotypes are fixed, firm, inflexible mental categories and we use them to oversimplify generalizations to understand people . We might call mental categories stereotypes as the prototypes (because they are the original concepts or models for something).




• High- and Low-Context Communication– Members of low-context cultures put their thoughts

into words, but high-context cultures have less tendency to trust words to communicate. They rely on either the actual physical environment of communication or internalized social context or both.

• The Cultural DimensionsQuestions about a culture that need to be asked for business fall into these five categories:– Thinking and Knowing, Doing and Achieving, The

Big Picture, The Self, and Social Organization




• This chapter introduced approach of asking questions in order to understand cultures.

• Asking questions involving identifying where information can be found. Answers may be general, and to be useful.

• Questions are posed in five categories– The first three : Thinking and Knowing–Doing and Achieving– The Big Picture



1- Thinking and KnowingThe first category of questions is Thinking and Knowing, which covers the following dimensions:• Does knowing come from concepts or experience?

A- Some people truly know something only when experience has taught them; without experience, they merely know about something.B- For others, knowing comes from conceptual understanding.

• Does learning come from asking questions or mastering received wisdom?Û People learn how to learn when they are young, first they are at home before they go to school & then later at school.



Û In many cultures, the acknowledged authority gives knowledge, and someone knows when s/he has mastered what the text book or teacher says.• Does knowledge have limits?– In some cultures, not everything is knowable. – Other cultures have the idea that the everything

can be known if the key is found.• How do people reason?Û Western Logic. western culture use a cause-and-effect pattern of thinking. Other cultures use different patterns.



Û Asian Logic. Logical means something very different to non-Western people. For example, Chinese people use a pattern of logic that contrasts elements. An A has an opposite B, hot implies cold, summer pairs with winter, and so forth. Example: The Yin-Yang symbol Û Arab Logic. Reasoning in Arab culture is different. Arabic-speaking cultures involved three key elements:

- Language and word choice- Ability to raise emotion- An authority voice



2- Doing and AchievingThe second category of questions cover Doing and Achieving – how people understand their actions at work.• Is Doing important or is Being important?– Doing is the culture that refer to activities.– Being is the culture that refer to stillness,

collectedness and serenity.Many visitors to Western cultures amazed by the pace life, especially in cities: so many activities crammed into a short time, requiring so much speed to fill them all in.



• Are Tasks Done Sequentially or Simultaneously?– Some cultures view one who accomplished several

things at once. – Other cultures value a one-thing-at-a-time approach

as the most efficiency. • Do results or relationship take priority?– Relation-oriented cultures tend to be collectivistic.

The relationships that connect people in network are more significant than the tasks people accomplish.

– Result-oriented culture value the outcomes of actions, especially measurable outcomes, as what matters at work or in life.



• Is uncertainty avoided or tolerate?– People who are uncomfortable with uncertainty tend

to say with their employers and followed established procedures at work.

– People who are able to tolerate uncertainty with lower levels anxiety may attempt new things in their professional lives.

• Is luck is essential factor or an irrelevance?– Luck, fate or destiny plays a large role in cultures in

which people recognized that their roles in achieving success has less effect than do forces outside themselves.

– In other cultures, outcomes are not left to luck but are considered to be largely controllable by human effort.



• Are rules to be followed or bent?– In places where relationships are primary and

power distances are great, rules may be bent to serve those more important values

– In places where results matter, rules are viewed as important to facilitate results



3- The Big PictureCultural priorities encompasses the big things that cultures deal with societies and religions.• Do humans donate nature or nature donate

humans?Nature is natural environment and natural phenomena that develop human endeavors or human actions. At one extreme, human view nature as an inexhaustible recourse.



• Are divine power or human at the center of events?– Who controls the outcomes of activity? Of Business?

Of life and death? In many cultures today, people believe that deities exist in a sphere of influence that is a part from the secular world.

– Belief in divine beings underlines the value, behavior, attitude of many people of different cultures.

– Two major polytheistic religions are Hinduism and Buddhism. Three other major world religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – share roots and a belief in one deity.



• How is time understood, measured, and kept?Cultures differ in attitudes toward time and how it should be observed. – Some view time as cyclical, whereas others view it

as an unrolling continuous line.– Some cultures treasure time as a commodity (traded

product); others use it as the flexible medium in which activities take place.

• Is change positive or negative?– New may not be positively received in traditional

cultures.– Old may not be a word of approval in cultures that

embrace change.



• The death the end of life or part of life?– Some cultures view death as the end of the life, a

quenching of the light, but some others view death as another phase in life, a necessary step in the pattern of life.

– Hindus believe in a reincarnation– In Holland, death is sometime embraced by appointment,

since doctor may legally assist terminally ill patients in dying.

– Other cultures believe that teach death is the only way to join the gods or God. In Islam, life after death is freedom from obstacles to the enjoyment of God’s gifts. A Christian also looks forward to heaven after death. A Muslim’s heaven is experienced through the senses. The funerals also mean different things in different cultures.



The Course Book : Intercultural Communication in The Global Workplace

Fifth EditionIris Varner & Linda Beamer



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PANHA CHIET UNIVERSITY Bachelor Programs Intercultural Communication in The Global Workplace Fifth Edition Iris Varner & Linda Beamer Facilitator: Mr