With globalization being the watchword of the new century, the political, commercial and the socio-cultural worlds have all merged into each other to create a common global identity. With the advent of communication technology, geographical boundaries and barriers have now been undermined to promote a sense of global interaction. Different cultures from different countries have now come together to form world forums and joint political and inter-national councils. In this paper, we would delve deep into the diverse intercultural practices that are popular around commercial institutions and corporations across the world. We would inspect the various primary modes of multicultural orientation that is followed in basic academic institutions, and try to trace its practical implementation. But first, to initiate this project, we need to have a clear conception of a few ground parameters.
Culture could be defined as the unique properties of a particular demographic unity, or a group of people with shared heritage, history and language. Culture is an intangible faculty, and is generally found in the different communal exercises practices within the community. Culture might include the expressions of art, a common declaration of history, legends, myths and belief systems. It is imperative for a good manager to develop a detailed appraisal of the local culture and its various features.
Cultural diversity, to put it simply, is the spectrum of society which permits the integration and confluence of different cultures and belief systems. Generally contained within a distinctive financial, political or geographical boundary, cultural diversity is the unified natural habit of people with different languages, customs and traditions. This could be noted in its most involved form in multinational corporations, where employees from around the globe constantly communicate on a regular basis. This way, every employee can bring his own cultural values, beliefs and opinions into a productive atmosphere.
The definition of cross-cultural communication could be stated as a form of investigation into the origins and backgrounds of the different cultures. Noted anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss was of the opinion that the density of human population is always the same across cultural cross-sections. This means that if we did not consider the cultural barrier (of which language differences are primary), human beings across the world show certain uniformity. This assumption brings us to the present phenomenon of a united, yet heterogeneous workforce whose efficiency is not compromised by its cultural diversity.
Levi-Strauss realized that in the coming future, international trade, commerce, finance and business would flourish. We must take into consideration that the very concept of international trade and commerce is based on the potentials of inter-cultural communication. For the business perspective, the advent of diverse communication channels has opened up new frontiers of inter-personnel management across cultural and lingual divides. We should note that most intra-company intimations, notices, meetings and schedules are now passed on through SMS and e-mail. This enhances their accessibility to every member of the resource staff, irrespective of cultural divides.
Cross-cultural exchange is also an extremely important that drives a multinational corporation that has its presence in different countries. For a multinational, the key to obtain maximum efficiency from its human resource is to understand and acknowledge their cultural and social uniqueness. The most productive usage of human resource happens when we attempt to value the contributions of each individual culture. This
respect must be mutual and binding, showing our commitment to the cause of cultural diversity. We must show foresight enough to realize that having a cosmopolitan, culturally divergent workforce enables us to deal with problems from multiple perspectives. This multiplicity of approach is extremely important, as this enhances our administrative capacities and efficiency.
See: Â Â http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-cultural_communication
Implementing Cross-Cultural interaction and exchange
To facilitate an optimum cross-cultural exchange between nations and societies, we must be aware of the unique demographic composition of the Diaspora, or the exact cultural differences. We must inculcate an awareness and appreciation about other cultures from the very basic levels of education, i.e., from schools, colleges and universities. Today’s expanding global environment places certain demands of exposure and appreciation of other cultures on its people. In this scenario, multilingual faculties (ability to communicate in more than one language) become an extremely desired quality. We must also try to impress awareness of international histories, and in particular, the cultural and social history of other countries at this stage. In many respected universities today, in literature, history and anthropology courses, post-colonialist history and literature are taught as integral subjects. This allows history and cultures to be represented across a diverse demographic spectrum, creating students who are familiar with multiplicity of language and cultures. With business opportunities in developing nations increasing at phenomenal rates compared to developed nations (because of saturation), we must look to promote this growth in these regions. An awareness of the local history and cultural diversities facilitate an easy exchange of resources, minimizing chances of miscommunication, loss of efficiency and time, and undue exploitation of local resources.
See: http://www.1000ventures.com/ten3_operations/customized/cross-cultural_differences_china-us.html
To facilitate an ideal nature of socio-cultural communication and exchange across national boundaries, we must to respect the integral heterogeneity of these cultures. Any attempts to enforce a regularized homogeneity within an existing cultural diversity would only result in cultural aftershock. As global managers and resource facilitators, we are now integrating social interactive programs and cultural orientation programs in their employee training facilities. Basic awareness of languages and prevalent local customs would definitely increase productivity, promoting conservation and better utilization of man-hours, capital and resources. Managers and cultural experts working in the corporate sectors are devising new alternatives to group orientation programs. We expect this to include giving trainees and local human resources unique cultural exercises that help people increase their communication skills and interpersonal bonding. Exercises like accent and diction training, joint-projects and diversification/decentralization of immediate hierarchies have yielded results with satisfying prospects. However, this effort must be generated from the very basic levels in order to create a true, global citizen. In schools, exposure to other cultures, languages and customs happen through extremely selective subjects. Contrary to popular notions, science, mathematics and other empirical disciplines don’t really help in developing this inter-cultural and inter-lingual interface. This is because science and mathematics discourse at a universal language, limiting the scope of personal accentuation and speaking only in terms of raw data and procedural facts. Among the very few subjects that foster an awareness of the diversified identities of countries and demographics across the world, the most popular are history, geography, commercial studies and economics, and literature and language studies. While geography imparts an overall conception about a particular country and its demographic constitution, it also gives the student a clear idea of the possible nature of involvement a country might have in the global stage. Historical studies, starting from anthropological studies to the relatively recent important phases in international history imparts upon the student a sense of continuity. An awareness of the dynamic shifts in politics, important battles and essential international engagements of a nation is essential to its understanding. International history is an important factor that contributes to the growth, development and manifestation of a global idea of culture as kaleidoscopic, yet unified spectrum. In fact, in most multinational commercial institutions, local (and primarily political) history is studied very carefully because of the various effects it had on the commercial rules, regulations and reforms of the country. Often, a change in power or a shift in the center of governance has resulted in commercial practices and policies (like taxes, import duties, export/import ratios) being changed. Schools and colleges across the world are now stressing on giving the student a complete overview of the existing political situations in different countries.
Subjects like commercial studies and economics are also important, as they give an idea of the major international commercial reforms and economic landscape of a given decade. This facilitates students from different countries to study financial and administrative models of multinational corporations to derive optimum know-how of different prevalent business practices. This also facilitates a clearer understanding of globally relevant economic factors like labor reforms, price indices and economic distributions across different regions of the globe. In higher classes, academic institutions often offer the students sample projects and exercises to analyze and prepare reports on existing business models of multinational corporations. Students are also made aware of international commercial institutions, like the NASDAQ and Tokyo Stock Exchange etc, making it more interesting to analyze global economic distributions.
By far, the most important discipline that schools and universities deem to be influential in Diaspora studies (inter-cultural studies) is literature and linguistic studies. Despite the fact that in initial levels, the students might have to get to know international cultures and societies through their own languages, via translated texts. However, this would no doubt build a coherent understanding and appreciation of the foreign culture and prompt further research into this field. Literature studies, especially international literature, helps to build up a primary conception and identity of a nation within a community, which could then be implemented in actual workplace experience. This is ideally followed by orientation programs in foreign languages. To make it big across the world, at least a working conception of some prevalent international languages is deemed be important. This facilitates easy formation of communication channels and appropriate delineation of authority, thereby helping in resource optimization.
Conclusion
We should note the global media and improved communication channels like E-mail and Text Messaging services have helped to bridge the culture gap. The rapid advancement in international transport has also brought countries, cultures and people closer, resulting in increased cultural interaction. But in finality, intercultural convergence is primarily a human industry, requiring human empathy, intelligence and understanding. It is this effort that prompts us to unite people of different races, cultures and nations, coming together and making the global intercultural exchange a grand success.
