Intercultural Communication And Contrasting Cultural Values
Intercultural communication is exchange of ideas, our emotions and feelings, signs and symbols and their meanings, which help us to learn to interact in the intercultural context that evolved from human relations studies. However, with emergence of globalization intercultural communication has increased and it has been carried out in various ways. According to Matthews & Thakkar (2012), due to globalization society has become more globally connected and the ability to communicate across cultural boundaries has gained increasing prominence. Some of the outcome of globalization is emergence of social media which has assisted in connecting people together, share thoughts, exchange knowledge and many more. It also helped region and nation to take part in common forums through face-to -face talk, internet mailings and other forms of social media like WhatsApp, Messenger and Facebook. I also came through the barriers of the communication and gave some personal examples of communication barriers. Some of the communication barriers are physical, cultural, perception, motivational, emotional, and linguistic and competition. Nonetheless, I also looked at the Hofstede Vs Tompenaar’s cultural review.
As per Hofstede’s theory, he talks about power distance focusing on ‘high and low’ pertaining to culture. According to him it was the inequality that was accepted by the less powerful, which they considered normal. He finds social status highly valued in high power distance culture. But it is completely opposite in low power distanced culture. Yoo found out in 2014 that the countries like China, Japan and Arab countries had high value of power distance as compared to United States and South Africa. As I was watching the video and analyzing it, I found my country Bhutan also falls under this zone in contrast to US and Australia having low power distance. Furthermore, more examples on cultural differences can be clearly understood from American and the Japanese society culture. Americans are high-risk taker and individualistic in stark contrast to Japanese being collectivist and valuing orthodoxy and identity. In this global world, benefits can be immense if we possess diverse knowledge on cultural dimensions with soaring trades and marketing in today’s internationalized business. It has become paramount that different projects around the world be sensitive to cultures and embrace training related to intercultural communication.
Values enable us to understand and differentiate what are good and bad. These values are passed down from families, relatives, friends, folklore, schooling and religious education among many others. According to Connor and Becker, 2003, behaviours that are inherited from generations to another generations are formed on principal targets. The world may be only one, but the values are not similar as it differs from place to place. The cultural values differ very much in ethics, work attitudes, businesses, society and attitudes for women. The degree of attitude greatly differs towards women from place to place and they are still considered inferior than men. Women’s participation is slowly changing in terms of senior leadership positions. According to Adler, 2002 and Catalyst, 2015, women were confined mostly at home due to varying cultural beliefs. But the trend has changed as there has been spike in their participation in management roles. In 2012, 27% of senior management roles in Peru were filled by women, Brazil with 23% followed by Argentina with 18% as per findings of Grant Thornton, 2013. The grim reality was that the overall percentage remained low highlighting 19% as women workforce in 2010. Attitudes and behaviors are impacted by values. The research by Olivias-Lujan, M et al, 2009 shows that there is a co-relation of values and attitudes in terms of women. He suggested that ambitious and individualistic society were attributed for having less egalitarian attitude for women. Whereas, society embracing humanity, friendship, forgiveness, honesty and sympathy had more egalitarian attitude towards women. According to Arceneaux, 2001, cultures where there is less representation of women at workforce had only less chance for not only for women’s rights to garner parliamentarian seats but basic rights as well.
Therefore, it is imperative for equal women representation at work ultimately which would lead to increase their prominence in the parliament. Studies conducted by researchers like Iversen and Rosenbluth, 2008 suggests organization or country should encourage women’s engagement at work for equal rights.
