Premium Essay

Culture Difference

In: Other Topics

Submitted By syneg
Words 333
Pages 2
Abstract:
This paper seeks to bring out the cultural differences and misunderstandings between different culturs. To understand the culture differences and misunderstandig, it is imortant to know first what define a culture and the characteristics of culture. Since the page numbers are limited, I picked out what i think is important for this task. Most of the data gathered in this study was collected form the book communication between cultures, and from odher articles on the internet. Today we are very globalized, we can now contact easier with different cultures even though sometimes it ay be difficult, exchangen our ideas and have a free movement has leaded to countries to become more homogeneous society, which means that residents are consideret to be quite similar with immigrants.
Introduction:
We can define culture in different ways, but the definitions that meets the needs to explain culture very good is the definition by Tirandis which is:
" Culture is set of human-made objective and subjective elements that in the past have incrased the probability of survival and resulted in satisfaction for the participants in an ecological niche, and thus became shared among those who could communicate with each other because they had a common language and they lived in the same time and place". As the book communicaton between cultures says first of all this definition highlights the essential feauters of culture, by referring to "human-made" and it makes it clear that culture is concrned with nonbiological parts of human life. Second, this definition includes what Harrison and Huntington call "subjective" which is elements of culture such as values, attitudes, belifes, orientations, and underlying assumptions prevelent amoung people in a society. In the end the defenition says the importance of the language as a symbol system which allowa people to be transmitted

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Culture Differences

...Cultural difference In Getting Things Done Working in now-a-days globalized world, working in home or in foreign country, to be social, skillful, and understanding of cultural differences and its values is the basic requirement for success in business success and human interaction and to create the sense out of them at your own. Even in this globalized world and English being an International language, still there are countries where you can suffer from language hurdles and you can face some not good consequences or unwanted results, even sometime those consequences maybe terrible and threatening. Whole world is divided in different kind of cultures, trend and traditions. Every country has its own culture, in some cases there are many culture inside one country. These cultures, maybe different from one another and may have different language, family values, interaction, formal relations etc. Hence performing different activities in abroad is not that easy as one thinks. One has to understand and study thoroughly the culture, try to feel the essence of the country where you are planning to visit. If you do not follow or respect the culture differences, no matter how good you are, at last you’ll fail in completing your activity. Cultural differences are important to learn and being educated beforehand, sometimes become very necessary. As an example of me, I belong to an Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Also with a having a huge population, we have our own traditions, values and...

Words: 437 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

Culture Difference

...Our text explains that there are six principles of cross-culture communication. The first principle is that the greater the cultural/linguistic difference or barrier is between people the bigger or greater the communication breakdown will be. An example, a conversation between a person from United States and Iran would have more difficulty than a conversation between a person from the United States and Britain. United States and Britain both speak English with different accents. People from Iran speak an entirely different language making the linguistic of communication much more different. Second principle suggest that the cultural differences results in the breakdown. People of different cultures learn differently and understand things differently and that causes a communication breakdown. Third principle says that when a person is communicating cross-culturally that they are more cautious when communicating. They will choose their words more carefully, ask clarifying questions and in generally make a conscious effort in communicating. They are more in tuned to body language and watch hand gestures to make sure they are understanding better. A fourth principle states that cultures will pay attention to the number and kind of “do’s and taboos” that are required by that culture. Some culture groups have very formal rules, or traditions and it is important to be aware of those when communicating with a culture that has them. It is out of respect that we follow their tradition...

Words: 552 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Culture Differences

...Culture Crossings Culture has a vast meanings, these include diversity, which is the quality of diverse cultures not just one single culture. Some cultures similar in ways as well as differ. This can be seen when cultures religions and customs are compared. Values and beliefs are what separate cultures apart from each other and bring them together in a way. What comes to mind first is religion and how different cultures have different religions. Such as someone who comes from a Jewish religion isn’t going to have the same practices as someone who comes from a Christian religion. With that being said, Judaism and Christianity share many aspects, including a common heritage and their look on the Old Testament, there is a fundamental division over Jesus identity and the implies for how Gods working his plan for mankind. I’m sure this all goes back through anthropology and how their cultures diverted from each other. However we see a lot of these culture religious beliefs in our everyday life. I have friends in my group of friends who are Jewish and Christian so I personally have seen culture differences. But it doesn’t make a difference because we are all still friends it just shows how religion has changed through the years and that no matter what socially its acceptable to associate with other people from different religions, no matter the beliefs. Culture is what sets diversity, because it’s what creates humans and groups whether it is religion or beliefs or even race. Human...

Words: 677 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Culture Differences in India

...Globalization Note Series Pankaj Ghemawat and Sebastian Reiche National Cultural Differences and Multinational Business The eminent Dutch psychologist, management researcher, and culture expert Geert Hofstede, early in his career, interviewed unsuccessfully for an engineering job with an American company. Later, he wrote of typical cross-cultural misunderstandings that crop up when American managers interview Dutch recruits and vice versa: “American applicants, to Dutch eyes, oversell themselves. Their CVs are worded in superlatives…during the interview they try to behave assertively, promising things they are very unlikely to realize…Dutch applicants in American eyes undersell themselves. They write modest and usually short CVs, counting on the interviewer to find out by asking how good they really are…they are very careful not to be seen as braggarts and not to make promises they are not absolutely sure they can fulfill. American interviewers know how to interpret American CVs and interviews and they tend to discount the information provided. Dutch interviewers, accustomed to Dutch applicants, tend to upgrade the information. To an uninitiated American interviewer an uninitiated Dutch applicant comes across as a sucker. To an uninitiated Dutch interviewer an uninitiated American applicant comes across as a braggart.”1 Cultural differences, while difficult to observe and measure, are obviously very important. Failure to appreciate and account for them can lead to embarrassing...

Words: 10010 - Pages: 41

Free Essay

Culture Differences Paper

...Dag Hammarsköld once said, “The present moment is significant, not as the bridge between past and future, but by reason of its contents, which can fill our emptiness and become ours, if we are capable of receiving them.” The Swedish culture is a lot like this quote, they take advantage of every moment that passes even if it’s not so significant, focus on the present not the past or the future. In Sweden there is a high preference for a loosely-knit social framework in which individuals are expected to take care of themselves and their immediate families. In individualistic societies the employers and employees relationship is a contract based on mutual advantage, hiring and promotion and the decisions are supposed to be based on merit only. The Swedish culture is more of a low-context culture, meaning they place less emphasis on personal relationships and more emphasis on verbalized, explicit explanations. Swedish individuals make criticism private for distinction. They believe when you make criticism public it is embarrassing. Also, Sweden is a low-distance culture, where the power is evenly distributed throughout the citizens. In Sweden a person is expected to select friends and romantic partners not on the basis of class or culture but on the basis of such individual factors as personality, and appearance. Swedish individuals are expected to confront friends, their partner, and even their supervisor assertively; it’s based on a general feeling of equality that is consistent...

Words: 653 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Difference Culture in International Business

...Difference Culture In International Business Report between Saudi Arabia & U.S.A Culture in International Business Culture Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experiences, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religions, nation of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving. Culture is a fuzzy set of basic assumption and value, orientations to life, beliefs, policies, procedures and behavior and his/her interpretations of the ‘meaning’ of other people’s behavior. (Spencer- Oatey 2008:3) ‘Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiment in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e. historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems may. On the other hand, be considered as products of action, on the other. As conditional elements of future action.’ (Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1952: 181; cited by Adler 1997: 14) Culture differences in International Business Doing business with others countries, the difference culture is a point that a business man should aware of. A key to being successful in business internationally is to understand the role of culture in international...

Words: 3529 - Pages: 15

Premium Essay

Differences in Health Traditions and Cultures

...Differences in Health Traditions and Cultures   Growing diversity in the United States is veracity in the 21st century. Undeniable proof on poor quality of health care provided to ethnic and racial minorities of all ages, compared to non-minorities, were provided by The Institute of Medicine. Attempts to remove health inequalities rising from differences in culture should concentrate on creating patient-clinician reliance relationships, knowing the cultural surrounding conditions of health responses and humanizing one’s consideration to cultural differences in association with the administrative process and preferences in health care (Schmidt, 2012). Discussing the usefulness of applying a heritage evaluation in assessing the requirements of the whole person is helpful in looking at one’s roots and hereditary. The prominent sociable society in the world has raised worry on modified attention in health care. The cultural surroundings of an organization or society have extensive result on management and power of health care issues, which is necessary. The rise in public responsiveness to the support of firm health and disease anticipation has encouraged the formation of method that makes it easier for professionals in healthcare to know the people in their care. Implementing Heritage Assessment tool is one of the mechanisms to get back the attributes of a person before administrating health involvement (Edelman & Mandle, 2010). As a person from Indian background...

Words: 1303 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Cross Cultural Differences In Culture

...viewed as synonymous with psychopathic personality, it could be contended that cultural transmission inside individualistic cultures may make behavioural qualities that in their great sign are components of psychopathic personality. It can be conjectured that individualistic cultures are more inclined to create chattiness and triviality, pomposity, indiscrimination, and various conjugal connections, together with an absence of obligation inside of connections, than are collectivist societies. The intensity that is caused...

Words: 1656 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

The Differences in Health Traditions Between Cultures

...The Differences in Health Traditions between Cultures Each individual has an exclusively cultural heritage attachment that is comprised of a lot of different customs and values. It is almost impossible for anyone or group of people to live everyday by not practicing according to their beliefs or cultural background. Being born to a person depending on whom they are or where they live means so much in some cultures. For example, I was born into a family where my parents were both educated and good practicing Catholics. This automatically puts me in a middle class family or made my statues a little higher than so many people whose parents are not educated. I consider myself fortunate and that is mostly why I am always humble in life. I was born in the eastern part of Nigeria; the westerners and the northerners make up the rest of the population. Nigeria is the largest country in West Africa; most of the people are farmers and could not afford to go to college and at least get a formal education. In my culture, not many people could afford to go to a hospital for health reasons. Instead, more people rely heavily on herbal medicine, which is part of our tradition. Some people use modern medicine depending on what their families could afford. Growing up in the mist of both traditions, I have learned to practice not only one but two of them respectively. I believe that one’s heritage or culture is a practice no one can afford to forget because it is embedded into our lives. Living...

Words: 1178 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Cultural Differences In American Culture

...Throughout the duration of the past semester our class has been doing a series of cultural presentations featuring contemporary culture: technology, social and educational standards, and language. After compiling and comprehending the data I came to a clear conclusion. American culture is diffusing into various cultures, creating similarities between countries. The patterns and evidence are there: North American globalization is real. First, apps and technology. Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Google are popular all around the world; significant sources for communication, advertising, Clearly, these sites are unified by a central place of origin: the United States of America. From the one could deduce that the U.S is the leading social media...

Words: 433 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

Differences Between Candian and Pakistani Culture

...Canada respect seems to be slowly disappearing from their culture. Their children are given too much of freedom at a very small age. Children over there are given the authority to report their parent’s unnecessary strict behavior to the police and be taken away from them. This power that their children are given at a very small age somehow reduces the level of respect they have for their parents or which their parents deserve. Leaving your parents on the mercy of old age homes is a very common practice over there. Once a person gets self-dependent he just leaves his parent’s house and gets shifted to a new one and everyone thinks its okay. In Pakistan, any person who engages in such behavior is considered ill-mannered and such acts are seen as unethical and immoral. We are supposed to respect our parents at all times, even if they are extremely controlling and sons live with their parents and take care of them when they are old and weak because that’s what is the right thing to do. Our parents spend their whole lives working really hard so that they could give us a good standard of life so when they are old and weak it’s our responsibility to ensure that they spend a happy and peaceful life. I have spent a good part of my life learning to treat my parents with love and respect and I would retain this very strong cultural value of Pakistan. Teachers in our culture are also given a lot of respect. According to Pakistani culture teachers play an important role in shaping a child’s personality...

Words: 1154 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

The Work Culture Differences Between Two Represent of Eastern Culture and Western Culture: Japan and the Usa

...NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY CENTER FOR ADVANCED EDUCATION PROGRAM POSITION PAPER Class: Advanced Accoutancy 55B Course: Culture of regions & people in the world CODE: SSCI165 ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- TOPIC: The work culture differences between two represent of Eastern culture and Western culture: Japan and the USA Talking about Japan and America is as people talk about two cultures representative of the East and the West. Two cultures were not standing characteristics sometimes conflicting, embodied in every aspect of life. We always remember the Japanese samurai culture and a multi-cultural country, open and hospitable. Opposition things that make human culture become more remarkable. In this paper, we will explore features that rival in terms of work culture. Although they are individual country, each country will not put up with the general characteristics of the local culture. We will explore the culture of this country both in the cage culture of the East and the West. About how to express thoughts, Westerners respect frankness. They did not hesitate to express personal political opinions. The Eastern enhance dexterity, soft, avoid conflicts of opinion. When solving problems, Westerners appreciate the final result, so they are ready to cope with problems hindering, remains on achieving goals quickly. The Eastern respects implementation process. Inherently dislike confrontation...

Words: 766 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

Differences in World Culture Closely Related to Global Business Operation

...Differences in World Culture Closely Related to Global Business Operation 梁宇轩 20130250016 Now the world is increasingly globalized and the world seems to become smaller since the vehicle become more and more advanced. It is very easy for a person to travel and do business all over the world. But the advanced vehicle could not speed up people to know others abroad because of the cultural difference. While doing business in a foreign country, sometimes it is very important for the businessman to realize the cultural of the country. Even nowadays there exist some countries have a institution that its politics are closely connect with its religions such as the Islamic areas. There exist a lot of taboos in Islamic countries and maybe something usual in our normal days is evil in those countries. That means if someone wants to do business in the Islamic areas and he needs to know the country’s religion and cultural otherwise he may lose his money or even break the law. For example, the financial industry is very different in Islamic areas. In the ancient time, Prophet Muhammad observed the usury behavior harmed his people as a witness. And he thought that these behavior will make the society injustice and intensify the contradiction. So he made the regulation that no one will be allowed to get interest from lending money to others. Even in the Quran charging interest is not allowed. There is no doubt that this regulation can not adjust the world’s convention. The interest...

Words: 677 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Differences in Culture

...Chapter 4: Differences in Culture – Question 1 Culture is a vast concept that encompasses many different areas of daily life that most people don’t even realize is defining their culture. The moral hierarchy that we submit our lives to, the clothing choices that we make, the laws we follow, the knowledge we choose to seek, and our basic beliefs that guide us in our daily lives are all a part of a culture that we subscribe ourselves too. According to our book, the most basic break down of culture is taking into account the values and norms that a group of people share amongst themselves and set the groundwork for the way they live their lives. Cultures can be called a society and sometimes a whole country can be a society or as it more often than not is, several societies living within one country or a society present in several countries. The social structure of a society is one of the determents that set up the social organization apparent within the society. The social structure can primarily be broken down into two different factors. The first is the individuals vs group which shows which main things in their life that they are usually more involved in. Individuals are likely focused on their home life, enjoyments in life, and overall things that bring them pleasure at the end of the day. They tend to look at the betterment of their selves and standings in life than what is good for the overall society in the end to an extent. The group is primarily focused on social...

Words: 826 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

Differences in Cultures

...The Culture of Daily Life Similarities and Differences Paper Conversational Spanish 1 July 21, 2014 Differences in Familial Structures, Religious Practices, and Traditions Dominican and Mexican cultures are very distinct and have different characteristics. These are apparent in the familial structures, religious practices, and traditions of each country. Familial structure in the Dominican Republic proved as the fundamental social unit. The solidarity that kin owed to one another, as well as trust, and assistance was emphasized. Family loyalty was something engrained from early childhood and is an unquestioned virtue ("Family And Kin", n.d.). Meanwhile in the Mexican familial structure, unity is where they build a strong foundation. Their dedication to supporting family and displaying loyalty no matter what happens reflects in the fact that Mexico’s divorce rate is one of the lowest in the world, and also that generations of families typically live in the same house or neighborhood (Damewood, 2006-2014). Religion in the Dominican Republic is primarily Roman Catholicism, for the most part their religious practices have been formalistic and limited; only a few actually attended mass regularly. Religion influences Dominicans as a governing aspect of their culture and way of life. Popular religious practices were frequently far removed because many people felt the best way to approach God was through intermediaries. These included the...

Words: 565 - Pages: 3