Summary cultural management
Chapter 1
5 competences are important for effective communication with people form different backgrounds:
1. Cultural empathy
2. Open-mindedness
3. Social initiative
4. Emotional stability
5. Flexibility
The first 3 can be developed (the last 2 are harder to develop, it depends on the individual)
Cultural awareness/ cultural sensitivity = being aware that cultural differences and similarities exist,
while not judging people based on that. ‘You never get a second chance to make a first impression!’
You have your own pattern of thinking, feeling, and potential acting that was learned throughout
your lifetime. Patterns of thinking, feeling, acting: mental programs.
Culture = the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group/
category of people from another group/ category of people. Culture is taking for granted; it is an
accumulation of all the unspoken aspects of daily life. Culture gives people a sense of who they are,
of belonging, and of how they should behave.
So culture =
- A collective phenomenon (involves large groups of people)
- Is learned
- Is a set of shared perceptions
- It involves beliefs, values, and norms
- Affects behavior
There are no genes to carry culture.
The onion diagram: manifestations of culture at different levels of depth.
, Iceberg concept of culture:
When talking about a cultural aspect, you are speaking in generalizations.
Difference between generalization and stereotype:
Generalization is a broad statement that is like a ‘one size fits all’ idea. Sometimes generalizations are
right, and sometimes they are wrong. The more information you have the more likely you will have a
correct generalization.
A stereotype is taking one piece of information that is usually negative and automatically assigning
that idea to every person or thing that resembles it.
Cultural generalizations involve categorizing members of the same group as having similar
characteristics. generalizations are flexible and allow for the incorporation of new cultural
information.
Chapter 1
5 competences are important for effective communication with people form different backgrounds:
1. Cultural empathy
2. Open-mindedness
3. Social initiative
4. Emotional stability
5. Flexibility
The first 3 can be developed (the last 2 are harder to develop, it depends on the individual)
Cultural awareness/ cultural sensitivity = being aware that cultural differences and similarities exist,
while not judging people based on that. ‘You never get a second chance to make a first impression!’
You have your own pattern of thinking, feeling, and potential acting that was learned throughout
your lifetime. Patterns of thinking, feeling, acting: mental programs.
Culture = the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group/
category of people from another group/ category of people. Culture is taking for granted; it is an
accumulation of all the unspoken aspects of daily life. Culture gives people a sense of who they are,
of belonging, and of how they should behave.
So culture =
- A collective phenomenon (involves large groups of people)
- Is learned
- Is a set of shared perceptions
- It involves beliefs, values, and norms
- Affects behavior
There are no genes to carry culture.
The onion diagram: manifestations of culture at different levels of depth.
, Iceberg concept of culture:
When talking about a cultural aspect, you are speaking in generalizations.
Difference between generalization and stereotype:
Generalization is a broad statement that is like a ‘one size fits all’ idea. Sometimes generalizations are
right, and sometimes they are wrong. The more information you have the more likely you will have a
correct generalization.
A stereotype is taking one piece of information that is usually negative and automatically assigning
that idea to every person or thing that resembles it.
Cultural generalizations involve categorizing members of the same group as having similar
characteristics. generalizations are flexible and allow for the incorporation of new cultural
information.
