Cross Cultural Communication:

Cross cultural communication thus refers to the communication between people who
have differences in any one of the following: styles of working, age, nationality,
ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. Cross cultural communication can also
refer to the attempts that are made to exchange, negotiate and mediate cultural
differences by means of language, gestures and body language. It is how people
belonging to different cultures communicate with each other.

Each individual can practice culture at varying levels. There is the culture of the
community he grows up in, there is work culture at his work place and other cultures to
which one becomes an active participant or slowly withdraws from.  An individual is
constantly confronted with the clash between his original culture and the majority
culture that he is exposed to daily. Cultural clashes occur as a result of individuals
believing their culture is better than others.

Cross cultural communication has been influenced by a variety of academic disciplines.

It is necessary in order to avoid misunderstandings that can lead to conflicts between
individuals or groups. Cross cultural communication creates a feeling of trust and
enables cooperation.The focus is on providing the right response rather than providing
the right message.

When two people of different cultures encounter each other, they not only have different
cultural backgrounds but their systems of turn – talking are also different. Cross cultural
communication will be more effective and easier if both the speakers have knowledge of
the turn taking system being used in the conversation (For example: One person should
not monopolize the conversation or only one person should talk at a time).

Definition and Characteristics of culture

What is Culture?

Culture has been defined in a number of ways, but most simply, as the learned and
shared the behavior of a community of interacting human beings.

According to British anthropologist Edward Taylor, “Culture is that complex whole which
includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits
acquired by man as. a member of society”.

According to Phatak, Bhagat, and Kashlak, “Culture is a concept that has been used in
several social science disciplines to explain variations in human thought processes in
different parts of the world.”         ‘
 According to J.P. Lederach, “Culture is the shared knowledge and schemes created by a
set of people for perceiving, interpreting, expressing, and responding to the social
realities around them”.

According to R. Linton, “A culture is a configuration of learned behaviors and results of

behavior whose component elements are shared and transmitted by the members of a
particular society”.

According to G. Hofstede, “Culture is the collective programming of the mind which

distinguishes the members of one category of people from another.”

According to H.T. Mazumdar, “Culture is the sum total of human achievements, material
as well as non-material, capable of transmission, sociologically, i.e., by tradition and
communication, vertically as well as horizontally”.

Actually, culture is defined as the shared patterns of behaviors and

interactions, cognitive constructs, and effective understanding that are learned
through a process of, socialization. These shared patterns identify the
members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group.

Characteristics of Culture

All organizations have the culture in the sense that they are embedded in specific
societal cultures and are part of them.

Some values create a dominant culture in the organizations that help guide the day to
day behavior of employees.

There is also evidence that these dominant cultures can have a positive impact on
desirable outcomes such as successfully conducting mergers and acquisitions
supporting product – innovation processes, and helping firms cope with rapid economic
and technological change.

Culture has various characteristics. From various definitions, we can deduce the
following characteristics of culture:

 Learned Behavior.

 Culture is Abstract.
 Culture Includes Attitudes, Values, and Knowledge.

 Culture also Includes Material Objects.

 Culture is Shared by the Members of Society.

 Culture is Super-Organic.

 Culture is Pervasive.

 Culture is a Way of Life.

 Culture is Idealistic.

 Culture is Transmitted among Members of Society.

 Culture is Continually Changing.

 Language is the Chief Vehicle of Culture.

 Culture is Integrated.

 Culture is Dynamic.

 Culture is Transmissive.

 Culture Varies from Society to Society.

 Culture is Gratifying.

Learned Behavior

Not all behavior is learned, but most of it is learned; combing one’s hair, standing in line,
telling jokes, criticizing the President and going to the movie, all constitute behaviors
that had to be learned.

Sometimes the terms conscious learning and unconscious learning are used to
distinguish the learning.
Some behavior is obvious. People can be seen going to football games, eating with
forks, or driving automobiles. Such behavior is called “overt” behavior. Other behavior is
less visible.

Culture is Abstract

Culture exists in the minds or habits of the members of society. Culture is the shared
ways of doing and thinking. There are degrees of visibility of cultural behavior, ranging
from the regularized activities of persons to their internal reasons for so doing.

In other words, we cannot see culture as, such we can only see human behavior. This
behavior occurs in regular, patterned fashion and it is called culture.

Culture Includes Attitudes, Values, and Knowledge

There is a widespread error in the thinking of many people who tend to regard the
ideas, attitudes, and notions which they have as “their own”.

It is easy to overestimate the uniqueness of one’s own attitudes and ideas. When there
is an agreement with other people it is largely Unnoticed, but when there is a
disagreement or difference one is usually conscious of it.

Your differences, however, may also be cultural. For example, suppose you are a Muslim
and the other person is a Christian.

Culture also Includes Material Objects

Man’s behavior results in creating objects.

Men were behaving when they made these things. To make these objects required
numerous and various skills which human beings gradually built up through the ages.
Man has invented something else and so on.

Occasionally one encounters the view that man does not really “make” steel or a
battleship.

All these things first existed in a “state nature”.

The man merely modified their form, changed them from a state in which they were to
and so forth.the state in which he now uses them. The chair was first a tree which man
surely did not make. But the chair is’ more than trees and the jet airplane is more than
iron ore

Culture is Shared by the Members of Society

The patterns of learned behavior and the results of behavior are possessed not by one
or a few people, but usually by a large proportion.

Thus, many millions of persons share such behavior patterns as the use of automobiles
or the English language. Persons may share some part of a culture unequally.

Sometimes the people share different aspects of culture.

Culture is Super-Organic

Culture is sometimes called super organic. It implies that “culture” is somehow superior
to “nature”. The word super-organic is useful when it implies that what may be quite a
different phenomenon from a cultural point of view.

For example, a tree means different things to the botanist who studies it, the old woman
who uses it for shade in the late summer afternoon, the farmer who picks its fruit, the
motorist who collides with it and the young lovers who carve their initials in its trunk.

The same physical objects and physical characteristics, in other words, may constitute a
variety of quite different cultural objects and cultural characteristics.

Culture is Pervasive

Culture is pervasive it touches every aspect of life. The pervasiveness of culture is

manifest in two ways.

First, culture provides an unquestioned context within which individual action and
response take place. Not only emotional action but relational actions are governed by
cultural norms.

Second, culture pervades social activities and institutions.

Culture is pervasive it touches every aspect of life. The pervasiveness of culture

Culture is a Way of Life

Culture means simply the “way of life” of a people or their “design for a living.”
Kluckhohn and Kelly define it in his sense”, A culture is a historically derived system of
explicit and implicit designs for living, which tends to be shared by all or specially
designed members of a group”.

Explicit culture refers to similarities in word and action which can be directly observed.

For example, adolescent cultural behavior can be generalized from regularities in dress,
mannerism, and conversation. Implicit culture exists in abstract forms which are not
quite obvious.

Culture is Idealistic

Culture embodies the ideals and norms of a group. It is sum-total of the ideal patterns
and norms of behavior of a group. Culture consists of the intellectual, artistic and social
ideals and institutions which the members of the society profess and to which they
strive to confirm.

Culture is Transmitted among Members of Society

The cultural ways are learned by persons from persons.

Many of them are “handed down” by one’s elders, by parents, teachers, and others.
Other cultural behaviors are “handed up” to elders. Some of the transmission of culture
is among contemporaries.

For example, the styles of dress, political views, and the use of recent labor-saving
devices. One does not acquire a behavior pattern spontaneously.

He learns it. That means that someone teaches him and he learns. Much of the learning
process both for the teacher and the learner is quite unconscious, unintentional, or
accidental.

Culture is Continually Changing

There is one fundamental and inescapable attribute (special quality) of culture,

Some societies sometimes change slowly, and hence in comparison to other societies
seem not to be changing at all. But they are changing, even though the fact of unending
change.not obviously so.
Language is the Chief Vehicle of Culture

Man lives not only in the present but also in the past and future.

He is able to do this because he possesses language which transmits to him what was
learned in the past and enables him to transmit the accumulated wisdom to the next
generation.

A specialized language pattern serves as a common bond to the members of a

particular group or subculture.

Although culture is transmitted in a variety of ways, language is one of the most

important vehicles for perpetuating cultural patterns.

Culture is Integrated

This is known as holism, or the various parts of a culture being interconnected.

All aspects of a culture are related to one another and to truly understand a culture, one
must learn about all of its parts, not only a few.

Culture is Dynamic

This simply means that cultures interact and change.

Because most cultures are in contact with other cultures, they exchange ideas and
symbols. All cultures change, otherwise, they would have problems adapting to
changing environments.

And because cultures are integrated, if one component in the system changes, it is likely
that the entire system must adjust.

Culture is Transmissive

Culture is transmissive as it is transmitted front one generation to another.

Language is the main vehicle of culture. Language in different forms makes it possible
for the present generation to understand the achievement of earlier generations.

Transmission of culture may take place by imitation as well as by instruction.

Culture Varies from Society to Society

Every society has a culture of its own. It differs from society to society. The culture of
every society is unique to itself. Cultures are not uniform.

Cultural elements like customs, traditions, morals, values, beliefs are not uniform
everywhere. Culture varies from time to time also.

Culture is Gratifying

Culture provides proper opportunities for the satisfaction of our needs and desires.Our
needs both biological and social are fulfilled in cultural ways. Culture determines and
guides various activities of man. Thus, culture is defined as the process through which
human beings satisfy their wants.So we can easily say that culture has various features
which embodied it in an important position in organizations and other aspects too.

Individual cultures
Individualistic culture is a society which is characterized by individualism, which is the
prioritization or emphasis of the individual over the entire group. Individualistic cultures
are oriented around the self, being independent instead of identifying with a group
mentality. They see each other as only loosely linked, and value personal goals over
group interests. Individualistic cultures tend to have a more diverse population and are
characterized with emphasis on personal achievements, and a rational assessment of
both the beneficial and detrimental aspects of relationships with others. Individualistic
cultures have such unique aspects of communication as being a low power-
distance culture and having a low-context communication style. The United States,
Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Ireland, Germany
and South Africa have been identified as highly individualistic cultures.

Contextual differences in cross-cultural communication

High and low context cultures usually correspond with polychronic and
monochronic cultures respectively.  The table below shows some
general preferences of people from high context and low context
cultures.

High Context Low Context

Indirect and implicit Direct, simple and clear
messages messages
Polycrhonic Monochronic
High use of non-verbal Low use of non-verbal
communication communication
Low reliance on written High reliance on written
communication communication
Use intuition and feelings Rely on facts and
to make decisions evidence for decisions
Long-term relationships Short-term relationships
Schedules are more
Relationships are more
important than
important than schedules
relationships
Strong distinction
between in-group and Flexible and open
out-group

The principles of effective cross-cultural communication.

Culture is deeply engrained in the fabric of society. From the way we drink
our coffee, to the way we do business, culture creates the sense of security
and belonging that we need to truly connect with each other. It is needless to
say that when you operate across cultures, there are a couple of extra
hurdles to deal with before you can truly connect. So before you jump into
that conversation with your colleague from abroad, stop to consider the
following points. They will help you on your way to jump the cultural hurdles
without falling flat on your face.

1. Awareness
It all starts with this: being aware that different countries have different ways
and times of doing things. Your way is not THE way (and neither is theirs). As
in marriage, a common culture is to be developed over the years. And yes,
this takes time, patience but mostly the will to truly understand what drives
the person or the organisation you are dealing with.

2. Preparation
Before you meet your foreign colleague, take the time to do read up on their
country’s rituals and etiquette. Should you address your colleague by their
first name or not? Something simple like how to greet them is probably
culturally determined. In some countries a hug, a tap on the shoulder or a
kiss are quite normal, whereas in others these come close to harassment.
You should not aim for a perfect mastery of their etiquette, though. The fact
that you’ve taken the trouble to do some research and that you try to do
things right, is often enough to show people that you care.

3. Language
One of culture’s main expressions is language. As soon as people open their
mouths to speak, you can more or less place them in a geographical region
and a social/cultural subgroup. When you and your counterpart speak
different languages, work with an interpreter to avoid misunderstandings. An
added bonus is that the interpreter does not only know both languages, but
also the underlying cultures. Interpreters will hence translate both the words
and the cultural context.

If you speak the same language as your counterpart, but come from different
countries, you are not out of the woods yet. Case in point are the differences
between Dutch and Flemish (Belgian Dutch). One and the same word may
mean something totally different. Even when you speak the same language,
your should try to avoid slang and ask for clarification when something that
was said does not make sense. You may have false friends interfering with
the conversation.

4. Humour
Be extremely careful with humour. It is often said that jokes don’t translate
and that is because well, they don’t. Moreover, in many cultures it is not
acceptable to crack jokes in a business context. Sarcasm, the basic
ingredient of British humour, can be immensely funny if you are used to it. If
you’re not, it can come across as an insult, or worse still, an attack. Most of
all: avoid telling jokes about your colleague’s country, it is a slippery slope
that will leave you crippled nine times out of ten.
5. Openness
The person opposite you may be just as nervous about wading in the murky
cross-cultural waters as you are. There is no weakness in admitting that you
are nervous because you do not want to mess up. Ask for feedback. This will
give your counterpart the opportunity to help you along the way, and most of
all, to connect with you. Vulnerability is, after all, human and something that
everyone can relate to, wherever they come from.