Some cultures are overtly emotional, while there are others which believe in keeping emotions concealed, or only reveal them to a "rational" degree. Naturally such differences often lead to problems. Following are two examples from international diplomacy, cited by the University of Colorado's Conflict Research Consortium, which illustrate that lack of awareness of a certain culture and its values can result in longstanding misunderstandings, whereas accommodating cultural differences and understanding them, can lead to fruitful results.
The first case pertains to the relations between U.S. And India. In 1954, the U.S. had provided arms assistance to Pakistan, which was India's adversary. India took exception to this assistance provided to Pakistan, and as a form of re-assurance, President Eisenhower dispatched a letter to the Indian Prime Minister, and mentioned that the U.S. would intervene if Pakistan used the assistance against India. Nehru indicated to the ambassador that he did not doubt America's intentions, but went on to relay his concerns on the matter. This restrained response was taken as an endorsement of the American action, and the case was closed, but in fact, it caused a great amount of misunderstanding between U.S. And India, which affected their relations for a long time.
The second example pertains to U.S. And Japan, and is indicative of the sort of success that is possible if inter-cultural differences are taken into account. During the 1971 U.S.-Japan currency crisis, America's intention was to convince Japan to re-value its currency. But Secretary of Treasury John Connally avoided pressure tactics, as they would have had undesirable effects. Instead, he accommodated the Japanese style, focused on building relationships, presented the American proposals as being of mutual interest rather than imposed demands, and thus won over the Japanese, allowing the crisis to dissipate.6
Thus, the bottom line is that cultural conflicts arise due to the difference in the norms, values and behaviors of people of different cultures. And a deliberate effort is required to mitigate the effects of these barriers. The most common problem is that people in a particular culture treat their culture as the 'ultimate' culture and other cultures as 'strange' or out-of-line. This attitude, dubbed as ethnocentrism, plays a significant part in multicultural conflicts. The following signs help in identifying cultural conflict. Firstly, complex dynamics are involved. Secondly, if the addressing of surface problems doesn't solve the issue, it is rooted in cultural differences. Finally, if conflict repeatedly occurs and raises strong emotions on seemingly trivial matters of disagreement, it's a sign of cultural conflict.
Solutions to cultural conflict resolution follow the identification of these issues. Firstly, it is important for the parties to recognize that a cultural dimension is involved in the problem. Thus, willingness should develop within the parties to satisfy all the aspects of the problem. Then a comprehensive process of rapprochement can occur. In that process, the parties discuss with each other the aspects in each others' behavior that they find offensive. Then they get to learn the cultural perceptions of the problem in each others' point-of-view. It is useful to understand how the problem is dealt with in the culture of the opponent. Finally, the parties can agree on a conflict resolution outline. A better form of getting rid of conflicts is to avoid them in the first place. It is a well established fact that most cultural conflicts occur due to a lack of information about the culture of others. Therefore, it is important, in today's multi-cultural environment, to be well acquainted with other cultures. Even if an in-depth understanding of the culture is not possible, at least one should be able to avoid the actions, gestures and statements that are considered to be offensive or insulting in the other culture. This would certainly help in improving the communication process between the people across different cultures. It would also help remove many of the stereotypes that exist in people's minds due to incomplete information. In the case of organizations, they should design the company charter and culture in such a way, that it doesn't just reflect the norms of one culture, thus sowing the seeds of cultural conflict.7
Several discussions on culture and values have tended to emphasize that cultural values and habits influence communication behaviors and patterns in individuals and groups. It is important to understand that culture and communication styles are inherently related. A study by Mobo Gao (1998) related to the Chinese immigrants to Australia concluded that...
Intercultural Communication When people from different cultural backgrounds interact with each other, they face various problems in effectively communicating their messages and expressing their thoughts, expectations, and beliefs (Paulston, Kiesling, & Rangel, 2012). These problems lead to serious intercultural communication issues in multicultural societies. Researchers have found that difference in languages is not the sole reason of intercultural communication problems; people fail to effectively communicate due to different cultural dimensions that
Within my team of Americans are several African-Americans and three Latinos. In the book Intercultural Communication: A Reader (Samovar, et al., 2008) the authors point out what scholars, sociologists and alert journalists have known for a long time: "…Although Latinos are generally aware of the Black experience, there is little understanding of Black culture. Equally problematic is the lack of awareness among Blacks about Latino culture" (Samovar, p. 183). Albeit
Intercultural Communication: Towards Better Understanding and Learning In humanity's pursuit for learning, it is inevitable that we will encounter diversity, or differences in people in the way they think, act, and behave. Most often, people whom we perceive as different are no more different than us -- that is, we may perceive them as different, but they also presumably assume us as different from the people they have been familiarized and
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Once an international organization has delved into such details about a society, then they would be in a better position to know which areas to assign women and which ones not to and instead assign men and the reverse is applicable too. Yet another significant aspect to look into is the non-verbal communication among the various cultures and the applicability of such between the two genders. It is worth noting
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