Case Study of Cultural Differences Between an Iranian & a Kenyan

University of Wollongong in Dubai

Faculty of Business & Management, Cross Cultural Management

“A case study of cultural difference between an Iranian & a Kenyan”

By: Estatira Shirkhodaee

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Working in a multicultural environment like Dubai, provides us with different positive and negative experiences. Those negative ones are likely to have been caused by the cultural differences. Communication is one of the main elements of cultural difference .Different cultures exhibit various sometimes opposite paradigms. This paper aims to study the source of a conflict which arouse due to the intercultural miscommunication & different cultural backgrounds. It was a shock to the writer to find a colleague talking to her in an insulting and authoritative manner. With no power distance, where both belonged to the same organizational level, Sara, the Iranian teacher who had just come back from a sick day leave, didn’t expect her Kenyan colleague, Jane, to come to her, tell her that she was not doing her job properly. Coming from an affective culture, Sara expected her colleague to be sympathetic or less annoying that day .For Jane, Sara’s parallel teacher, nothing mattered but the fact that she had found Sara doing something different in her class. Jane’s seniority gave her the impression that she could criticize Sara’s work and call her irresponsible for not following the schedule. The argument got more serious between the two colleagues and Sara couldn’t remain poised because of the things she heard. . Jane’s words not only seemed illogical but absolutely humiliating. After that huge fight, they never spoke or work together. Failure to form a cultural bridge led to great misunderstandings which reduced their work efficiency as a team.

Why can’t we be friends?

Introduction

I had been living long enough in Dubai, almost six years, to get an idea of its cultural diversity. My first multicultural work place was the American International School where I had some valuable experience about high and low context people and their cultures. My sensitivity to their cultural differences from mine was accompanied by great respect towards their culture. I always enjoyed dealing with people from other cultures -learning something new -and tried to understand their different values, traditions and beliefs. There was absolutely no problem getting along with them. The whole experience of working in AIS was positive except for a few work-related problems.

When I left AIS as part of my job improvement this September, I wouldn’t imagine that Philadelphia School – the new Lebanese Christian School – would disappoint me both in terms of its academics and environment .I found the new atmosphere quite unfriendly. There was little communication between people and teachers showed very little interest in socializing. Every one would sit in her own class during the break time to finish her work. Few would come to the staff room and if so, little was said. Some very primary personal interactions such as greeting would never take place or would be very concise. Coming from a culture where newcomers are always helped and welcomed, I had this impression that I was not welcomed or supported since senior teachers and some members of the management showed little support. I couldn’t stand a place where everything was about work and there was no room for personal relationships. Feeling dissatisfied and unhappy, I drew back to my shell for a while then resigned after three months. These three months were the worst part of my seventeen- year professional career. The most annoying part was the fact that I had to work with my Kenyan parallel teacher, Jane, with whom I had serious issues.

Case Description

My work at Philadelphia School was not comparable to what I used to do in American International School. There were a lot of new things I had to do yet, I was given a brief instruction of all those new procedures and goals. I was hoping that my parallel teacher, Jane, would guide me and reduce my learning anxiety by showing me how I was supposed to get the job done. But I was wrong! Not only did she do the least to help me, but she would every now and then come to me and remind me of the favor she was doing by taking care of the job I had to do where I had no idea about my responsibility of that job. I felt that something didn’t work out. Later on I realized that it was the way we communicated. I didn’t like the way she talked to me. The fact that she had been in that school for a long time, gave her this impression that she could talk to me authoritatively although there was no power distance between us. I couldn’t understand why she always used neutral and most often unfriendly, short sentences. Her strange facial expressions, along with her hand gestures especially pointing with her index finger, made me uncomfortable and annoyed. Her way of talking made me interrupt her while she was talking to me- something she later admitted irritated her a lot when she talked to me.
Our miscommunication made it very hard for me to deal with her. It was evident that “The Cultural Bridge” between us was not formed. Despite all those problems, I tried to build a relationship with her. I got her “An After Accident Kit” to cheer her up after the serious accident that damaged her car. But nothing seemed to work out for us. I wondered why she did not appreciate what I did and her behavior did not change to a friendlier one and why was unwilling to share her work with me
Intercultural challenges

I tried to figure out whether Jane’s lack of interest to work as a team was on basis of a personal problem. I came to know that she liked to do things more individually and wanted to stand out and be appreciated for what she had done- as a result of her more individualistic culture. I was disgusted by the way she boasted about her achievement in school – her appointment as the best English teacher by the KHDA inspectors and her role in obtaining the “Good” rating of the school. Having been brought up in more collectivist culture, I always embraced team work and sharing my knowledge and experience with others.

At the beginning of the academic year when everyone was given her material I was given some of Jane’s books and her CD player. When she came to know about it, she demanded her own stuff and asked me to go and find myself a new CD player and get what ever books I needed from the librarian. I was wondering why she used such sharp statements and why she didn’t use a softer language. Did she really need to be that aggressive? Couldn’t she have suggested sharing that CD player until I got mine? Why did she behave so selfishly? These questions kept repeating in my mind.

Another scenario was when I was asked to write a curriculum and lesson plans for both of the grades I was teaching. Lesson planning was no big deal for me but writing the curriculum- the way school wanted- seemed hectic, especially when I had no idea about the material. Jane, who taught the same grades I was teaching, gave me her uncompleted curriculum and asked me to finish the curriculum modification and give her a copy of it. She showed the file and that was it! In Iran, where newcomers are often welcomed & helped, leaving a colleague to figure out the work by herself and not supporting her, is not only unfriendly but selfish. I was astonished that she left me do the job by myself. I had to spend very long hours to read the material and figure out what I had to do. The amount of work overwhelmed me and I started to think if I really wanted to work there. I was doing the job my way-which used up a lot of my energy and there was no one to show me an easier way of doing it, When I came to know that Jane had all the lesson plans and refused to share them with me even after she was asked to do so, I was really upset.

If there was a necessity to discuss a work issue, the moment I started talking, explaining or making suggestions she would interrupt me saying that she knew what I meant or she had enough teaching experience to know those facts, using those weird eye movements and twist of her lips which was an implication of my stupidity of what I said. When I interrupted her, as Iranians often do to give a comment on what the speaker is saying or to finish the speaker’s words which means that the listener is interested, she would get annoyed and use some authoritative hand gestures like using her index finger or some postures to finish what she was saying. She had little tolerance for the sentences which were about me and not the job itself.

The final chapter of our communication was a huge conflict after which we never spoke. It was all after a sick day leave when I didn’t go to school because of a terrible backache. Unable to move and get out of bed, I sent a note to school through my husband saying that I could not make it that day. The school had a substitution system where some other teachers covered for the ones who were absent. Jane was asked to cover my class. When I went back to work the next day, some of the staff greeted and asked why I was absent. It was great to feel that my colleagues cared about me.
Still unable to walk properly, I walked up the stairs. Shortly after getting to my class, I found Jane at the doorway. I went to see what she wanted. For a moment I thought she had come to see how was doing!! Far from my expectation, she did not greet or ask why I was not there in the school. But the only thing she said was that she had covered my class and couldn’t do anything in my class because the students didn’t have their books along with them. I found it quite offensive that Jane behaved that way and did not show the least understanding – any empathy-and ask me why I was not there at school, especially after my sincere attempt –“The After Accident Kit”- to build a relationship with her. Coming from an affective culture, Iranian culture, where emphasis was on building a relationship before anything else, I had always tried to build a relationship with the people prior to doing the job itself. But it was obvious that Jane didn’t share the same background. Using those excessive movements of her eyes and lips, which were an indication of my weakness, she added when she was teaching the same class last year, students had a clear idea of what books to bring to school but this year they seemed to experience something different. Then, she mentioned she had realized that my students were taking a different literature lesson which was not in the syllabus and scolded me for not following her closely-as a parallel teacher. Her words triggered my anger. Briefing her that the difference was because of the extra work I had given to my students, our discussion went on.

In response to what she said about not doing anything in my class, I told her that I had a computer in my class which would allow her use some material from the internet. She could have easily done some thing positive in my class and this was the point that I reminded her of. Jane told me that it was my responsibility to have a back up support and extra work on the computer not hers to find something for a substitute class. As a professional teacher, I believed a good teacher could do anything from scratch! What she said was nonsense to me. She emphasized I should have had some work for the students when I was not there and I told her that I couldn’t have predicated that I would have had a backache. Standing there and still suffering from the backache, her reply raged me. That fact that she cared about the students academics ( job aspect) more than a colleague( personal aspect) was totally unsympathetic and unbearable. She noted that I should have sent some work in the morning when I called to say I couldn’t make it if I was responsible enough for my students. I couldn’t remained poised any more and screamed at her saying that she was in no position to tell me what to do or question my responsibility. Being unable to move and resting at seven in the morning, how could I have sent any work? I asked if she understood what she said and she said that it was all about the students.

I didn’t want to hear her words or see her disgusting facial expressions any more. She was absolutely insulting. I just yelled that I did not care about students or what she thought and walked away. That was the final chapter of our relationship. We never spoke after that. Although we were parallel teachers, we started doing different things without any coordination which impacted the efficiency of the team work. But it didn’t last long because I left the school 7 weeks later. I could only work in a place where I felt I was loved, wanted. I needed to have relationship with people and see that my work was appreciated. Philadelphia School was not the right place for me!

Lessons learned

Looking back at my multicultural work experience, I realized that I had an awareness of other cultures and showed respect for them. But I had to go beyond that by reconciling and implementing reconciliation action (Trompenaars & Tuner, 1998). I noticed that I found meaning of life largely through social relationships and through identifying with the group I worked with where the group had the same shared values of life that I had( Schwartz, 1991)This was the basic reason for my resignation-my inability to form the social relationships. I also found out that there were some ways which might have helped me improve my communication with Jane. First of all, I shouldn’t have judged her on basis of her behavior. If I were aware of her cultural background, the fact that Kenyans are less affective than Iranians and that they are more individualistic compared to Iranians, I might have dealt with those issues at school more easily. We didn’t get much out of our communication due to the wrong decoding of our messages. All these problems were inevitable since there was no reconciliation taking place. It was not about our personalities as much as it was about our cultures. There was a strong force that inhibited any attempt to go further- to form an interpersonal bridge-to let us reach out for a better understanding, the strange gravity called culture.

Solution & Recommendation

Communication across cultural boundaries creates problems due to the differences between cultures. The cultural dimension is a determinant for types of challenges we might face. For instance, in neutral oriented cultures the focus is on the task itself rather than the emotional interaction where as in affective oriented cultures the nature of the interaction has greater importance compared to the task .Feelings and thoughts are both revealed verbally and nonverbally in affective cultures where there is more tolerance for emotional outburst and expressions of emotions are considered to be normal ( Hodgetts.R, Luthans.F, Doh.J,2005 ). There fore a way to reduce the conflict regarding this cultural aspect is to have the knowledge of these two dimensions and their differences and learn to accept this difference.

When dealing with people from other cultures, it is necessary that we know about their culture and communication styles since these are the fundamentals to any successful communication. Culture has a great impact on the way we communicate. People from affective cultures perceive the meaning through nonverbal signals and the receiver is expected to use her intuition to decode the message. The communication style is different in neutral cultures ranging from voice intonation, timing, and facial expressions to applying an exact style or a direct personal style of verbal communication where the person decodes the message on basis of the mentioned facts.

There is an association between the communication styles and cultural values: direct style with individualism and indirect style with collectivism (Gudykunst & Ting-Toomey 1988; Gudykunst 1998).Personal and contextual communication styles are also related to individualism and collectivism. An individualistic culture uses the personal style which is informal and puts an emphasis on the individual and equalitarian relationships. A collectivist culture uses a contextual style in which all the information is not expressed explicitly and the speaker assumes that the listener has background knowledge.

To sum it up, when dealing with a Kenyan, you have to be less sensitive to her criticism (Moran .S & Harris P& Moran R, 2007). It is important to know that individualistic cultures do not focus on the person as much as they do focus on the task they have to do. So you need to be aware of which culture id more individualistic yours or Kenya’s. Don’t expect a Kenyan to show too much emotion when you deal with her. She cares about the job more than her relationship with you. Be aware of her communication style which is personal. Do your best to form the cultural bridge!

References

Hodgetts.R, Luthans.F, Doh.J,2005, International Management: Culture, Strategy and Behavior, Irwin/ Mac Grow Hill

Hofstede .G,1984, Cultural & Consequences: International Difference in Work Related values, Sage Publication

Moran R, & Harris P. &Moran S.V, 2007, Managing Cultural Differences, Elsevier Inc

Schwartz. S , A Theory of Cultural Values& Some Implication of Work, International Association of Applied Psychology: An International Review, Volume 48, Issue 1 ,1999 , p. 25 - 47

Trompenaars & turner (1998), Riding the Waves of Culture, Mac Grow Hill

References: Hodgetts.R, Luthans.F, Doh.J,2005, International Management: Culture, Strategy and Behavior, Irwin/ Mac Grow Hill Hofstede .G,1984, Cultural & Consequences: International Difference in Work Related values, Sage Publication Moran R, & Harris P. &Moran S.V, 2007, Managing Cultural Differences, Elsevier Inc Schwartz. S , A Theory of Cultural Values& Some Implication of Work, International Association of Applied Psychology: An International Review, Volume 48, Issue 1 ,1999 , p. 25 - 47 Trompenaars & turner (1998), Riding the Waves of Culture, Mac Grow Hill