Cross Cultural Management

The impact of cultural differences on interactions and communications is large to a certain extent. Culture refers to the refinement of individuals, usually though educations. It also refers to one’s ideas and beliefs, to make their environment better, consequently, their lives better.

Different countries, race, and religion give people different cultures. When interacting with people of varying cultures, we might say wrong things that are offensive towards them and unknowingly subsequently getting into their bad books. Therefore, the impact of culture during interaction with others is important.

Firstly, cultures vary from countries to countries. In different countries, people experience their own unique cultures. They believe in extraordinary things that could make their country a better place to live in.

For example, in the Southern part of the United States, they believe in the culture of honor. This is a culture where people avoid unintentional offense to others and maintain a reputation for not accepting improper conduct from others.

At the same time, it is the desperation of the male family members about protecting the girls from everything that might be a threat to their family and friends, and it is deeply rooted within the families. In this culture, girls and women are greatly oppressed by men. Young girls are also not allowed to participate in any forms of outdoor activities like swimming and field trips, even to the extent whereby fathers and brothers have killed their daughters or sisters whom they suspected had love affairs with boys in order to preserve their family honor. Girls are not allowed to marry whomever they want and sexual activities before marriage is strictly forbidden and also unforgivable, so as to say, marriage are often arranged by parents or elderly. However, in this culture, men always have great respect toward women, ladies should not be insulted by men, and men will be greatly responsible for any insults towards a lady, regardless by word or deed.

Therefore, if we have a female friend from South United States, and it so happen that a man does not understand the culture of this female, communication between them would become a problem because anything that the man says may turn out to be an insult to the lady. This will cause serious misunderstandings between the two of them. Therefore, impact of culture on interaction is very important.

Secondly, cultures also vary from different races. In different races, people believe in different things and different gods, and even to the extent of what they have to do on different occasions.

For example, Chinese weddings are often arranged and organized by the couples’ family members. For superstitious parents, they will even go to the extent of taking the couples’ birthdates to the fortuneteller to see if the couples can get along, or rather can the two families get along. Throughout the entire planning and wedding, they have to go through many kinds of rituals just to ensure that the couple will have as much blessing as they could in their years of marriage. After marriage, the Chinese also believe that it is important for the women to have children as soon as possible especially boys, because it is important for the boys to carry down the family name.

Therefore, the impact on culture on interaction is very large, because if one party does not understand each other’s culture, they may create many conflicts after marriage, or even during the wedding. For instance, many couples have problem understanding the rituals that they have to go through, and in the end, their relationship can’t even get through the wedding planning part. Consequently, impact of culture on interaction is important.

Thirdly, cultures vary from religions to religions. Different religions believe in different Gods and believe that there are different things that different religions can do or cannot do. Some even go to the extent of punishing their believers if they are to do anything that is against their religion beliefs.

For example, Muslims do not eat pork. The religious restriction on the consumption of pork is a tradition in the ancient Near East. This is because the pig and its flesh represented a taboo observed. Such restriction exists in the Jews and Muslim. It was reinforced in the Muslims’ bible known as the Quran.

Kaplan is an international academy; students get to meet different people from all parts of the world, like China, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia etc. Apart from scoring well in the theory exams, we get to learn people skills like how to communicate with others, especially when they are from different cultures and backgrounds.

One major issue is conversing with people of different primary language, which can lead to miscommunications during group works. People may misunderstand certain words when their common language standard is not on par. A classic example is singlish. Singaporeans tend to speak singlish more often; it has become a natural habit for most of the Singaporeans. People that do not live in Singapore for a long time might find these words offensive and crude. Whereas to us, speaking in singlish is a unique and special way of us communicating with each other.

Apart from Kaplan, many local schools in Singapore promotes foreign exchange programs; whereas students from overseas comes to Singapore and students from Singapore gets a chance to have a different experience studying in a different country. In this way, we get to close up the bonding between countries by learning the differences in culture, language, lifestyle and etc. This allows all of us to cut down on most of the misunderstandings and accept one another as one.

Secondly, different religious beliefs and lifestyles will leads to curiosity to understand one another better. For example, people from rural part Thailand and Indonesia, the lifestyle and expectations are completely different from Singapore. Singapore is a high demand city; standards of living are also higher and in a faster paced. Therefore, people from overseas might not be able to adapt initially.