Reflection 4

Madison Schaefer Professor Michelle Kusel ELPS 223 001 October 16, 2018 Reflection 4: Listening to the Air Whilst reading the provided selection of Culture Map, the many memories and experiences I have had through the possession, or lack thereof, cross culturalism flooded my mind. I grew up in a small, blue collar community in central Illinois and hence, was not exposed to very much diversity. However, after my family made the decision to host two foreign exchange students during my high school years, I became extremely curious about wanting to experience cultures outside of my own. I was able to fulfill my dream of studying abroad this past semester at Loyola’s John Felice Rome Center in Italy. Throughout my time learning to embrace Italian culture, I developed a strong pet-peeve which lead me to experience a cultural misunderstanding much like the author’s. Whilst walking through the streets of any Italian city, restaurant owners and shop keepers would work the streets outside their establishments, attempting to call tourists in to their respective businesses. I always found this rather irritating as I wanted to make decisions for myself on where to shop or eat and, in fact, business owners attempting to beckon me into their establishment made me not want to go there even more. However, one day an Italian driver enlightened me regarding why Italians act this way. He told me that Italians want to provide the best experience possible to people visiting their city and, to do so, they tell visitors they need to eat here, shop there, and visit this spot. He admitted that

outsiders often see this as Italians being pushy, which is what I perceived. However, it really just comes down to Italians wanting to provide tourists with the best their home has to offer. When assessing the eight scales which measure cultural differences, I found it difficult to think of an additional aspect that would be beneficial to gage. However, whilst I was abroad, I noticed that certain cultures were more receptive and welcoming to outside cultures and ideas as opposed to others. For instance, Italians are known to be more open to allowing outsiders into their culture whereas French are often perceived as being more closed off. Thus, I feel that it would be helpful to account for the notion of Receptivity. I would measure Receptivity by asking business owners of their levels of biases towards other cultures as well as their openness to experience or change. Understanding how receptive certain cultures are to others can greatly influence how one approaches a situation with a co-worker, boss, or client. When considering each of the cultural difference scales outlined in Culture Map, there are not any that I would remove. I feel that all measures defined account for critical parts of cross cultural understanding and communication. For instance, the Communicating, Evaluating, and Disagreeing aspects surround communication differences; the Persuading, Trusting, and Scheduling variances account for uniqueness in method; and the Leading and Deciding categories consider organizational structure styles. Removing any of these aspects would take away from the full effect of each cultural difference and could have a negative impact on a person trying to best learn how to communicate and understand how individuals or companies in other countries work. In reflecting on the differences between this cultural analysis and work culture discussed earlier, I realized they really are on two separate levels. Firstly, there seems to be

less differentiation between cultural differences in a specific country versus those of work cultures. For instance, Work cultures can differ very widely from each other at rather miniscule levels. Take Verizon Wireless for example. Verizon is a large company and, although all stores are under the same values and mission, the culture at each branch will likely be different in some way or another. However, when studying the results of the cultural differences in the reading, I noted that although behavioral aspects would range on a bell curve, there was a general average that could accurately be applied to summarize the whole. Additionally, there is a difference in what is desired to be achieved between assessing work culture as compared to locational culture. In work culture, one does need to assess how to properly communicate and work with others, however, there is a general social understanding of what is accepted or not. Due to these social norms, one can easily achieve success and thus, can focus on how to maximize it through increasing things such as productivity or efficiency. However, cultural differences lead to a lack of understanding between parties on the basis of communication, proper roles, and expectations. Thus, most of the time and resources of an individual or company are spent on simply working to achieve that success and, as a result, are unable to maximize it.