Intercultural Conflict

The days when an individual worked at one place their whole career. These days, a career could conceivably include a range of roles at multiple organizations.

There are usually huge occupational benefits to taking on new roles at multiple organizations, from personal satisfaction of attaining goals to financial security. The benefits also exist for the organization in bringing new people and their skills into the business. However, it is vitally important to keep in mind the transition will often require a substantial period of adjustment for the staff going into a new organization.

Organizational Culture Shock

The term was first proposed by Kalvero Oberg (1960). He defined culture shock as being triggered by anxiety that stems from the loss of all the signs and symbols we are used to in social intercourse. These cues comprise of all the myriad ways in which we orientate ourselves to the situations of our everyday lives.

Organizations, like any social unit, have their own distinct way of functioning and this becomes almost second nature to people who are a part of or acquainted to the organization for some time. This is what is commonly referred to as the organization's culture. Most of this culture is more often 'felt' rather than explicitly explained, in fact individuals usually only realize what the culture is when they do something considered over the line.

When an individual goes into a culture different from the one they are accustomed -- whether by travelling or taking up a job with another organization -- they will usually be liable to some amount of culture shock, which in turn impairs their capacity to do well. The small differences are usually the most difficult to take on.

Cross-cultural training

There are means of making the transition smoother:

After selection, the next crucial phase is training and development. While most aspects of the preferred qualification profile are character issues that can merely be altered slowly, there are some that must be improved through intercultural training. Cross-cultural training has been found to be effective in preparing individuals for cultural topics, in expediting adjustment to foreign cultures, in cultivating better work performance and to aid employees in developing a global mindset. Hofstede and Hofstede (2005)

There are three different parts of this training that contribute to an effective transition to a foreign post: culture, language, practical training as well as everyday matters. The first two need to be in progress prior to the. Practical training begins the moment the employee arrives in the organization.

The benefits of intercultural training are widely recognized, while there are companies that do not offer any training the huge costs of a prematurely ended project that would have been more fruitful with a little prior training, should give these companies some pause.

The organizations that do offer training will usually deliver incomplete preparation as they concentrate on orientation briefings as a substitute to cross-cultural skills. Additionally, the programs are oftentimes too.

The existing methodologies for cultural training can be categorized into four unique categories according to the methods they make use of and the content of the program:

(1) Didactic culture-independent training: theoretical lectures on the overall impact of culture on behavioral activity, cultural awareness preparation and culture-independent assimilators.

(2) Didactic culture-dependent training: area coordination updates, examination of case studies, cultural sensitizer training.

(3) Experiential culture-independent training: communication workshops, self-evaluation, experimentations on universal cultural variations.

(4) Experiential culture-dependent training: culturally definite models and role-play, cultural workshops and excursions in the organization.

It is a proven point that cross-cultural preparation has a largely productive effect on building cross-cultural proficiency, the capacity to act correctly in an intercultural situation. However, no miracles should be anticipated from introductory training. It is not conceivable within the context of the usually pretty short preparation programs to teach a grown person who is socialized in a different culture. Of course the goal of the training is not to completely alter the mindset of an individual; that would be an erroneous attitude. It is actually the effort organizations make to produce an amount of openness towards foreign and oftentimes perplexing attitudes and actions, cultural mindfulness and skills, and in effect intercultural proficiency.

Cross cultural variances can and will hinder the communication and interactive relationships. In the business environment this happens daily, where individuals from diverse cultures work together and are expected to accomplish tasks and make decisions. Cross cultural preparation aims to grow the responsiveness between individuals where a mutually shared cultural configuration does not exist, this helps to to promote clear lines of communication and better relations.

Benefits

Cross cultural training has a lot of benefits to be experienced by both the individuals and organizations. For participants in the cultural training, main advantages are:

It helps people to learn about themselves; through this cross-cultural training, people are made aware of information and truths about their own culture, preconceived notions, attitudes and views of the world that they may never have otherwise anticipated. Cross cultural preparation aids individuals to pick up more information about them by learning about others. Lang (2004)

The training helps to encourage confidence, cross cultural training improves confidence in individual people and teams by giving them an added sense of control over hitherto challenging situations in the place of work. Hofstede and Hofstede (2005)

It helps break down conceptual barriers, the predeterminations, biases and stereotypes we all have act as barriers that hamper our understanding of other individuals. Cross cultural training illuminates the idiosyncrasies of other cultures by presenting them in an unbiased light. Learning about new cultures helps to slowly chip away at the barriers therefore allowing for more open relations and information flow.

Training helps to build trust, when our conceptual barriers are lowered; our understanding for others ensues, which automatically results in a greater amount of trust. When trust is rooted into our lives, selfless tendencies naturally manifest and therefore allows for increased co-operation