Cross-Cultural Competencies

Submitted by,
P.USHA RANI,
J.ARCHANA.
(From sri Ramakrishna PG college,Nandyal.)
ABSTRACT
Cross-cultural skills are a major criterion for success in the global business environment. For students
pursuing careers in international business, this means learning to manage cultural difference on three
levels: self, interpersonal, and organizational. This paper describes five related and synergistic exercises
that give college students experience in dealing with and solving real-world problems in cross-cultural
management on all three levels. Anecdotal evidence suggests the exercises are a highly successful method
for developing the cross-cultural skills of students. To confirm the efficacy of this process, a pre-test post-
test experiment was conducted with a treatment-group and control-groups. Results show that the
treatment group was the only one to show a significant (at p<.05) increase in intercultural sensitivity--a
measure of cross-cultural skill.

International business managers rate the ability to work with people of other cultures as the most
important quality of success, particularly in overseas assignments (Bhawuk & Brislin, 1992). Yet most
International Business programs in the United States deal inadequately with cultural differences in
management. Too often the issue is addressed only at the cognitive level. Students who envisage
international careers in business must prepare for life in alien cognitive and behavior contexts; cross-
cultural considerations must be learned both intellectually and experientially (Serrie, 1992). This means
being able to manage cultural differences on three distinct levels. First, students must be able to cross-
culturally manage themselves: to move personally beyond culture shock and adapt to the alien location to
where they have been sent.

Second, they must be able to manage cross-cultural differences at the interpersonal level. This includes
relating effectively to fellow employees, suppliers, customers, and government officials. As an expatriate
resident, this also includes dealing competently with the host nationals with which they come in contact in
daily life, such as taxi drives, store clerks, service people and neighbors. Personal life in a foreign culture
often includes helping spouses, children, and home country friends and co-workers to adapt to the host
culture. Third they must be able to cross-culturally manage at the organizational or institutional level.
This means possessing enough understanding of both their host culture and their home culture to be able
to make correct managerial decisions regarding their organization's work force, its commercial markets,
the community in which it operates, and the nation which is its host. Although the five exercises are
separable, when used collectively they are especially effective in building cross-cultural management
skills on all three levels--the self, the interpersonal, and the institutional (Serrie, 1992).

Ten Key Cross-Cultural Management Skills

* Self-knowledge: understanding your own cultural values and how they affect your attitudes and
behaviors

* Global thinking: staying informed on global trends and events.

* Cultural curiosity: observing cultural behaviors in a non-judgmental way

* Flexibility: adapting gracefully to a wide spectrum of operational practices, business styles, and social
environments

* Inclusivity: making people of different backgrounds feel at ease, understood, and valued for their
perspectives

* Managing diversity: getting people who are from different backgrounds to work together effectively as
unified teams

* Interpersonal communication: expressing yourself persuasively while genuinely hearing what others are
communicating to you

* Motivational leadership: leading in ways that inspire employees to take responsibility and initiative,
collaborate, and contribute the creativity of their differences

* Credibility: exercising integrity, openness, trustworthy behavior, and candor in all your interpersonal
dealings

* Patience: working with other people’s needs and timetables, keeping your focus on long-term goals, and
not wasting your goodwill capital on getting immediate results

Meaning of cross culture

Cross-culture tries to bring together such relatively unrelated areas as cultural anthropology and
established areas of communication. Its core is to establish and understand how people from
different cultures communicate with each other and the culture of a society comprises the
shared values, understandings, assumptions, and goals that are learned from earlier
generations, imposed by the members of the present day society and passed on to the
succeeding generations.
 Cross Culture Communication
We didn't all come over on the same ship, but we're all in the same boat."
- Bernard Baruch, American financier and statesman

Benefits of cross cultural training:

Cross cultural differences can and do impede upon communication and interpersonal relationships. In the
business world this occurs daily, where people from different cultures interact and are expected to
perform and make decisions. Cross cultural training aims to develop awareness between people where a
common cultural framework does not exist in order to promote clear lines of communication and better
relationships.

Cross cultural training has many benefits to be gained by both participants and businesses. For
participants in cross cultural training, the 10 main benefits are that it helps:

People Learn About Themselves: Through cross cultural training, people are exposed to facts and
information about their own cultures, preconceptions, mentalities and worldviews that they may
otherwise not have contemplated. Cross cultural training helps people learn more about themselves
through learning about others.

Encourage Confidence: Cross cultural training promotes self-confidence in individuals and teams
through empowering them with a sense of control over previously difficult challenges in the workplace.

Break Down Barriers: All of us have certain barriers such as preconceptions, prejudices and stereotypes
that obstruct our understanding of other people. Cross cultural training demystifies other cultures through
presenting them under an objective light. Through learning about other cultures, barriers are slowly
chipped away thus allowing for more open relationships and dialogue.

Build Trust: When people's barriers are lowered, mutual understanding ensues, which results in greater
trust. Once trust is established altruistic tendencies naturally manifest allowing for greater co-operation
and a more productive workplace.

Motivate: One of the outcomes of cross cultural training is that people begin to see their roles within the
workplace more clearly. Through self-analysis people begin to recognise areas in which they need to
improve and become motivated to develop and progress.

Open Horizons: Cross cultural training addresses problems in the workplace at a very different angle to
traditional methods. Its innovative, alternative and motivating way of analysing and resolving problems
helps people to adopt a similarly creative strategy when approaching challenges in their work or personal
lives.

Develop Interpersonal Skills: Through cross cultural training participants develop great 'people skills'
that can be applied in all walks of life. By learning about the influence of culture, i.e. the hidden factors
upon people's behaviours, those who undertake cross cultural training begin to deal with people with a
sensitivity and understanding that may have previously been lacking.

Develop Listening Skills: Listening is an integral element of effective and productive communication.
Cross cultural training helps people to understand how to listen, what to listen for and how to interpret
what they hear within a much broader framework of understanding. By becoming good listeners, people
naturally become good communicators.

People Use Common Ground: In the workplace people have a tendency to focus on differences. When
cross cultural communication problems arise the natural inclination is to withdraw to opposing sides and
to highlight the negative aspects of the other. Cross cultural training assists in developing a sense of
mutual understanding between people by highlighting common ground. Once spaces of mutual
understanding are established, people begin to use them to overcome culturally challenging situations.

Career Development: Cross cultural training enhances people's skills and therefore future employment
opportunities. Having cross cultural awareness gives people a competitive edge over others especially
when applying for positions in international companies with a large multi-cultural staff base.

The above benefits are but a few of the many ways in which cross cultural training positively affects
businesses through staff training and development.

Diversity Training University International (DTUI) isolated four cognitive components: (a)
Awareness, (b) Attitude, (c) Knowledge, and (d) Skills.

 Awareness. Awareness is consciousness of one's personal reactions to people who are different.
A police officer who recognizes that he profiles people who look like they are from Mexico as
“illegal aliens” has cultural awareness of his reactions to this group of people.

 Attitude. Paul Pedersen’s multicultural competence model emphasized three components:

awareness, knowledge and skills. DTUI added the attitude component in order to emphasize the
difference between training that increases awareness of cultural bias and beliefs in general and
training that has participants carefully examine their own beliefs and values about cultural
differences.

 Knowledge. Social science research indicates that our values and beliefs about equality may be
inconsistent with our behaviors, and we ironically may be unaware of it. Social psychologist Patricia
Devine and her colleagues, for example, showed in their research that many people who score low on
a prejudice test tend to do things in cross cultural encounters that exemplify prejudice (e.g., using out-
dated labels such as “illegal aliens”, “colored”, and “homosexual”.). This makes the Knowledge
component an important part of cultural competence development.
Regardless of whether our attitude towards cultural differences matches our behaviors, we can all benefit
by improving our cross-cultural effectiveness. One common goal of diversity professionals is to create
inclusive systems that allow members to work at maximum productivity levels.

 Skills. The Skills component focuses on practicing cultural competence to perfection.

Communication is the fundamental tool by which people interact in organizations. This includes
gestures and other non-verbal communication that tend to vary from culture to culture.

Notice that the set of four components of our cultural competence definition—awareness, attitude,
knowledge, and skills— represents the key features of each of the popular definitions. The utility of the
definition goes beyond the simple integration of previous definitions, however. It is the diagnostic and
intervention development benefits that make the approach most appealing.

Cultural competence is becoming increasingly necessary for work, home, community social lives.

21 Tips To Grow Your Cross-Cultural Skills

1. Understand that EVERYTHING in life is culturally coded from when we were very young. So we
all think differently about things: our meanings for things are deeply buried in our unconscious mind,
what is a business for? how we think about our boss; what is luxury; quality; love; etc. Individualism
in Far East seen as immaturity
2. Research and appreciate the cultural diversity of the market you are preparing to visit before you
travel there –
3. 1st, understand your OWN culture -> try to be understanding of others’ backgrounds. Now
meet half way for common ground.-
4. Visit the countries, get to know the people, try and see the world through their eyes. Learn from
the experts including @CindyKing-
5. Immerse yourself deeply into other cultures by living & working in their country for at least six
months-
6. One tip to improve your cross-cultural skills…Know thyself–>Listen & Observe–
>Communicate… in that order!
7. Be less self-righteous than who you are dealing with. The more humble you are, the more you are
going to gain
8. Travel, as “bare” as possible. When you are in need of something, you see how people react to
your misery. Discovering people when out of your comfort zone is the greatest lesson ever! –
 9. One tip to improve cross-cultural skills is understand your own values & attitudes 1st so you can
compare & contrast –
10. Develop ability 2 appreciate historical backgrounds Honor experiences that might
contradict ur way of looking @ life –
11. Put yourself in the other culture’s shoes and think about what stereotypes exist about
your own culture. –
12. Learn a foreign language. Language and culture are so intertwined that… to fully
understand the psyche of another nationality, you must know the language… –
13. Learn another language –
14. Practice patience & never underestimate power of observation & ability to listen; if u make an
effort … prepare to be pleasantly surprised; people care about you when you care and are genuinely
interested in them –
15. Be flexible when facing different values – try to understand what reasons lie behind other ways of
thinking –
16. Get out there am
17. ongst it! As a global village most people have many ethnicities within their community~and then
there is the Internet~Skye, chat rooms, online classrooms, forums, blogs, email, video etc –
18. Travel & try to understand local cultures. That open minds, changes perspectives & creates cross-
cultural skills. –
19. Adapt to the occasion, learn different languages, respect other cultures AND don’t hesitate to ask.
–
20. Take the jump and just “do it,” i.e., travel and move abroad. –
21. “Common Sense”, and all our underlying assumptions about everything are learned, and
vary between cultures. Interact with different cultures with the knowledge that things you take for
granted as true, are not universal. –
22. a) Other ways of doing & thinking just might be better so enter with an open mind –
b) I’d say be curious. If you’re curious, you’re observing, listening, questioning, reflecting and
learning –
Defined as "the personal capabilities, underlying characteristics and behaviors that drive superior performance at work across
national boundaries' - there is no doubt that for today's global organization, 'cross-cultural competence' is critical. It is a simple and
obvious truth that success in cross-cultural roles requires cross-cultural competency. International roles are complex, challenging
and demand a wider range of capabilities than domestic roles. Most critically, they demand flexibility in the means by which
objectives are achieved - even if those objectives may be 'universal'.

Yet most organizations design and implement - even impose - competency and leadership models that are in effect mono-cultural in
the behavioral indicators they contain, so that 'diversity' is by default limited to those who at least behave like the home-culture
authors of those models. But what is 'best practice' in one culture might be wholly ineffective (or even offensive) in another. There is
no universal "global competency" that can be limited to the same behavioral indicators for every culture. While the competency may
be global - such as Leadership - the behavioral indicators will differ from culture to culture if that Leader is to be effective in
delivering what the organization needs internationally.

This illustrates what we mean by 'Behavioral Diversity' - enabling an organization to recognize the value and validity of a range of
behavioral alternatives that will produce what the organization needs - but not just in the way is done at head-office.