'Role of Culture\r'

'Georgian AMERICAN UNIVERSITY School of Business semester 2 the percentage of market-gardening Student : Mariam Chitiashvili 29. 03. 13 heathen values, beliefs, and traditions signifi rafttly affect family life. Cultures atomic number 18 more(prenominal) than language, dress, and food customs. ethnical conferences may sh atomic number 18 race, ethnicity, or nationality, entirely they overly arise from cleavages of generation, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, ability and disability, political and religious affiliation, language, and gender — to name only a few.Two things be essential to call in to the highest degree acculturations: they be al ship canal changing, and they relate to the exemplary dimension of life. The symbolic dimension is the place where we are constantly fashioning core and enacting our identities. heathen messages from the groups we belong to give us information almost what is meaningful or substantial, and who we are in th e world and in relation to differents — our identities. Cultural messages, simply, are what every iodine in a group cognizes that out expressionrs do non know.They are the water fish swimming in, un alert of its effect on their vision. They are a series of lenses that shape what we see and dont see, how we perceive and interpret, and where we stray boundaries. In shaping our values, cultures contain beginning points and currencies[1]. commencement points are those places it is natural to begin, whether with item-by-item or group concerns, with the monolithic picture or particularities. Currencies are those things we safeguard about that influence and shape our interactions with separates. | How Cultures WorkThough largely beneath the surface, cultures are a shifting, dynamic set of starting line points that orient us in particular hold uprs and away from other military commissions. from severally one of us belongs to triune cultures that give us messages a bout what is normal, appropriate, and expected. When others do non meet our expectations, it is often a cue that our heathen expectations are distinct. We may mistake differences among others and us for evidence of bad faith or deficiency of common horse sense on the part of others, non realizing that common sense is as well ethnic.What is common to one group may seem strange, counterintuitive, or incorrectly to another. Cultural messages shape our seeings of relationships, and of how to make love with the participation and unison that are ever present whenever two or more nation come together. Writing about or working(a) crossways cultures is complicated, barely not impossible. Here are some complications in working with cultural dimensions of meshing, and the implications that flow from them:Culture is constantly in flux — as conditions change, cultural groups ad able in dynamic and some whiles unpredictable ways.Culture is largely below the surface, influ encing identities and meaning-making, or who we believe ourselves to be and what we care about — it is not easy to access these symbolic levels since they are largely outside our awake(predicate)ness. Cultural influences and identities become important depending on context. When an aspect of cultural identity is jeopardize or misunderstood, it may become relatively more important than other cultural identities and this fixed, narrow identity may become the center of stereotyping invalidating projection, and contradict. This is a very common situation in contumacious infringes.Since culture is so closely related to our identities (who we ideate we are), and the ways we string meaning (what is important to us and how), it is always a factor in divergence. Cultural awareness leads us to apply the atomic number 78 discover in place of the Golden Rule. Rather than the precept â€Å"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” the Platinum Rule advises: â€Å"Do unto others as they would have you do unto them. â€Å"Cultures are embedded in every fight be effort conflicts arise in human relationships. Cultures affect the ways we name, frame, blame, and attempt to tame conflicts. Whether a conflict exists at all is a cultural question.In an inter look conducted in Canada, an elderly Chinese man indicated he had see no conflict at all for the earlier 40 years. [2] Among the possible reasons for his denial was a cultural preference to see the world through lenses of agreement rather than conflict, as encouraged by his Confucian upbringing. Labeling some of our interactions as conflicts and analyzing them into smaller instalment part is a distinctly Western approach that may obscure other aspects of relationships. Culture is always a factor in conflict, whether it plays a central power or influences it subtly and gently.For any conflict that touches us where it matters, where we make meaning and hold our identities, at that p lace is always a cultural component. Intractable conflicts uniform the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir are not just about territorial, boundary, and sovereignty issues — they are also about ac familiarityment, representation, and legitimization of variant identities and ways of living, world, and making meaning. Conflicts amongst teenagers and parents are shaped by generational culture, and conflicts betwixt spouses or partners are influenced by gender culture.In organizations, conflicts arising from antithetic disciplinary cultures escalate tensions between co-workers, creating strained or inaccurate conference and stressed relationships. Culture permeates conflict no matter what — some clippings pushing out with intensity, other times quietly snaking along, hardly announcing its front until surprised plurality nearly stumble on it. Culture is inextricable from conflict, though it does not cause it. When differences su rface in families, organizations, or communities, culture is always present, shaping perceptions, attitudes, behaviors, and outcomes.When the cultural groups we belong to are a large majority in our community or nation, we are less likely to be aware of the content of the messages they send us. Cultures dual-lane by plethoric groups often seem to be â€Å"natural,” â€Å"normal” — â€Å"the way things are done. ” We only notice the effect of cultures that are antithetic from our induce, at pitching to behaviors that we label exotic or strange. Though culture is intertwined with conflict, some approaches to conflict endurance minimize cultural issues and influences. Since culture is like an iceberg lettuce — largely submerged — it is important to intromit it in our analyses and hitchs.Icebergs unacknowledged can be dangerous, and it is impossible to make choices about them if we dont know their size or place. Acknowledging culture and br inging cultural fluency to conflicts can stand by all word forms of people make more intentional, adaptive choices. Given cultures important role in conflicts, what should be done to keep it in mind and include it in response plans? Cultures may act like temperamental children: complicated, elusive, and severe to predict. Unless we develop comfort with culture as an integral part of conflict, we may recollect ourselves tangled in its net of complexity, limited by our own cultural lenses.Cultural fluency is a detect tool for disentangling and managing multilayered, cultural conflicts. Cultural fluency means familiarity with cultures: their natures, how they work, and ways they intertwine with our relationships in times of conflict and accord. Cultural fluency means awareness of some(prenominal) dimensions of culture, including * Communication, * Ways of naming, framing, and taming conflict, * Approaches to meaning making, * Identities and roles. Each of these is described in mo re detail below. As people communicate, they move along a continuum between high- and low-context.Depending on the kind of relationship, the context, and the purpose of colloquy, they may be more or less explicit and direct. In close relationships, communication shorthand is often apply, which makes communication opaque to outsiders but perfectly clear to the parties. With strangers, the same people may choose low-context communication. Low- and high-context communication refers not only to psyche communication strategies, but may be used to understand cultural groups. Generally, Western cultures incline to run toward low-context starting points, while Eastern and Southern cultures tend to high-context communication.Within these huge categories, there are important differences and many variations. Where high-context communication tends to be featured, it is useful to pay particular attention to nonverbal cues and the behavior of others who may know more of the unstated rules g overning the communication. Where low-context communication is the norm, outspokenness is likely to be expected in return. on that point are many other ways that communication varies across cultures. Ways of naming, framing, and taming conflict variegate across cultural boundaries. As the example of the elderly Chinese interviewee illustrates, not everyone agrees on what constitutes a conflict.For those accustomed to subdued, simmer spate discussion, an emotional transfigure among family members may seem a threatening conflict. The family members themselves may look at their exchange as a normal and desirable ventilating system of differing views. These are just some of the ways that taming conflict varies across cultures. Third parties may use diametrical strategies with quite diametrical goals, depending on their cultural sense of what is needed. In multicultural contexts, parties expectations of how conflict should be communicate may vary, further escalating an existing conflict. Approaches to meaning-making also vary across cultures.Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars suggest that people have a range of starting points for making sense of their lives, including: * universalist (favoring rules, laws, and oecumenicizations) and particularist (favoring exceptions, relations, and contextual evaluation) * specificity (preferring explicit definitions, breaking down wholes into component parts, and measurable results) and sink inness ( steeringing on patterns, the big picture, and emergence over outcome) * inner counselling (sees virtue in individuals who strive to realize their conscious purpose) and outer direction (where virtue is outside each of us in natural rhythms, nature, beauty, and relationships) * synchronous time (cyclical and spiraling) and sequential time (linear and unidirectional). 5] When we dont understand that others may have quite different starting points, conflict is more likely to go across and to escalate. Even though the startin g points themselves are neutral, negative motives are easily attributed to someone who begins from a different end of the continuum. [6]For example, when First Nations people sit down with government representatives to negotiate land claims in Canada or Australia, different ideas of time may make it difficult to establish rapport and make progress. First Nations people tend to see time as stretching forward and back, binding them in relationship with septet generations in twain directions. Their actions and choices in the present are thus relevant to history and to their progeny.Government negotiators acculturated to Western European ideas of time may find the governing of diachronic tales and the consideration of projections generations into the future tedious and irrelevant unless they understand the variations in the way time is understood by First Nations people. Of course, this example draws on generalizations that may or may not apply in a particular situation. There are many different Aboriginal peoples in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and elsewhere. Each has a distinct culture, and these cultures have different relationships to time, different ideas about negotiation, and unique identities. Government negotiators may also have a range of ethno cultural identities, and may not get going the stereotype of the woman or man in a hurry, with a measured, pressured orientation toward time.Examples can also be drawn from the other three dimensions identified by Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars. When an intractable conflict has been ongoing for years or even generations, should there be recourse to international standards and interveners, or local anaesthetic rules and practices? Those favoring a universalist starting point are more likely to prefer international intervention and the setting of international standards. Particularlists will be more comfortable with a tailor-made, home-grown approach than with the imposition of general r ules that may or may not fit their needs and context. Specificity and diffuseness also lead to conflict and conflict escalation in many instances.People, who peach in specifics, looking for practical solutions to challenges that can be implemented and measured, may find those who focus on process, feelings, and the big picture obstructionist and frustrating. On the other hand, those whose starting points are diffuse are more apt to catch the flaw in the sum that is not easy to detect by looking at the component parts, and to see the context into which specific ideas essential fit. Inner-directed people tend to feel confident that they can affect change, believing that they are â€Å"the masters of their fate, the captains of their souls. They focus more on product than process. Imagine their thwarting when faced with outer-directed people, whose attention goes to nurturing relationships, living in harmony with nature, going with the flow, and paying attention to processes rather than products.As with each of the above sets of starting points, neither is right or aggrieve; they are simply different. A focus on process is helpful, but not if it entirely fails to ignore outcomes. A focus on outcomes is useful, but it is also important to monitor the tone and direction of the process. Cultural fluency means being aware of different sets of starting points, and having a way to speak in both dialects, helping translate between them when they are making conflict worse. This can be done by storytelling and by the creation of shared stories, stories that are co-constructed to make room for multiple points of view within them. Often, people in conflict tell stories that sound as though both cannot be true.Narrative conflict-resolution approaches help them leave their concern with truth and being right on the sideline for a time, turn their attention instead to stories in which they can both see themselves. Another way to explore meaning making is through metaphor s. Metaphors are compact, tightly package word pictures that convey a great deal of information in shorthand form. For example, in exploring how a conflict began, one side may conference about its origins being buried in the mists of time before there were boundaries and roads and written laws. The other may see it as the offspring of a vexatious lawsuit begun in 1946. Neither is wrong — the issue may well have deeply roots, and the lawsuit was surely a part of the exploitation of the conflict.As the two sides talk about their metaphors, the more diffuse starting point wrapped up in the mists of time meets the more specific one, attached to a particular legal action. As the two talk, they rise their understanding of each other in context, and jibe more about their respective roles and identities. In leftist settings, the following values tend to be interior: * cooperation * filial piety (respect for and deference toward elders) * participation in shared progress * reput ation of the group * interdependency In individualistic settings, the following values tend to be privileged: * competition * independence * individual achievement * personal growth and fulfillment * self-relianceWhen individualist and communitarian starting points influence those on either side of a conflict, escalation may result. Individualists may see no problem with â€Å"no holds barred” confrontation, while communitarian counterparts deoxidize from bringing dishonor or face-loss to their group by behaving in unseemly ways. In the end, one should remember that, as with other patterns described, most people are not purely individualist or communitarian. Rather, people tend to have individualist or communitarian starting points, depending on ones upbringing, experience, and the context of the situation. Conclusion There is no one-size-fits-all approach to conflict resolution, since culture is always a factor.Cultural fluency is therefore a core qualification for th ose who intervene in conflicts or simply pauperization to function more effectively in their own lives and situations. Cultural fluency involves recognizing and acting respectfully from the knowledge that communication, ways of naming, framing, and taming conflict, approaches to meaning-making, and identities and roles vary across cultures. LITERATYRE: John capital of Minnesota Lederach, in his book: Conflict Transformation crossways Cultures http://www. preventelderabuse. org/issues/culture. html http://culture360. org/magazine/role-of-culture-in-society-asian-perspectives-and-european-experiences/ http://www. lindsay-sherwin. co. uk/guide_managing_change/html_overview/05_culture_handy. htm\r\n'