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Culture and Business
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Mon, 03/23/2009 - 15:45
Dear all,
The concept of culture has become so popular in the world due to globalisation and outsourcing in companies.
How important, do you think, is culture to teaching business? How do you incorporate that? What are the factors that affect national and business cuture?
Your commentaries would be highly appreciated.
Sahar
Tue, 03/24/2009 - 01:40
#2
As it is basically impossible to look at all the different possible cultures the students might encounter, I concentrate on awareness activities and ways of preparing yourself for cultural difference. That way, the student can prepare themselves specifically for a given culture. One really fun activity is to prepare pairs of cards. Divide the class into pairs and give each person in the pair one of the card pairs. They are then told to have a conversation on a certain topic, conducting the conversation in accordance with the instructions on their card. For example, one may have a card that says he/she should remain quite close to their partner, while the other card instructs the student to maintain a good distance between them. Another pair of cards might say that one should try to agree with their partner, while the other has to disagree. Using some well-known ways of looking at cultures, you can easily put together a lot of cards. It is fun to watch and to do, and the students really seem to get a better appreciation of these differences.
Kevin
Tue, 03/24/2009 - 07:29
#3
Wow, Kevin!
This is a really unexpected activity to do and certainly interesting and worthwhile approach as a whole, I think you are really doing a great job! And it does make sense to teach culture awareness this way, and saves time, by the way. THe only thing I didn't understand to the full the procedure and the content of the activity to the full, only the general idea is clear.
Hope to hear more from you!
Anastasia
Tue, 03/24/2009 - 22:56
#4
I don't want to dwell on the specific activity too much, but it is basically one way in which I try to promote awareness of cultural differences as part of the area of intercultural activities. Usually, in a class of, say, 20 people, there will be five or six different pairs of cards, so that 3 or 4 pairs all had the same kind of experience and can discuss their feelings. So you tell the class to form pairs, and hand each person a card. Tell them to spend the next 5 minutes discussing something you specify. This could simply be small talk before a meeting or during a coffee break. They are told that they have to follow the instructions on their card while doing so. They are given no other information. The key of course is the post-activity feedback and discussion.
Hope that's a bit clearer. The main point is to give people a way to think about how cultural differences can manifest themselves and how to prepare themselves.
Kevin
Wed, 03/25/2009 - 14:57
#5
Hi, Kevin!
Thank you very much for the clarification and your creative activity. You are doing a great job with your students!
Anastasia
Thu, 03/26/2009 - 15:48
#6
Very interesting activity. Kevin.
I think it really helps students to think ahead on how to react in different situations they may face when interacting within an international context for bussines. As we cannot teach them how each representative from different cultures may react in certain situations, it's a good idea to have them realize there are different ways to behave depending on our background and the different ways they can deal with them.
I liked it!! I might copy it, although I don't teach BE, it's a valuable way to help learners with their intercultural awareness.
Regards from Caracas, Venezuela.
Thu, 03/26/2009 - 23:23
#7
I'm glad it might be useful. Not really on-topic, but worth telling anyway, a colleague of mine has a video of a little get-together before a course, where a very English, male lecturer is talking with a young, female student attending the course from South America (I don't remember which part, I'm afraid). For about 15 minutes the lecturer spent the whole time backing away from the student as he tried to maintain a comfortable distance between them and she tried to maintain a normal, close distance to him. All of this was being done very much at a subconscious level.
Both funny and instructive.
Kevin
Fri, 03/27/2009 - 16:23
#8
Hi all
I'm coming in late to this thread, but I was also reading the thread on course books where there was a question about the cultural content of course books. so this is kind of a response to both.
I agree 100% that being sensitive to cultural differences is a vital part of our lives today -not only in BE. I think we also need to be aware that culture does not equal nationality. People of the same nationality have cultural differences that stretch through religion, gender, education, lifestyle, background and even position in the family. All these things need to be considered when interacting with anyone. And it is cultural sensitivity and awarness that will guide us through this.
But on to course books that cover cultural issues. My absolute favourite is Best Practice Upper Intermediate by Bill Mascull and Jeremy Comfort. The sections called Business Across Cultures are truly worthwhile and my BE Students love them. They have generated a lot of discussion and can lead into all sorts of other activities. The main focus is on the emerging BRICS, but also Africa, Global Branding and managing people from different cultures is covered. Great book.
Candy
Fri, 03/27/2009 - 19:21
#9
Hi Candy and all,
I do agree with that there are diverse sections within each culture and these affect communication on all levels. I would like to open the discussion a bit further to narrate some of each and everyone's experience with different cultures. Have you encountered any embarrassing situation being unaware of the culture? How do you introduce culture in a multicultured class?
Would you consider business etiqurette and body language part of culture? How do you overcome those cultural differences in teaching effective presentation skills?
Look forward to reading your experiences.
Cheers,
Sahar
Mon, 04/06/2009 - 04:22
#10
Dear all,
I thought it could be useful for our discussion to draw your attention to one thorough review done by one of the roving reporters, Nataliya Eydelman, on the presentation about Five Cs of Culture by Barry Tomalin, have a look: http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2009/sessionreport/14/barry-tomalin-five-cs-culture .You are welcome to share your ideas about it if you like,
Anastasia
Hi Sahar,
I think that business is directly connected with the culture. All marketing decisions are based on cultural knowledge and taking into consideration the different nuances. So it is crucial to teach about various cultural business traditions in order to escape further misunderstandings arising from differences in time perception, for example, or habits of working in teams or individually, and so on. This is one of the basic constituents of Business Communication. At the same time, it is also helpful to learn the worldwide accepted rules of behaviour in Business.
This is the general idea of connection between culture and business. As for me, while teaching BE, I always try to incorporate some notions of cultural differences and ways of dealing internationally. I wonder how do others do it?
Anastasia
Anastasia.