Intercultural Management Quarterly Integrating Culture and Management in Global Organizations
Spring 2005 Edition Volume 6, Number 2
Inside this issue of IMQ... When Cultures and Aging Mix by Anita Schmied Beyond Language Training and Study Abroad by Mark Ashwill Developing Global Leaders by Elisabeth Marx Multicultural Names in the Workplace by Frankie Patman
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The Intercultural Management Quarterly (IMQ) is a publication of the Intercultural Management Institute (IMI) at American University. IMQ is a forum for experts in the field of intercultural management to share their knowledge with a broad audience interested in intercultural issues. IMQ is produced with the active involvement of faculty, graduate students and alumni of American University’s School of International Service. INTERCULTURAL MANAGEMENT QUARTERLY: www.imquarterly.org INTERCULTURAL MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE: www.imi.american.edu
From the Editor Expanding Boundaries Welcome to the Spring 2005 edition of Intercultural Management Quarterly. In this IMQ, we seek to push the boundaries of the issues typically discussed within these pages and of our approaches to those issues that are routinelyconsidered in the field of intercultural management. This effort reflects not only the growing relevancy of intercultural management to all sorts of vocations and domains, but also new and unique methods of approaching intercultural management issues. Anita Schmied tackles just such a unique issue. Her article on the cultural considerations that senior service providers increasingly have to factor into their management decisions emphasizes that culture and management meet not just in boardrooms and negotiating tables, but in assisted care facilities and senior homes as well. Mark Ashwill’s article challenges us to think outside of traditional educational models for enhancing cross-cultural awareness. His recommendations for ways to heighten the cross-cultural competence of “the masses” are thought-provoking and noteworthy. Elisabeth Marx attempts to push the intercultural capabilities of global business executives by presenting a model for executives to selfanalyze their personal and professional styles in order to understand how to hone their capacity for “global effectiveness.” And Frankie Patman tries to enhance each of our intercultural sensibilities by enjoining us not only to be able to correctly pronounce and recognize personal names from other cultures, but also to understand the cultural origins and implications of these names. Thank you for your interest in Intercultural Management Quarterly. We’re proud to note that with this issue, IMQ has become a true quarterly for the first time in its history. Also, please check our website, www.imquarterly.org, over the coming months, as it will be receiving an exciting (and overdue) revamping. Best wishes, Adam Mendelson
Note: In the Winter 2005 edition of IMQ, Liliana Garcia Loeffler’s article Intercultural Coaching for Global Managers was incorrectly titled Intercultural Training for Global Managers on page 8. The correct title is Intercultural Coaching for Global Managers. She also notes that the term “signature presence”, used in this article, can be found previously in Mary Beth O’Neill’s Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000.
IMQ STAFF Publisher • Dr. Gary R. Weaver Managing Editor • Adam Mendelson Publication Manager • Anna Lee Contributing Writers Dr. Mark A. Ashwill Dr. Elisabeth Marx Frankie Patman Anita Schmied
Editorial Review Board Dr. Gary R. Weaver, Dr. David Bachner, Brad David, Anna Lee, Annmarie McGillicuddy, Adam Mendelson, Darrel Onizuka, Sherry Zarabi
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When Cultures and Aging Mix By Anita Schmied The elderly woman parked her wheelchair next to a large window in the nursing home corridor. She talked to herself but no one paid attention. She watched intently as a camera crew prepared to take advertising photos of other residents. She continued to speak without being heard. Finally, the photographer asked: “What does she need?” The nursing home social worker looked puzzled. “We don’t know. She only speaks German now and we don’t know what she is saying.” This scene unfolded several years ago in a county-owned nursing home in Pennsylvania. The German-born woman had entered a stage of dementia where her speech reverted to her native language, a not uncommon occurrence with dementia. The resulting linguistic and cultural challenges of this resident overwhelmed caregivers. For the most part, they left her alone. Today, senior services providers say they do a much better job of building culturally competent organizations that tailor services and programs to people of diverse cultural, ethnic and racial backgrounds. Industry leaders point to ongoing diversity training programs for an increasingly multicultural workforce as an example of embracing cultural differences. Increases in diverse resident populations prompt providers to offer more culturally sensitive programming. In many senior living settings, residents’ cultural backgrounds and preferences already shape programs and services such as foods, activities, entertainment and celebrations. When it comes to linguistic challenges brought on by dementia, resources to help caregivers are much more readily available, including language training, access to interpreters and greater family involvements. Some providers now share experiences with counterparts around the globe. Others have adapted their business model to local cultural norms as they expand to international markets. What pushes these organizations to seek cultural competency? Are providers developing strategies, policies and corpo-
rate vision to welcome the diversity of a changing workforce and elderly population? Is it a harmonious environment for those who receive care and for those who provide it? There is no single answer or simple solution. Some industry leaders claim a focus on delivering quality care guides their diversity programs. Others point to changing demographics as the primary impetus. Current and projected data of America’s rapidly growing aging population drive senior service providers to find better ways to respond to changes in the market place. By the year 2030, Americans aged 65 and over will more than double in population, reaching 71.5 million, according to federal census estimates. Members of minority groups are projected to represent 26.4 percent of the elderly population, up from 16.4 percent in 2000. “The population in this country will be increasingly diverse with regard to language, religion, ethnicity,” says Donna L. Yee, Ph.D., board member and immediate past president of the American Society on Aging (ASA), a 6,000-member trade association. At the same time, she says, the workforce providing care to older adults is increasingly diverse and much younger. The life experience of these younger workers may be totally different than the older person receiving the care. Dr. Yee, who is also the executive director of the Asian Community Center in Sacramento, California, believes that there is still much work ahead for industry professionals. In her more than 30 years of work in the field of aging, she sees responsiveness to cultural diversity as getting better but progress as dragging behind. Communities that used to be primarily monocultural are quickly becoming multicultural and providers now realize they need to improve their abilities to respond to all of the elderly in their communities. This may mean broader language capacities, serving mixed economic groups, caring for more frail residents and developing dementia protocols that include culture as a variable of care. The first step toward this, she explains, often is recruiting a diverse
workforce and learning to understand the cultural preferences of residents. As senior services providers strive to achieve cultural competence, they say managers face challenges and opportunities on two key fronts — aging residents with set attitudes and beliefs and a multicultural workforce now common in this industry’s labor market. How organizations respond, train, communicate and educate both groups sets the tone for their own corporate culture. At Asbury Services – ranked eighth in size among the nation’s top 50 not-forprofit retirement systems – some 140 nations are represented among its workforce of 850 at its Asbury Methodist Village campus in Gaithersburg, Md. “Our residents love having a diverse workforce,” says Mike Koehler, Asbury’s director of organizational learning. “Most of our residents, because we are in the D.C. metro area, have lived overseas or at least traveled extensively and so they really enjoy meeting diverse people.” In his seven years with the company Koehler has seen little conflict with the blending of cultures on campus. Occasionally an employee may speak loudly or passionately, as is customary in some cultures. And such excitement can lead to misunderstandings among coworkers. Personal boundaries — how close someone stands to another — can also be misinterpreted. But for the most part, managers find linguistics more of a challenge than cultural conflicts. “I would say more of our cultural diversity is with our workforce than with our residents,” says Ann Schiff, administrator of the Wilson Health Care Center at Asbury Methodist Village and director of assisted living services. Occasionally there is a non-English speaking resident. Whenever possible in such cases, a staff member fluent in the resident’s language will help interpret for other caregivers. A culturally diverse workforce in a nursing home setting needs comprehensive training to understand all aspects of aging, Schiff says. Employees need to know about hearing deficits; why it is important to speak slowly and clearly; why they Continued on page 10
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Beyond Languag raining and Study Abr oad Languagee T Training Abroad By Mark A. Ashwill
Language instruction and study abroad are two widely acknowledged cornerstones of international education, but what about the vast majority of U.S. students who neither learn a second language nor study overseas? At the risk of being labeled a viper in the bosom of the profession, let me pose several tough questions. How many U.S. students who study a foreign language are actually able to use the language in any meaningful way? To what extent is the development of intercultural competence the focal point of these classes? How many U.S. students are able to study abroad for any length of time? Are there other effective and meaningful ways through which to develop intercultural competence? What about the majority who neither studies a foreign language nor studies abroad? I ask these questions not as an outsider with his face pressed against the proverbial glass but rather as a consumer, producer, and passionate advocate of foreign language and culture instruction, a study abroad alumnus, and a concerned international educator who has taught, lectured, and conducted research abroad. I ask these questions as someone who would like to expand the focus of the debate about foreign language training and education abroad, both of which many agree are valuable and deserving of more support in thought, word, and deed, and shine the spotlight squarely on intercultural competence as a pivotal skill in global workforce development and the creation of global citizens. There is an urgent need is to develop intercultural sensitivity and competence among larger segments of our population, including K-12 and postsecondary students. It is what intercultural communication specialists refer to as cognitive frame shifting and behavioral code shifting— knowing that there are cultural differences, what they are and how to apply that knowledge.
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Limits of Academic Language Training, Education Abroad “Multicultural sensitivity cannot readily be gained through academic instruction alone. Efforts to learn a second or third language provide evidence of interest in other cultures and can form a basis for understanding them, but they are not a substitute for real-world-experience,” say Tora Bikson, Gregory Treverton, Joy Moini, and Gustav Lindstrom in a recent RAND report.1 The authors conclude that what is needed to exercise leadership effectively is “a multidimensional and well-integrated set of competencies,” including substantive depth (professional or technical knowledge) related to the organization’s primary business processes, managerial ability, and an emphasis on teamwork and interpersonal skills, strategic international understanding, and cross-cultural experience. In a related survey on “What Makes a Successful Career Professional in an International Organization” as part of the same study, foreign language fluency ranked dead last (19th) while cross-cultural competence, defined as the ability to work well in different cultures and with people of different origins, placed a very respectable 5th. (Related items such as “interpersonal and relationship skills” and “ambiguity tolerance and adaptivity” ranked 2nd and 3rd, respectively.) The reason? As the report notes, “fluency in a specific foreign language may reflect academic mastery of literary usage that is not necessarily functional in realworld task contexts; serious negotiations will always require professional translations. On the other hand, becoming skilled in a second or third language is treated as a proxy for the kinds of knowledge and attitudes that effective leadership in international mission domains will presuppose.”2 Even though most business negotiations are conducted with professional interpreters and English is likely to retain its position as the premier international language, respondents endorsed foreign lan-
guage learning as “a significant contributor to the cross-cultural competency required for the successful conduct of global missions.” In other words, if you know a foreign language, chances are good that you also possess some measure of intercultural competence. Command of a foreign language is not the sine qua non of intercultural competence but only a likely indicator. The prevailing view is that foreign language proficiency acquired in an academic setting “is typically not by itself sufficient to produce cross-cultural competency. Most university programs emphasize literary (e.g., reading and writing) rather than applied (e.g., spoken social or business interactions) uses of foreign languages.” Although such programs are often supplemented by study abroad, respondents noted that students often live with each other, take courses from U.S. professors, and socialize mainly among themselves. Thus, while gaining fluency, those students may not be acquiring cross-cultural competence. This finding is highly consistent with results from previous RAND research and helps explain the importance accorded by respondents to real-world international experience in subsequent career development. The harsh reality is that foreign language study and, to an even greater extent, education abroad, are the domain of the select few, worthwhile but essentially elitist undertakings. Even with record increases, students who study abroad constitute a mere 1 percent of all students attending U.S. colleges and universities, more than half of whom study in the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, and France and 91 percent of whom go for a semester or less—some for just a few weeks3 . Many education abroad experiences are more akin to an introduction to country X than a meaningful opportunity to become interculturally competent. And, as those in the profession know all too well, students do not achieve this through osmosis, simply by being dropped into another culture. There are many factors at play, Continued on page 5
Beyond... Continued from page 4
including preparation, program quality, and the student’s cognitive and affective point of departure. A total of 1.3 million students took a modern foreign language4 course (any course for the purposes of data collection) in fall 2002, the highest number ever recorded and a 16.5 percent increase since 1998, the last time the MLA collected this information. Of course, the overall percentage is a paltry 8.5 percent out of a total of 15.6 million students and not even onehalf a percent of the entire U.S. population. Note that nearly 80 percent of the enrollments are in Spanish, French, and German. Statistically speaking, overall enrollments in U.S. college courses are just a drop in the bucket. Also, most enrollments are at the first and second year levels in the so-called service courses. Richard Lambert, founding director of the National Foreign Language Center (NFLC), noted in a 1992 study that the attrition rate of 50 percent from one level to the next in both high school and college “can almost be called a natural law.”5 For the majority of students who do not continue, what little they learn is quickly forgotten. Among U.S. students who study abroad, fewer than 9 percent participate in full academic year programs, during which they would have greater opportunity to acquire language and cross-cultural skills. While it is commendable that more students are studying a foreign language, the depressing reality is that precious few ever achieve functional proficiency and even fewer study abroad. The Case for Intercultural Competence The purpose of making this case is not to restate the obvious or preach to the choir but to reinforce the notion that there are ways of developing intercultural competence that do not necessarily include language learning and education abroad. David Hoopes, among others, picked up on this theme when he noted that “the degree to which the process of cross-cultural learning, communication and human relations has been mastered” is more im-
portant than “the fullness with which one knows each culture” (1981). 6 As we shall see, the commonsensical view is that the acquisition of intercultural communication abilities begins with awareness, proceeds to knowledge, and culminates in skills, as Geert Hofstede explains in Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. 7 This in turn dovetails nicely with a wellknown and useful model of intercultural sensitivity. In his Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS), Milton J. Bennett asserts that all of us are on a continuum of “increasing sophistication in dealing with cultural difference,” ranging from ethnocentrism, which assumes that our worldview of our own culture is universal and synonymous with human nature, to a growing recognition and acceptance of difference, known as ethnorelativism. Bennett defines ethnorelativism as a stage of consciousness (or enlightenment) in which “cultures can only be understood relative to one another and that particular behavior can only be understood within a cultural context.” Intercultural competence as a skill set can be acquired independently of language learning in the same way that a gifted language learner can be totally ignorant of the customs, manners, practices and protocols of the host culture. While language proficiency is the key to becoming truly bicultural, it is the select few who are able to make the long-term commitment necessary to attain functional proficiency. A consensus about the significance of intercultural competence—distinct from language proficiency—emerged from interviews I conducted with expatriates who have worked in Vietnam for many years and with Vietnamese who have extensive experience with foreigners. While Vietnamese respect and admire foreigners who attempt to learn their challenging language, it is more important for those foreigners to be culturally aware, act in culturally appropriate ways, and be able to develop and maintain relationships.
Recommendations As the report of the NAFSA Strategic Task Force on Education Abroad points out, it is now cliché to talk about how small the world has become, and how the globalization of communications and commerce affects everyday life. Referring to the “desperate need in the United States to understand other countries and cultures—friend and foe alike,” the task force throws down this gauntlet for U.S. colleges and universities: you must respond to this reality by better equipping students to live and work in the interconnected world of the twenty-first century8 . The challenge for international educators is to find ways to enable students, faculty, staff, fellow educators, and others to make progress on the journey from ethnocentrism to ethnorelativism. Intercultural competence in its myriad forms is a useful and practical skill not only in cross-cultural settings but also in interactions with people from co-cultures within societies as diverse as the United States9 . It is also a liberating, transcendental, and radical way of seeing the world that can be developed to a certain degree without learning a foreign language or even studying abroad. The following recommendations are based on the two main points of this article, which illustrate some of the constraints, limitations and finiteness, if you will, of language study and study abroad. First, very few U.S. students study a foreign language and, among those who do, few achieve functional proficiency. For most, what they learn “goes in one ear and out the other.” Second, only a tiny fraction of U.S. students study abroad. The greatest hope for the majority of U.S. students lies in increasing opportunities for them to develop (or improve) their intercultural sensitivity and competence. Introductory Culture Courses Offer introductory culture courses with a cross-cultural focus that are taught in English. This type of course often sparks students’ interest in language study and study abroad (for secondary and Continued on page 9
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Developing Global Leaders By Dr. Elisabeth Marx The business landscape has changed enormously in the last couple of years – particularly in regards to our expectations of business leaders. We now expect our executives to be entrepreneurial, strategic and highly international. Indeed, the development of global leadership is a key focus of most multinationals whether in Europe, the US or Asia. Succession management and leadership development experts are eager to find better ways to select and develop global leaders as business performance will depend on the international literacy of top management. We are all looking for executives who are culturally aware and sensitive with strong interpersonal sensitivity and listening skills, a flexible approach, and confidence in dealing with complex, unpredictable and ambiguous situations. At the same time, we are confronted with rather sobering news nearly every day – we read about international mergers not succeeding in delivering long-term shareholder value, about international teams unable to work together and about individual executives who do not succeed at this level. In my view, all of these failures are classic examples of corporate culture, teams and individuals not being able to cope with the culture shock of international business. Culture shock is the experience of ‘foreignness’ occurring when expectations do not coincide with reality. It is a normal part of a successful adaptation to living or working in a new culture. In Breaking through Culture Shock (Marx, 2001), I developed a model for developing international effectiveness which was based and tested on expatriate executives on international assignments. However, the same model is transferable to other types of international work such as shortterm assignments, doing international business negotiations from one’s home country, or working in international teams. All of these situations make it equally necessary to cope with the experience of ‘foreignness’ and to learn adaptive responses to deal with them. Global leaders have to deal with three
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main areas of culture shock, or the “culture shock triangle” (Marx 2001): emotions, thinking, and social skills/behaviour. When working with individual
business assignments often result in distinct stress episodes in the process of successful adaptation: from the honeymoon phase to culture shock to recovery and adjustment, as has often been outlined in cases of expatriation. Emotional self-awareness and the ability to manage these negative emotions and the potential longer-term stress are necessary first steps in developing global effectiveness. The following diagram explains how emotions determine our thinking in the search for culturally effective business solutions.
executives or entire teams, the culture shock triangle provides a psychological and pragmatic framework for leadership development. Before explaining these three components, let us look at a real life example of an international team. Some time ago, I was asked by a financial services firm to help improve team collaboration of a group working in London and New York. The initial assessment showed significant differences and conflicts between both sides of the Atlantic as shown in the following table. Perceived Differences of US and British Team Members
Emotions As one can see from the above perceptions, international business can elicit a huge range of emotions, from excitement and positive surprises to frustration (“why don’t they work like us?”), anger (“they do this deliberately!”), helplessness (“all my normal approaches don’t work”), to depression (“I give up and have minimal exposure”). Longer-term
Stress always causes regressive thinking and behaviour if not managed effectively, making it one of the main reasons for cross-cultural conflicts in negotiations; as people become even more entrenched than normally in their own national thinking and approaches, leaving less of a chance of bridging the gap. This is a situation where one finds the French becoming more ‘French’, the Germans more ‘German’ and the Americans more ‘American’. Thinking New situations, or situations that do not automatically make sense, can be treated in one of three ways: •We can decide to ignore or discard them. •We can decide to treat them as familiar situations, thereby potentially drawing the wrong conclusions. •We can admit that we cannot make sense of them and try to expand and modify our Continued on page 7
Global Leaders... Continued from page 6 ‘typical’ thinking. International work requires something very uncomfortable: the need to challenge our own way of seeing the world or dealing with business and to challenge some of our fundamental values of what is right and wrong. Business deals often fail because both sides are not prepared or able to take the other’s perspective and therefore do not find a compromise. The challenge of effective leaders is to discern alternative ways of going about business and to develop a cognitive framework that will help them develop ideal solutions. Taking the two models of cultural differences by Hofstede1 and Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner2 as a basis, one can develop a more pragmatic approach to thinking about cultural differences which could be used in executive development and to define three basic questions that a global leader should ask in most international business situations: 1. Is the focus primarily on the task at hand or on the people involved? Cultures differ in their orientation to tasks and to relationships between people. Northern Europe and the US are much more task-oriented compared to Asia or South America. A US manager wants to fly in, sort things out, and get to the next task. A Chinese executive will typically first establish a good relationship before looking at the deal/task. 2. Are frameworks more important than flexibility? One’s approach to a task may be more structured or more fluid, depending on their cultural background. Some cultures are pre-destined to work according to a framework; others are more flexible and improvise. This is often related to the tolerance of ambiguity. Cultures which find it hard to tolerate ambiguity often have a very structured and time conscious approach to business. On one extreme, one could perhaps cite the German culture which is characterized by an intolerance of ambiguity and a highly structured and organized work environment with a clear agenda with no unpredictability. On the opposite side of this spectrum is the French culture: to them, planning is
not a great concern but rather the most important thing is to reach one’s aim. Therefore, the French have a more fluid task approach, and are not too concerned with agendas and thus can change direction quite quickly. It is easy to imagine the difficulties that can arise when the representatives of these opposite poles meet and work together in joint projects. 3. What is the dominant communication style? In some cultures, the expression of emotion is positively rated whereas in others it is seen as a loss of control and weakness. Latin countries typically value a passionate presentation whereas Asian countries would see this as a loss of face and respect. There are also differences in the acceptability of emotions; the US rates positive self-presentation and optimism highly, which makes the expression of regret and self-effacing behaviour less acceptable than in European countries. Social Skills/Behaviour After one has learned to deal with the potential frustration of international business and developed an effective strategy, one has to show the “right” social skills. What is acceptable in terms of verbal and non-verbal communication varies enormously in different cultures. An example is knowing the behavioural rules in striking rapport at first meetings: in the UK, it is important to have some small talk and to show a good sense of humour to break the ice – but using the same approach in Germany would backfire as your German business partner would think you are a light-weight. In France, you go for a long lunch, show that you can hold a sophisticated conversation and get down to business over dessert. Moreover, whether in China or the US, it is important to gauge the appropriate space between two people in conversation, for example, or whether extended eye contact is seen as positive (instilling trust) or offensive (aggressive). Similarly, the importance of networking and the propensity to combine business and pleasure varies significantly in different parts of the world.
Conclusion It is obvious that leadership development needs to address all three components of the culture shock triangle in order to produce effective global leaders. To make this model more effective, an in-depth evaluation of personality, styles and coping mechanisms is useful in order to produce development programs that are as targeted and individuallytailored as possible. The culture shock triangle helps explain the necessary components of global leadership, their interdependency, and allows the prioritization of areas for further development, depending on the specific roles, organizational structures and geographic reach of an individual executive or a team. The model can also be used in group programs to explain the challenges of international business and to develop generic recommendations of dealing effectively with emotions, thinking and social behaviour in international business. Most importantly. the application of this model gives executives a clear understanding as to which aspects of their personality and behavioural styles are conducive to international business and which ones they need to address to improve their global effectiveness. Understanding and internalizing the culture shock triangle and its different aspects is a first step to better international literacy. Dr. Elisabeth Marx is a Director of Hanover Fox International. She lectures on management topics internationally and her research on boardroom issues is frequently covered in the national and international press as well as on radio and television. Her book Breaking through Culture Shock was published in 2001 by Nicholas Brealey. 1 Geert Hofstede. Cultures and Organisations. HarperCollins. 1994. 2 Fons Trompenaars and Charles HampdenTurner. Riding the Waves of Culture. Nicholas Brealey. 1997.
Images copyright 2001 Elisabeth Marx. Reprinted with permission by Nicholas Brealey Publishing.
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Multicultural Names in the W orkplace Workplace By Frankie Patman The 2000 census discovered that almost 22% of the population of the United States speaks a language other than English at home. The signs of our cultural diversity are everywhere—restaurants featuring practically every flavor on earth, storefronts in Korean Hangul, Spanish-language programming on television. And people’s names. American names now encompass everything from “John Smith” to “Ng See” to “Chokchai Phongphiphattanaphan.” The days are long gone when everyone could be certain whether to respond to a customer inquiry with “Mr.” or “Ms.”, which part of someone’s name should be used to speak to him or her, how to index a name on a hotel reservation, what to call your students’ parents, and so on. Yet taking the trouble and time to learn how to handle someone’s name properly not only may save you money (not having a seat for Miss Ng See because her flight reservation was indexed under “See” rather than her surname “Ng” does not help business), it can also help workers feel welcomed and respected in environments where they may be a cultural minority. In many cases, the only surefire way to get a name right is to ask. However, a few general principles about names from cultures heavily represented within the U.S. can at least help you ask the right question. What follows is a sampling of naming customs from three different parts of the world. East Asian Names One of the most striking ways in which names from China, Korea, and Japan differ from typical European American names is that in these countries the family name comes before the given name. This is why, for example, the North Korean head of state Kim Jung Il is referred to in news reports as “Mr. Kim.” It is said that placing the family name before the given name shows how highly regarded family identity is in East Asia. Do not assume, however, that a new colleague or a visitor is introducing herself with his/her surname pronounced first – many people adapt their names to the American pattern when
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they come to the U.S. Chinese and Korean names commonly contain three syllables—a single-syllable surname, and a two-syllable given name. In the Chinese name “Chen Su Hsiang,” “Chen” is the surname and “Su Hsiang” is the given name. In written form, given names are often hyphenated (e.g., “SuHsiang”). Use this as a clue to help decide which syllable to treat as the surname for indexing purposes, or for addressing someone with a title (e.g., “Ms. Chen”). Census data show over 88,000 unique surnames in use in the U.S. The surname distribution in Korea and China could not be more different. Among the more than 69 million Koreans in the world, there are fewer than 300 family names in use, and roughly 50% of all Koreans share one of the surnames Kim, Park, Yi (also spelled Lee), Choi, or Chong. In China, the distribution of surnames is very similar. About 30% of the population (over 380 million people) use one of the surnames Li, Wang, Zhang, Liu, or Chen. One lesson to be learned is to not assume that people you meet in the course of business who share a surname are members of the same family. (And along the same lines, women in China and Korea do not normally use their husband’s surname. If Mr. Park’s wife is introduced as Mrs. Kim, be sure to use this name and not “Mrs. Park.”) Arabic Names You may have noticed that a lot of Arabic speakers seem to be named “Abu” or “Abdul” or “Al.” Actually, these are not names in themselves, but are parts of phrases that are combined with other words to make a name. “Abu” means “father-of” and is sometimes used by a man before the name of his son. For example, “Abu Maruf” means “father of Maruf.” “Abdul” is actually a two-word phrase (“abd al”) and means “servant-of the.” It is usually followed by one of the names of God. For example, “Abdul Rahman” means “Servant of the Most Merciful.” The little word “Al” is simply the Arabic article meaning “the.” The surname “Al Turki” means “the Turk.” If you meet or correspond with someone whose name begins with one of
these words, say Abdul Rahman, do not call him “Abdul” or use “Mr. Rahman” in your salutation; he should be addressed as “Mr. Abdul Rahman,” even if there is no other name to serve as the surname or given name. (However, in non-Arab Muslim countries such as Pakistan, “Abdul” is sometimes used as a given name. If you receive a letter from Pakistan from a Mr. Abdul Chaudhry, for instance, you may safely address him as “Mr. Chaudhry.”) In some Arab countries, surnames are not required. It is common for a child to be given a personal name only, and then to be distinguished from others of the same name by reference to his or her father and grandfather. A traditional Arab name might be Yahya bin Muhammad bin Ibrahim, which is “Yahya, who is the son of Muhammad, who is the son of Ibrahim.” (Note that “bin” means “son” and does not have to be included in the name.) How many times in news reports have you heard former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein referred to as “Mr. Hussein?” If you guess that Hussein is the given name of Saddam’s father, you are absolutely right. “Saddam Hussein” means “Saddam, who is the son of Hussein.” Calling him “Mr. Hussein” is incorrect. If you are unsure whether a name element actually functions as a surname, be sure to ask the person how he or she prefers to be addressed. Latin American Names There are over 28 million Spanish speakers in the U.S., yet few non-Hispanic Americans know that Spanish names differ significantly from Anglo names. Did you know that Hispanic names have two surnames? And that the name in the last position is not the “last” (i.e., family) name? In a traditional Spanish name, both the mother’s and the father’s family names are passed on to the children. The father’s surname comes first, followed by the mother’s surname. It is the father’s surname, however, that is the children’s family name, not the mother’s. Thus, if you were to receive a job application from a Jose Manuel Aguilar Silva, you would address your reply to him to “Mr. Aguilar.” In Brazil, naming conventions follow Continued on page 12
Beyond... Continued from page 5 postsecondary levels). Culture and First/Second Year Language Courses Integrate substantial cultural material (in English) into lower-level language courses. In Stanford University’s German Language and Culture I course, for example, students use a language textbook and read The Germans by Gordon Craig. Cross-Cultural Content in General Education Courses Include an explicit emphasis on cultural awareness and intercultural sensitivity (a la Hofstede, Bennett, and others) in massenrollment courses that meet a general education requirement. For example, in the UGC 211 “American Pluralism” course I teach at the State University of New York at Bufffalo, one of the overarching curricular goals is to “bring about an awareness of the enriching aspects of cultural pluralism as well as mutual respect for the integrity of other people’s experiences.” On-Campus Use of International Students Many institutions find creative and mutually beneficial ways for their international students and those with international experience (e.g., study abroad returnees, “hyphenated Americans,” and immigrant students) to share their knowledge and experience with the local community through K-12 outreach programs, for example. They should also seek out opportunities to utilize this valuable resource in undergraduate courses that have international or cross-cultural themes. Introductory Intercultural Communication Courses Require courses, possibly team-taught, that introduce and illustrate basic concepts of intercultural communication using the U.S. and a variety of target cultures as frames of reference (for secondary and postsecondary levels). Non-Credit Workshops Institutions should offer intercultural training workshops for local educators and business people that the DMIS as a framework, similar to those offered by the University of Minnesota College of Education. In addition to improving the quality, va-
riety, depth, and breadth of foreign language instruction and expanding education abroad opportunities and diversifying destinations, we should be devising ways for our young people at the primary, secondary, and postsecondary levels to at least develop awareness, acquire knowledge and, for some, skills that are “based on awareness and knowledge, plus practice.”10 One other high priority area is global citizenship. For many U.S. citizens, national pride is built on a foundation of cultural superiority and arrogance, reminiscent of the “defense” stage of the DMIS in which the world is organized into “us” vs. “them,” and “we” are superior, while “they” are “inferior,” and one’s own (or adopted) culture “is the only good one.” Education and training in intercultural communication are an antidote to this exclusionary view of the world. They hold the key to guiding young people to the first ethnorelative stage of consciousness, whereby U.S. culture “is experienced as just one of a number of equally complex worldviews” and they become “curious about and respectful toward cultural difference.” This world view translates into empathy, concern, and a sense of connectedness with those who are different from ourselves, be they our neighbors or people we will never meet. In American Cultural Patterns, Edward C. Stewart and Bennett define ethnocentrism as the view of one’s own culture as “central to all reality, the values, assumptions, and behavioral norms of that culture may be elevated to the position of absolute truth.” As they point out, ethnocentrism “shapes a social sense of identity which is narrow and defensive,” “involves the perception of members of other cultures in terms of stereotypes,” and “the dynamic of ethnocentrism is such that comparative judgments are made between one’s own culture and other cultures under the assumption that ones own is normal and natural. Judgments usually involve invidious comparisons that ennobles one’s own culture while degrading those others.”11
Ethnocentrism is not a “condition” that will simply and magically disappear with liberal education, immersion in diverse environments, contact with those who are different from ourselves, language study, or education abroad. As such, educators must use every opportunity and means at their disposal— mandatory and optional—to provide a forum for students to explore and reflect upon these issues in a systematic and goal-oriented manner. As Bennett observed, “Intercultural sensitivity is not natural. It is not part of our primate past, nor has it characterized most of human history. Cross-cultural contact usually has been accompanied by bloodshed, oppression, or genocide. The continuation of this pattern in today’s world of unimagined interdependence is not just
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Cultures and Aging... Continued from page 3 should face residents so they can see lips and facial expressions. Older residents with hearing loss sometimes have trouble understanding a worker who speaks rapidly with a thick accent. “We explain to staff that what may be culturally acceptable to them (at home), may not be the same here.” In-service training, Schiff says, deals with psychosocial aspects of aging and cultural diversity issues, particularly with nursing assistants because they are giving intimate care. Role-playing may touch on the simplest things — saying hello, whether to shake hands with a resident or to address them by their first or last name. “We really stress what’s the norm here because this is the resident’s home,” says Schiff. Some aspects of care may differ from a worker’s own culture. It is one thing to give personal care to your grandmother, but it is another thing to do it for someone else’s grandmother, Schiff says. “Maybe in your culture one thing was acceptable but here, if you are giving someone a bath, you keep them covered as much as possible both for dignity and warmth, and wash one area at a time. We cover a lot of details in our training. We explain bathing is a very intimate chore to do for someone who is not a member of your family. It may be difficult.” Teaching the staff about diseases that aging residents have is also important, says Schiff. If they have fibromyalgia, just touching them may be painful. If they have dementia, a reassuring voice is important. People from some cultures can be loud, highly vocal or gesturing. That can be frightening to someone who is elderly and may have dementia or other health issues. Diane Downing, R.N., M.A., who trains the multicultural workforce at Potomac Valley Nursing & Wellness Center, an independent, 175-bed skilled nursing facility in Rockville, Md., agrees with Schiff. Building cultural awareness and acceptance for staff and residents is critical in her environment. Downing, who provided nursing care to various tribes in the Congo for more than 20 years and has lived in Europe, brings a unique cultural perspective to the center’s staff training program.
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“In this area we are very diverse in our residents and our workforce. We have a quite a number of foreign-born residents who do not speak English,” Downing says. In orientation, she focuses on the cultural aspects of resident care: “I define our values and beliefs; those things we hold dear and how it affects attitudes towards health and dying.” Training includes discussions on customs, language, currencies and care expectations. She explains how culture is shared and learned through identifying behaviors and beliefs. Foreignborn nursing assistants may care for residents totally differently than if they had been trained in this country: “You may have very diverse approaches and each culture is saying this is the right way to do it.” She encourages open dialogue with new employees. “Food is a huge thing. What one culture likes another culture may say, that is the most repulsive thing.” Eye contact is another area with cultural importance. “Many of our residents are Asian,” she says, “They don’t use eye contact; especially older people will look down, whereas a lot of cultures have direct eye contact.” In her experience as a registered nurse and teacher in long-term care settings, Downing has seen first-hand the challenges of blending a multicultural workforce with aging residents. At Erickson Retirement Communities, embracing diversity is an essential ingredient to the company’s mission, says Lenora Booth, vice-president of human resources. “We have a very diverse workforce and one of our core values is diversity.” Erickson serves some 14,000 residents in 12 communities with 7,732 employees nationwide. Some 46 percent of Erickson’s workforce represents minority ethnic groups. “We focus on our values throughout the year. It just has been important for our company to think about diversity. Not just because it is the right thing to do but because it is good for business and because it is good for the people in our organization,” Booth says. “We celebrate the differences in a lot of ways,” says Donna Crocker, associate ex-
ecutive director of Riderwood, an Erickson community in suburban Washington, D.C. “When talking about diversity, we are talking about culture. We are also talking about other differences including age.” At Erickson, residents often interact with a much younger workforce that includes high school and college students. In Michigan, for instance, the Erickson workforce includes many with Eastern European backgrounds, compared to the more Haitian workforce in one of its New Jersey communities. Erickson residents often initiate their own programs to promote cultural understanding, including entertainment and special activities. Diversity Dialogues – in which residents and staff discuss cultural differences and similarities – is one example of such a program. “It all begins with our teaching of the Erickson Way” – the organization’s values, vision, and mission statement, says Booth. The teaching includes a diversity training program to illustrate how judgments, assumptions and stereotypes can affect interaction with others. The ways in which age, gender, ethnicity, language, religion, culture and more shape individuals are all part of the discussion. “Erickson values work together,” stresses Booth, “to create an environment and culture of inclusion, teamwork and understanding.” Erickson is not alone in promoting cultural diversity through hiring practices and workforce training. Senior living communities attract workers typical in hospitality and healthcare environments – among them housekeepers, dietary workers, nursing assistants and groundskeepers of varied age and nationality. Service providers say constant communication and training helps to successfully mix a culturally diverse workforce with their aging resident population. While senior living organizations for the most part craft their own cultural diversity training programs, efforts to develop cultural competence programs in all levels of services to an aging population are on the rise. The American Society on Aging says it has seen an increase in programs on cultural diversity, cultural communication Continued on page 11
Cultures and Aging... Continued from page 10 and cultural competence during recent years. Paul Kleyman, editor of ASA’s Aging Today, points to this year’s annual conference - The Changing Face of Aging, cosponsored by the National Council on the Aging - as an example of increasing interest in workshops on dementia and diversity, multicultural workforce training and retention, and cross-cultural communication. ASA also has special initiatives in diversity including its Online Multicultural Aging Network, leadership, mentoring and training programs to foster professionalism in aging services. The German-speaking woman with dementia left unattended by her nursing home caretakers may have fared better today. Efforts are increasing by senior services providers to be more culturally responsive to their customers. Yet, there is still a great deal of work to be done across a broad spectrum of aging services among healthcare settings, senior living environments and community outreach programs. Achieving cultural competence is an involved, unending process touching all levels of an organization. It isn’t enough to say “we have a cultural diversity program.” It requires strength in specific areas — management leadership, support and commitment to resources. To be successful, programs must be creative and flexible — alive with an organization’s strategies, values and beliefs, thereby enriching a thriving culture all its own. Anita M. Schmied, MIM, is a writer and president and founding partner of Image Marketing Incorporated, an intercultural communication consulting firm based in Annapolis, Md. Ms. Schmied’s professional career includes broad experience in developing successful strategic marketing and corporate communications, especially for clients in the longterm care, senior living, healthcare and hospitality industries.
Tailoring Services to the Cultural Pr Prefer eferences efer ences of Aging Residents Our older population is growing not only in numbers but in diversity. This country’s senior living providers already feel the challenges such diversity brings to their business. Here are two examples of how the cultural values and experiences rooted deeply in an aging customer played a pivotal role for Sunrise Senior Living, the nation’s largest provider of senior living services. Sunrise operates almost 400 communities in 34 states, the District of Columbia and in Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany with a diverse workforce of 35,000 worldwide. A Jewish senior moved into a Sunrise community. As with every resident, the community developed an individual service plan to ensure care and services would be delivered with personal preferences be kept in mind. Soon after moving to a Sunrise suite, the staff discovered that the new resident did not take showers. “After speaking with this resident’s family in more depth, we learned the resident was in a concentration camp during World War II and saw the horrors and atrocities that occurred in the gas chambers,” recalls Carol Edelstein, vice president for programming. “Experiencing some dementia, the resident was very afraid of showers. So Sunrise developed a plan for the resident to make bathing a pleasant experience. First, we started by giving the resident sponge baths. Later we introduced the resident to our bathtique, a comfortable room equipped with a large Jacuzzi-like bath tub. With soft music and lighting and aromatherapy the
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resident enjoyed each bathing experience.” Learning a resident’s life story – cultural background, experiences, family traditions, favorite foods, activities and religious preference – is “critically important to us as part of the Sunrise resident-centered model,” says Edelstein. To help a resident adjust to new surroundings, a care manager works closely with each individual and family. “It is our job to build and adjust our programs around the interests of our residents,” says Edelstein. This tailored approach to resident services enhances activities and programs. Edelstein says there are countless examples of how Sunrise develops programs for residents with different cultural roots. She recalls how one Sunrise community enlisted the help of a local organization to help overcome a language barrier in one resident’s care. “A female resident of Portuguese background moved into one of our communities because she was having some early memory impairment. As the dementia progressed, she began slipping back into her native language and our team members had difficulty communicating with her.” The organization sent a volunteer, fluent in Portuguese, to help comfort the resident and assist team members in learning some key phrases. The volunteer also wrote some cue cards with comforting Portuguese phrases on one side and the English translation on the other side. “These efforts,” Edelstein says, “significantly helped the community create a more comforting environment for the resident.”
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Beyond...
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Portuguese customs, and these differ somewhat from those of other Latin American countries. Portuguese families also use both the mother’s and father’s surnames. But unlike in Spanish-speaking countries, the father’s surname is the last name in the string, preceded by the mother’s surname. A letter to Sonia Maria Coutinho Bandeira should be addressed to “Ms. Bandeira.” Conclusion Our names are a very important piece of our lives. How they are treated by the people we interact with can convey condescension or respect, courtesy or disregard, familiarity or formality. In business contexts, choosing courtesy, respect, and the degree of social distance that is acceptable to our coworkers and business associates makes for a happier workplace, more satisfied customers, and more open access to business prospects. A little name research can carry us a long way.
immoral or unprofitable—it is self-destructive….Education and training in intercultural communication is an approach to changing our ‘natural’ behavior.”12
Frankie Patman is director of the linguistics division at Language Analysis Systems, Inc. in Herndon, Virginia, a company specializing in automatic name recognition technologies. Her interest in multi-cultural names began during work in Cameroon, where she first encountered non-Western naming traditions.
Mark A. Ashwill is director of the World Languages Program, Fulbright Program adviser and adjunct instructor in the General Education Program at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is also founder and executive director of the U.S.Indochina Educational Foundation, Inc. (USIEF: www.usief.org). His book, Vietnam Today: A Guide to a Nation at a Crossroads (with Thai Ngoc Diep) was recently published by Intercultural Press, Inc. This article is adapted from a longer version originally published in International Educator magazine, and appears here with permission. 1
New Challenges for International Leadership: Lessons from Organizations with Global Missions, Rand, 2003. 2 Ibid, p. 27. 3 IIE’s Open Doors 2003:Report in International Educational Exchange. Data are for 2002 study abroad. 4 Enrollments in the top 12 leading foreign languages excluding Latin and Ancient Greek. 5 Sam Dillon. “It’s the Heyday of Arabic, but It May Not Be Enough.” New York Times. November 16, 2003. 6 David S. Hoopes. 1981. “Intercultural Communication Concepts and the Psychology of Intercultural Experience.” In Margaret D. Pusch (Ed.), Multicultural Education: A Cross-Cultural Training Approach. Yarmouth, Maine: Intercultural Press. 7 Geert Hofstede. 1991. Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1991. 8 Securing America’s Future: Global Education for a Global Age. Washington, D.C.: NAFSA: Association of International Educators. 2003. Also see http://www.nafsa.org/content/PublicPolicy/ stf/STFEAreport.pdf. 9 International educators should strive to develop relationships and forge alliances with colleagues who are concerned about multicultural competence, diversity training, and the like. In this way educators can embrace an intercultural competence that encompasses cultures beyond national borders and co-cultures within. 10 Geert Hofstede. 1991. 11 Milton J. Bennett and Edward C. Stewart. American Cultural Patterns. Intercultural Press, Inc. 1991. 12 Milton J. Bennett, “Towards Ethnorelativism: A Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity,” in R. Michael Paige, Education for the Intercultural Experience. Yarmouth: Intercultural Press, Inc., 1993.
Fall 2005 Skill Institutes
Intercultural Management Institute 1. MULTINATIONAL TEAM BUILDING; September 24-25, with Lance Descourouez 2. PROGRAMMING FOR INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION; October 22-23, with David Bachner 3. INTERNATIONAL STUDENT ADVISING; October 29-30, with Fanta Aw 4. PERSONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL SECURITY IN A GLOBAL AGE; December 3-4, with Ray Leki For more information or to register, contact Anna Lee at imi@american.edu or 202-885-6439. Registration forms and additional information available at www.imi.american.edu
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