...Michael Mainor EN106 – First Year Writing Seminar II: Academic Research & Writing Date : April 26, 2012 America vs. the World America the Beautiful, The Home of the Brave, words that we often hear as Americans in our patriotic way of life; however, are we as Americans so egocentric and or narcissistic in our way of life that we project our thoughts and way of life onto other countries in a global sense? As defined by freedictionary.com, to be egocentric is to view things from one’s own point of view as the only right. It also defines narcissistic as to be infatuated and obsessed with one’s self to exclusion of all others in a ruthless pursuit of one’s gratification, dominance, and ambition. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being proud and patriotic Americans. Although most people who live in America can agree that it is a great place to live, we should not project our way of life, as the only right way, onto other countries’ cultures, or people around the world, because when we do we take the risk of being viewed as America vs. the world. In the excerpt, Moral Disagreement, by Kwame Anthony Appiah, he discusses how different perspectives to any situation and or word(s) mean different things to others based on a variety of things: culture, religion, and morals to name a few. Appiah is a native of Ghana and because of his different upbringing and perspective he views things different. For example, “Many married women lived with their brothers, visiting their husbands...
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...Assignment 1 “What it’s like to be a Black Girl” VS “Child of the Americas” Joyce Dolford Eng125: Introduction to Literature Instructor: Karen Lawler 10/06/2012 Assignment 2 10/06/2012 “What it’s like to be a Black Girl” VS “Child of the Americas” The literary works that I decided to compare are “Child of the Americas” by Aurora Levin Morales (A Latino) and “What it’s like to be a Black Girl” by Patricia Smith. (an African American). They were both born in America, which is an important fact because Blacks and other minorities in the U.S. experienced extreme racism and prejudice compared to their peers into the countries. The poems tell how two young girls, from different beliefs. These poems are important because they deal with racism and discrimination issues which occurred prior to the Civil Rights Era and still exist in today world. Although, each of them experienced discrimination their perceptions its effect and how they coped were very different. These two young girls from different American minority sub-cultures, views themselves in a totally different perspectives. One of the young girls wishes to identify herself with the culture and image of her African American ancestor’s slave owners; however the other wishes to embrace and celebrate her African Latino heritage. Assignment 2 10/06/2012 “What It’s like to Be a Black Girl” VS “Child of the Americas” In the poem “What it’s like to be a Black Girl” I believe in the mind of a young black...
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...Culture and Frameworks Years ago, dealing with another country for a product might have been unusual. In today’s world, businesses are becoming more global in enterprise so in order to be successful it’s important to understand how to “talk” to a business or employee from another country. There are different social and psychological frameworks that can be used to help an organization understand different cultures and to better communicate. Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck developed a sociological framework which is made up of six dimensions: time orientation, space orientation, activity orientation, relationships among people, relations to nature, and basic human nature (Ahlstrom & Bruton, 2010, pp. 44-45). Different cultures will have different emphasis in the six dimensions. For example, the time orientation for people from South America may be vastly different than for people from North America. North Americans are more rigid and South Americans are more flexible when it comes to timing. So if you are given a time for something in North America, you’d better be on time if you don’t want to be rude. In South America, being late is the in thing to be. China and Japan are also very time conscious and the Chinese Business Etiquette Instructional Video shows how the two Americans show up early for their meeting with the Chinese section chief thus exhibiting a positive time orientation example (Liu, 2007). When looking at the Outsourced movie, Mr. Todd appears to be totally...
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...Cultural Canon: things that individuals should look at or know to participate in a certain culture, denotes a body of books, music and art that have been traditionally noted by Western scholars that shape Western culture. Why have a cultural canon? Define a people, find a common purpose, unity What are the problems with having a canon? Exclusionary, represents the hegemony (dominant power structure) Defining American Cool… “Cool figures are the successful rebels of American culture….to be cool is to have an original aesthetic approach or artistic vision—as an actor, musician, athlete, writer, activist….. that eithers becomes a permanent legacy or stands as a singular achievement Rebel is independent, goes against the grain, cool is the mainstream, yet you need to be “Edgy” un-mainstream to succeed. Live fast, die young Jazz is cool. It started as a marginalized expression that the dominant culture romanticized but once mainstream it lost lots of its coolness. “outsider as an insider” To define what is supremely “American” is to be a living contradiction. Cynicism is American Prude sexuality Ephemeral: catch it and it dies Talking shit is American Cause controversy is cool, but it is also cool to be above the controversy Cool is relative and ever changing. Satire is the new cool. Satire is a type of comedy, the use of irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and critique people’s stupidity or vices. Food of all mixture and availabilities ...
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...Colombia 2 Content 1. Introduction............................................2 2. Culture.................................................3 3. Colombia................................................5 4. Cultural Models and Cultural Dimensions.................9 4.1 Geert Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions.................9 4.1.1. Power Distance Index...........................10 4.1.2. Uncertainty Avoidance..........................12 4.1.3. Individualism vs. Collectivism.................13 4.1.4. Masculinity vs. Femininity.....................15 4.1.5. Long vs. Short-term Orientation................16 4.1.6. Indulgence vs. Restraint.......................17 5. Conclusion.............................................20 6. References.............................................21 Table of Figures Colombia Facts & Figures...................................6 Colombia Location, Flag and Coat of Arms...................8 Colombian Population According to Ethnocultural Identity..11 Colombian Culture through the 6-D Model...................13 Cultural Dimensions of Geert Hofstede: Analysis of Colombia 3 1. Introduction With the arise of globalization, the issues about cultural dimensions are of extremely significance to understand cultural differences. It is important that these aspects could be analyzed to contribute to the improvement in the interactions contexts, for between cultures in the in the different global with instance, business relations countries like Colombia...
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...Position Power and Personal Power A View of Leadership vs. Management owner 12/18/2020 GM:591: Leadership and Organizational Behavior Instructor: INTRODUCTION In the past twenty to forty years, the face of corporate America has changed drastically from family owned businesses to conglomerates that absorb smaller businesses by the dozens. Those days where a person works for a single company until retirement are long gone. Retirement funds, 401k’s, investment accounts, and high efficiency technology dominate lunch counter conversations, versus our parent’s conversations about family matters and how the kids are doing. Something has been lost from those days where people actually cared about coworkers and each other. I’m sure if you would ask ten people for a reason for the lack of concern, you would get different responses. According to what I have learned through this course in Organization Behavior, all the case studies, and the research on personal and position power, I have concluded that people are not put first. This has lead to and lack of success in business as well as failures. In most recent times, Enron Corporation comes to mind, along with other companies that accepted government bailout money in order to avoid massive layoffs or closing altogether. My group in this course chose to do the group project on position power and personal power. My individual subtopic deals with how a manager with only position power affects his/her subordinates...
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...NO-60 Q1. What is meant by the term culture? In what way can measuring attitudes about the following help to differentiate between cultures: centralized or decentralized decision making, safety or risk, individual or group rewards, high or low organizational loyalty, cooperation or competition? Use these attitudes to compare the United States, Germany, and Japan. Based on your comparisons, what conclusions can you draw regarding the impact of culture on behavior? Ans:- culture is defined as the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization. Culture is the acquired knowledge that people use to interpret experience and generate social behavior. This knowledge forms values, creates attitudes, and influences behavior (Hodges, 2005). Centralized versus decentralized cultures are different in which the top managers or leaders make all the important decisions in a centralized culture and in a decentralized culture, the decisions are made throughout the levels. Safety and risk in some cultures are frowned upon because the results are unpredictable yet other cultures are “riskier” and encourage risk taking on all levels. The same can be said about individual versus group rewards. Some societies or organizations reward individually and other only based on the group effort. High or low organizational loyalty in cultures are different in which the high loyalty in an organization...
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...Reflective Assignment The New Faces of America is a 65-minute, one-woman show presenting characters of seven incredibly different backgrounds. The audience will hear the stories of a female, biracial college student; a southern gay minister; a young female veteran from the Iraq War; a Native American teenager; a young migrant worker; and others. One actor portrays seven characters, each of a different ethnicity, to explore the challenges and victories of young Americans in a diverse society. The overall theme of the play is freedom and diversity. I want to eventually make a change in the world, and one of the many factors of making that change possible is going to college. In the production the actress was acting out different stories of diversity, the characters she was portraying, were all part of, discrimination or a hate crime. For example the “black brown person”, she was actually a Latino-African American, and people would ask her “Where are you from” and her mother was ashamed of who she really was, and at times so was the girl. It’s not about where you are from or the decisions you make, it is how you will change your life around and make a better future for yourself. How I define American identity is living in the land founded by our leaders, and being part of the American culture. As Americans, we fight for what we believe in, but before we made our own identity as an active culture we Americans were led by thoughts of both the radicals, religious and political...
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...Traditional views vs. Modernism The 1920’s were a time of great change in the United States of America. There were many new idea on how things should work socially, politically and economically. Many of these ideas created conflicts between modern and traditional views. Traditional views included of having a strong faith, did not believe science over faith, in support of the prohibition, and found jazz music and the flapper culture distasteful. On the other side modern views included of favoring science over faith, disagreed with the prohibition, and was in favor of jazz music and the flapper culture. The 1920’s was an exciting time in America, however there was a immense clash between modern and traditional views. One of the most contradicting views that these two groups had was whether to believe religion over science or vice versa. Traditionalist favored religion while modernist favored science. In a Tennessee high school in the year of 1925, John Scopes; a substitute teacher, was accused of teaching evolution to a state funded school. This went against Tennessee’s Butler Act, which stated that it was unlawful to teach...
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...Vincent C.J. Alvarado Colleen Scarborough Culture is the influence on the individual’s personality that happens from the surroundings like nature, religion, region, etc. Culture influence’s individuals so they behave in certain ways that fits their life, therefore people interact with each other; they have phases that coordinate their way of networking. In order to connect, communicate and get along with other cultures there must be an understanding between the two. However, when Assan Motors Company expanded and opened a new plant in the USA they did not have cultural understanding of the USA. For that in Gung Ho, there were several consequences that happened like, the different communication styles, low context vs. high context, dedication to the factory, different working habits/quality of work and collective vs. individualistic. Americans use a low context form of communication style in comparison to the high context style of the Japanese. Low context involves a more direct communication approach, while high context involves a more indirect style. An example of the Americans using a low context approach is when Hunt goes to the Japan to sell the Assan managers on the idea of coming to Hadleyville. He starts with a presentation and then cuts to the deal and says, “Here’s the deal” and begins explaining himself bluntly. The Japanese are silent, not speaking at all. Silence is generally considered offensive to low-context cultures. The Japanese show a high context style at...
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...Hofstede's Framework for Assessing Culture He has found five dimensions of culture in his study of national work related values: • Low vs. High Power Distance - the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations expect and accept that power is distributed unequally. Low power distance (e.g. Austria, Israel, Denmark, New Zealand) expect and accept power relations that are more consultative or democratic. People relate to one another more as equals regardless of formal positions. Subordinates are more comfortable with and demand the right to contribute to and critique the decision making of those in power. In High power distance countries (e.g. Malaysia, Slovakia) less powerful accept power relations that are more autocratic and paternalistic. Subordinates acknowledge the power of others simply based on where they are situated in certain formal, hierarchical positions. As such the Power Distance Index Hofstede defines does not reflect an objective difference in power distribution but rather the way people perceive power differences. In Europe, Power Distance tends to be lower in Northern countries and higher in Southern and Eastern parts. There seems to be an admittedly disputable correlation with predominant religions. • Individualism vs. collectivism - individualism is contrasted with collectivism, and refers to the extent to which people are expected to stand up for themselves and to choose their own affiliations, or alternatively act predominantly...
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...Hofstede's Framework for Assessing Culture He has found five dimensions of culture in his study of national work related values: • Low vs. High Power Distance - the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations expect and accept that power is distributed unequally. Low power distance (e.g. Austria, Israel, Denmark, New Zealand) expect and accept power relations that are more consultative or democratic. People relate to one another more as equals regardless of formal positions. Subordinates are more comfortable with and demand the right to contribute to and critique the decision making of those in power. In High power distance countries (e.g. Malaysia, Slovakia) less powerful accept power relations that are more autocratic and paternalistic. Subordinates acknowledge the power of others simply based on where they are situated in certain formal, hierarchical positions. As such the Power Distance Index Hofstede defines does not reflect an objective difference in power distribution but rather the way people perceive power differences. In Europe, Power Distance tends to be lower in Northern countries and higher in Southern and Eastern parts. There seems to be an admittedly disputable correlation with predominant religions. • Individualism vs. collectivism - individualism is contrasted with collectivism, and refers to the extent to which people are expected to stand up for themselves and to choose their own affiliations, or alternatively act predominantly...
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...The case does not merely deal with language. It deals with the crux of a company’s philosophy – its culture. In trying to understand how to marry Japanese and American culture in business, both Ken Morikawa and John Sinclair visit Chiba International, a success story in this arena. Before we entail to analyze the methodology used by Chiba International and put forth our recommendations, we will first explain the generic differences between the cultures of Japan and America. CULTURAL ANALYSIS We can analyze the differences between Japanese and American cultures using Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions: Japan Score: 54 A borderline hierarchical society. Business decisions are slow and must be confirmed by each hierarchical layer and then by Top management. Individualism Score: 46 Harmony of group is generally placed above expression of individual opinions. They are considered collectivist by Western standards and individualistic by Asian standards. Masculinity Score: 95 Japan is one of the most masculine societies in the world. There is a strong drive for excellence and perfection in one’s work. Spending long hours at work is the norm. Uncertainty Score: 92 Avoidance One of the most uncertainty avoiding countries on earth. Life is highly ritualized. Managers require all the detailed facts and figures before arriving at a decision. Dimension Power Distance United States of America Score: 40 Hierarchy is established for convenience. Superiors...
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...the increase in communications and ability to reach other countries being cheaper and easier in the 21st century, many companies have chosen to internationalise and expand on the domestic market in order to generate greater profits and become household names internationally. This essay will look at how American born company Wal-Mart Stores, Inc has grown and seen successes and failures in the international environment. It also will look at reasons behind the failures in relation to culture, using the venture into the world’s third largest retail market, Germany as the main focus for the essay. Firstly, this essay will look at culture and some theories that surround it and also look at different dimensions that make up culture. The definition of culture according to the Oxford Dictionary (1992) is: “the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively or a refined understanding or appreciation of culture”. The theory that has been chosen to outline culture is Geert Hofstede’s five dimensions. The reason Hofstede’s theory has been used as an example in this case is because of the extensive research that he has put into developing his theories, as well as its relevance to the Wal-Mart failure in Germany. Between the years of 1967 and 1973, while Hofstede was working at international company IBM as a psychologist, he did a survey of over 100,000 employees in 40 different countries. From these results he was able to come up with four dimensions...
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...the family system or family structure is by far the most important. Inside the context of a family, a child learns to respond and interact within a social context (Feldman, 248-249); begin to understand how others think and reason about behaviour (Feldman, 250-251); learn to deal with the parenting styles within that family (Feldman, 252-254); and sadly, some children experience neglect, abuse, crime, and violence and are forced to learn what it means to be resilient and to overcome (Feldman, 255-258). What Is a Healthy Family System? Barnhill (1979) notes eight dimensions of a healthy family system: individuation vs. enmeshment, mutuality vs. isolation, flexibility vs. rigidity, stability vs. disorganization, clear vs. unclear or distorted perception, clear vs. unclear or distorted communication, role reciprocity vs. unclear roles or role conflict, and clear vs. diffuse or breached generational boundaries. These eight dimensions denote that children have a stable, balanced environment in which to grow and learn. Children learn to interact with family members and with others outside the family unit better if parents provide a warm, supportive environment and strong, positive relationships are encouraged (Feldman, 252). What Distinguishes a Healthy Family System from an Unhealthy One? An unhealthy family system is one in which the opposite in the above paragraph is done. A child who grows up in a family that is isolated and lacks a strong support system could grow up feeling...
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