The Importance of Intercultural Skills
According to Beamer, “The two important reasons for understanding culture are to learn how others make sense of their environment, and to prevent mistakes and miscommunication” (Varner & Beamer, 2010). I would add that a third reason for understanding and developing culture is to avoid making mistakes of the past. Beamer described how baffling a mere theme park or mall could be in different parts of the world. Understanding the culture surrounding the mall in India proved important to understand the many different countries represented. Something as simple a Disney Land did not make sense to residents of mainland China. For example, my grandmother was a nursery school teacher and believed in stories and imagination. I was privy to all the typical American nursery rhymes as well as some of the more unknown ones and the stories brought to life by Walt Disney. In China, however, their childhood stories are very different so having a Disney theme park was difficult for them to identify. Secondly, Beamer describes the importance of preventing mistakes and miscommunication. There are many stories of how important it is; for many international corporations, for their employees to know a great deal about the culture with which they do business. There are many more parodies of the disasters that take place between blundering low level employees who have not done sufficient research into the nuances of the culture. They make avoidable mistakes because of their lack of knowledge. They may make a joke about something not funny to their business partner, or try to attend to business without the appropriate introductions for another culture.
Finally, the importance of understanding helps to avoid repeating previous blunders. Whether it is from the lack of research or understanding, whether it was a small blunder or a business