Cultural Detective

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Cultural Detective is designed to improve conditions and productivity in an international or multicultural environment. As an intercultural competence tool, it is designed to lessen stereotyping and improve dialogue. [1] Cultural Detective, while it is a registered trademark of a single business entity[ which? ], it is also a project involving around 130 professionals from various places in the world.

Productivity describes various measures of the efficiency of production. Often, a productivity measure is expressed as the ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production process, i.e. output per unit of input, typically over a specific period of time. Most common example is the (aggregate) labour productivity measure, e.g., such as GDP per worker. There are many different definitions of productivity and the choice among them depends on the purpose of the productivity measurement and/or data availability. The key source of difference between various productivity measures is also usually related to how the outputs and the inputs are aggregated into scalars to obtain such a ratio-type measure of productivity.

Intercultural competence is a range of cognitive, affective, and behavioural skills that lead to effective and appropriate communication with people of other cultures. Effective intercultural communication relates to behaviors that culminate with the accomplishment of the desired goals of the interaction and all parties involved in the situation. Appropriate intercultural communication includes behaviors that suit the expectations of a specific culture, the characteristics of the situation, and the level of the relationship between the parties involved in the situation. It also takes into consideration one's own cultural norms and the best appropriate, comfortable compromise between the different cultural norms.

Dialogue Conversation between two or more people

Dialogue is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literary and theatrical form that depicts such an exchange. As a narrative, philosophical or didactic device, it is chiefly associated in the West with the Socratic dialogue as developed by Plato, but antecedents are also found in other traditions including Indian literature.

Contents

The approach has been used on a proprietary basis by multinationals and NGOs in various locations around the world [2] since 1989, and has been publicly available since 2004. [3] It includes a series of culture- and topic-specific[ clarification needed ] available via site license or online download. A video describes the core process.[ clarification needed ]

A site license is a type of software license that allows the user to install a software package in several computers simultaneously, such as at a particular site (facility) or across a corporation. Depending on the amount of fees paid, the license may be unlimited or may limit simultaneous access to a certain number of users. The latter is called a concurrent site license.

Cultural Detective focuses on developing three capacities in its participants:

  1. Know yourself as an individual and as a being made of influences of multiple cultures – Understand your (own) Subjective Culture. [4]
  2. Get to know others as individuals and as beings made of influences of multiple cultures – Acquire Cultural Literacy.
  3. Fully include, utilize and appreciate everyone involved, with their similarities and differences as assets. Make sure systems and processes support interpersonal skills – Be a Cultural Bridge.

These capacities are developed through the Worksheet, [5] used to analyze the series' 1000+ critical incidents involving people from various cultures, industries and professional functions. The Worksheet is used for real-time conflict resolution and team-building, as well as an individual's journal to analyze one's own life experiences. There is also discussion of values, both from various cultures and from examination of one's own set of values.

Conflict resolution methods and processes involved in facilitating the peaceful ending of conflict and retribution

Conflict resolution is conceptualized as the methods and processes involved in facilitating the peaceful ending of conflict and retribution. Committed group members attempt to resolve group conflicts by actively communicating information about their conflicting motives or ideologies to the rest of group and by engaging in collective negotiation. Dimensions of resolution typically parallel the dimensions of conflict in the way the conflict is processed. Cognitive resolution is the way disputants understand and view the conflict, with beliefs, perspectives, understandings and attitudes. Emotional resolution is in the way disputants feel about a conflict, the emotional energy. Behavioral resolution is reflective of how the disputants act, their behavior. Ultimately a wide range of methods and procedures for addressing conflict exist, including negotiation, mediation, mediation-arbitration, diplomacy, and creative peacebuilding.

Theoretical underpinnings

The Cultural Detective method is theoretically grounded yet practical, allowing for success because it focuses on the differences that make a difference in real situations. Theoretical concepts inherent in the method include:

  1. Culture is a Lens that colors nearly everything we see, say and do, and the decisions we make. It largely dictates how we make meaning. [6]
  2. Culture is an ever-changing dynamic not a static entity. [7]
  3. Intercultural competence is context-specific. [8] [9] [10]
  4. People are complex amalgams of multiple cultural influences (age, gender, sexual orientation, spiritual tradition, education and training, nationality, ethnicity, organizational culture, etc.). [11]
  5. Nationality is not necessarily (or usually) the most powerful culture at play in an interaction. [12]
  6. The value of observation and objective description that attempts to filter out cultural bias and expectations [13]
  7. The link between values and human behavior [14]
  8. The importance of recognizing positive intent
  9. The distinction between intent and perception [15]
  10. The frequency and reasons for negative perception
  11. Bridges between cultures must be two-way or multidirectional for long-term effectiveness and mutual benefit.
  12. Organizations and communities must reinforce interpersonal competence with systems, processes and structures that reward and develop those competencies. [16]

The metaphor of a detective reinforces many of the key approaches and theories of the method and helps those not skilled in this area to quickly grasp the concepts and use the tool.

Metaphor Figure of speech

A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide clarity or identify hidden similarities between two ideas. Metaphors are often compared to other types of figurative language, such as antithesis, hyperbole, metonymy and simile. One of the most commonly cited examples of a metaphor in English literature comes from the "All the world's a stage" monologue from As You Like It:

Detective investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person

A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crime by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads them to arrest criminals and enable them to be convicted in court. A detective may work for the police or privately.

Connection with other models and approaches

Cultural Detective extends the earlier intercultural work of people such as Edward T. Hall, Dean Barnlund, L. Robert Kohls, [17] Clyde and Florence Kluckhohn, and John C. Condon. It dovetails well [18] with other key intercultural competence tools such as the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity, the cultural dimensions approaches of people such as Geert Hofstede or Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner. Significant work called has been conducted on the dovetailing of Personal Leadership: Making a World of Difference and Cultural Detective.

Clyde Kluckhohn, was an American anthropologist and social theorist, best known for his long-term ethnographic work among the Navajo and his contributions to the development of theory of culture within American anthropology.

Charles Hampden-Turner British philosopher

Charles Hampden-Turner is a British management philosopher, and Senior Research Associate at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge since 1990. He is the creator of Dilemma Theory and co-founder and Director of Research and Development at the Trompenaars-Hampden-Turner Group, in Amsterdam.

Facilitator Certification workshops are held throughout the world and are well regarded by seasoned intercultural practitioners as well as those new to the field. Participants can receive graduate level academic credit. Many of these workshops are offered in partnership with the Intercultural Communication Institute, and also in collaboration with International House at the University of California Berkeley.

Coaching using the Cultural Detective method is becoming increasingly popular. A consortium of Cultural Detective authors and users has begun to offer a longer-term "B.I.G. Cultural Detective Coaching Programme".

The company publishes a "Clues to Intercultural Effectiveness" e-newsletter several times a year that includes designs, activities and tips for developing intercultural competence. There are user groups on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Related Research Articles

Cross-cultural communication field of study that looks at how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate

Cross-cultural communication is a field of study that looks at how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they endeavor to communicate across cultures. Intercultural communication is a related field of study.

Acculturation process of cultural and psychological change

Acculturation is a process of social, psychological, and cultural change that stems from the balancing of two cultures while adapting to the prevailing culture of the society. Acculturation is a process in which an individual adopts, acquires and adjust to a new cultural environment. Individuals of a differing culture try to incorporate themselves into the new more prevalent culture by participating in aspects of the more prevalent culture, such as their traditions, but still hold onto their original cultural values and traditions. The effects of acculturation can be seen at multiple levels in both the devotee of the prevailing culture and those who are assimilating into the culture.

Intercultural communication is a discipline that studies communication across different cultures and social groups, or how culture affects communication. It describes the wide range of communication processes and problems that naturally appear within an organization or social context made up of individuals from different religious, social, ethnic, and educational backgrounds. In this sense it seeks to understand how people from different countries and cultures act, communicate and perceive the world around them.

Inter-cultural communication principles guide the process of exchanging meaningful and unambiguous information across cultural boundaries, in a way that preserves mutual respect and minimises antagonism. For these purposes, culture is a shared system of symbols, beliefs, attitudes, values, expectations, and norms of behaviour. It refers to coherent groups of people whether resident wholly or partly within state territories, or existing without residence in any particular territory. Hence, these principles may have equal relevance when a tourist seeks help, where two well-established independent corporations attempt to merge their operations, and where politicians attempt to negotiate world peace. Two factors have raised the importance of this topic:

Intercultural learning

Intercultural learning is an area of research, study and application of knowledge about different cultures, their differences and similarities. On the one hand, it includes a theoretical and academic approach. On the other hand, it comprises practical applications such as learning to negotiate with people from different cultures, living with people from different cultures, living in a different culture and the prospect of peace between different cultures.

The ethnography of communication (EOC), originally called the ethnography of speaking, is the analysis of communication within the wider context of the social and cultural practices and beliefs of the members of a particular culture or speech community. It is a method of discourse analysis in linguistics that draws on the anthropological field of ethnography. Unlike ethnography proper, though, EOC takes into account both the communicative form, which may include but is not limited to spoken language, and its function within the given culture.

Cross-cultural psychology is the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes, including both their variability and invariance, under diverse cultural conditions. Through expanding research methodologies to recognize cultural variance in behavior, language, and meaning it seeks to extend and develop psychology. Since psychology as an academic discipline was developed largely in North America and Europe, some psychologists became concerned that constructs accepted as universal were not as invariant as previously assumed, especially since many attempts to replicate notable experiments in other cultures had varying success. Since there are questions as to whether theories dealing with central themes, such as affect, cognition, conceptions of the self, and issues such as psychopathology, anxiety, and depression, may lack external validity when "exported" to other cultural contexts, cross-cultural psychology re-examines them using methodologies designed to factor in cultural differences so as to account for cultural variance. Although some critics have pointed to methodological flaws in cross-cultural psychological research and claim that serious shortcomings in the theoretical and methodological bases used impede rather than help the scientific search for universal principles in psychology, cross-cultural psychologists are turning more to the study of how differences (variance) occur, rather than searching for universals in the style of physics or chemistry.

Integrative communication theory is a theory of cross-cultural adaptation proposed by Young Yun Kim. The first widely published version of Kim's theory is found in the last three chapters of a textbook authored by William Gudykunst with Young Yun Kim as second author. See acculturation and assimilation.

Anxiety/Uncertainty Management (AUM) theory was introduced by William B. Gudykunst to define how humans effectively communicate based on their balance of anxiety and uncertainty in social situations. Gudykunst believed that in order for successful intercultural communication a reduction in anxiety/uncertainty must occur. This is assuming that one person within the intercultural encounter is a stranger. AUM is a theory based on the Uncertainty Reduction Theory (URT) which was introduced by Berger and Calabrese in 1974. URT provides much of the initial framework for AUM, and much like other theories in the communication field AUM is a constantly developing theory, based on the observations of human behaviour in social situations.

Face negotiation theory theory conceived by Stella Ting-Toomey in 1985 to understand how people from different cultures manage rapport and disagreements

Face-Negotiation Theory is a theory conceived by Stella Ting-Toomey in 1985, to understand how people from different cultures manage rapport and disagreements. The theory posited "face", or self-image when communicating with others, as a universal phenomenon that pervades across cultures. In conflicts, one's face is threatened; and thus the person tends to save or restore his or her face. This set of communicative behaviors, according to the theory, is called "facework". Since people frame the situated meaning of "face" and enact "facework" differently from one culture to the next, the theory poses a cultural-general framework to examine facework negotiation. It is important to note that the definition of face varies depending on the people and their culture and the same can be said for the proficiency of facework.

A culture gap is any systematic difference between two cultures which hinders mutual understanding or relations. Such differences include the values, behavior, education, and customs of the respective cultures. As international communications, travel, and trade have expanded, some of the communication and cultural divisions have lessened. Books on how to handle and be aware of cultural differences seek to prepare business people and travelers. Immigrants and migrant laborers need to learn the ways of a new culture. Tourists can also be confronted with variants in protocols for tipping, body language, personal space, dress codes, and other cultural issues. Language instructors try to teach cultural differences as well.

Identity management theory is an intercultural communication theory from the 1990s. It was developed by William R. Cupach and Tadasu Todd Imahori on the basis of Erving Goffman's Interaction ritual: Essays on face-to-face behavior (1967). Cupach and Imahori distinguish between intercultural communication and intracultural communication.

Telecollaboration is a form of network-based language teaching which emerged in language teaching in the 1990s. It refers to the pedagogic practice of bringing together classes of foreign language learners through computer-mediated communication for the purpose of improving their language skills, intercultural communicative competence and digital literacies. Telecollaboration, also increasingly referred to as online intercultural exchange (OIE), is recognized as a field of computer-assisted language learning as it relates to the use of technology in language learning. Outside the field of language education this type of pedagogic practice is increasingly being used to internationalize the curriculum and offer students the possibility to engage with peers in other parts of the world in collaborative online projects. Different terms are used to refer to this practice, for example virtual exchange, collaborative online international learning, and globally networked learning.

Intercultural communicative competence in computer-supported collaborative learning is the application of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) to provide intercultural communicative competence (ICC).

Interpersonal communication exchange of information between two or more people who are interdependent

Interpersonal communication is an exchange of information between two or more people. It is also an area of research that seeks to understand how humans use verbal and nonverbal cues to accomplish a number of personal and relational goals. Interpersonal communication research addresses at least six categories of inquiry: 1) how humans adjust and adapt their verbal communication and nonverbal communication during face-to-face communication; 2) how messages are produced; 3) how uncertainty influences behavior and information-management strategies; 4) deceptive communication; 5) relational dialectics; and 6) social interactions that are mediated by technology.

Individualistic culture is a society which is characterized by individualism, which is the prioritization or emphasis of the individual over the entire group. Individualistic cultures are oriented around the self, being independent instead of identifying with a group mentality. They see each other as only loosely linked, and value personal goals over group interests. Individualistic cultures tend to have a more diverse population and are characterized with emphasis on personal achievements, and a rational assessment of both the beneficial and detrimental aspects of relationships with others. Individualistic cultures have such unique aspects of communication as being a low power-distance culture and having a low-context communication style. The United States, Australia, Great Britain, Canada, the Netherlands, and New Zealand have been identified as highly individualistic cultures.

African American Communication: Exploring Identity and Culture is a 2003 book by Michael Hecht, Ronald L. Jackson II and Sidney A. Ribeau.

Intercultural intelligence, or ICI, is a term that is used for the capability to function effectively in culturally diverse settings and consists of different dimensions which are correlated to effectiveness in global environment. Intercultural intelligence differs from cultural intelligence in that it is based from the belief in interculturalism while CQ is based from the belief in multiculturalism. The term was first used in 2006 in response to the qualities observed in international executives that enabled them to succeed globally.

Virtual Exchange is a type of education program that uses technology to allow geographically-separated people to interact and communicate. This type of activity is most often situated in educational programs in order to increase mutual understanding, global citizenship, digital literacies, and language learning. Models of virtual exchange are also known as telecollaboration, online intercultural exchange, globally networked teaching and learning, collaborative online international learning (COIL). Non-profit organizations such as Soliya and the Sharing Perspectives Foundation have designed and implement virtual exchange programs in partnership with universities and youth organizations. In 2017 the European Commission published a feasibility study into virtual exchange and in 2018 the Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange project was launched in Europe and Southern Mediterranean countries.

References

  1. ↑ Kris Bibler (Oct 4, 2010). "Avoid cross-cultural trial by fire". Business India.
  2. ↑ Eleonore Breukel (November 17, 2005). "Tools to develop your employees' intercultural skills". Expatica.com. Archived from the original on July 9, 2008.
  3. ↑ Dr. Madhukar Shukla (May 2006). "Product launch: Developing cross-cultural competence". India: Human Capital Magazine. Archived from the original on February 12, 2013.
  4. ↑ Kathleen Curran (2009). "Cultural Detective: A tool for global diversity and inclusion practices" (PDF). Linkage Diversity Toolbox. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 25, 2012.
  5. ↑ Karen Huchendorf. "Building cultural bridges-How to attain a cultural education". ExpatriateCONNECT.
  6. ↑ Dean Barnlund. "Communication in a Global Village". Georgia Tech.
  7. ↑ G Adams & HR Markus (2001). "Culture As Patterns: An Alternative Approach to the Problem of Reification". Culture and Psychology. 7 (3): 283–296. doi:10.1177/1354067X0173002. hdl:1808/463.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  8. ↑ WB Gudykunst & B Mody (2002). Handbook of International and Intercultural Communication. SAGE. ISBN   9780761920908.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  9. ↑ Molefi Kete Asante, Yoshitaka Miike, & Jing Yin (2008). The Global Intercultural Communication Reader. Routledge. p. 219. ISBN   9780415958127.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  10. ↑ JN Martin & TK Nakayama (2009). Intercultural Communication in Contexts (5 ed.). McGraw-Hill Education. ISBN   9780073385129.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  11. ↑ ME Phillips & SA Sackmann (2002). "Managing in an Era of Multiple Cultures". Graziado Business Review. Pepperdine University. 5 (4).CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  12. ↑ DH Saphiere, BK Mikk & BI DeVries (2005). Communication Highwire: Leveraging the power of diverse communication styles. Intercultural Press. p. 24. ISBN   9781931930154.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  13. ↑ NA Boyacigiller, RA Goodman, ME Phillips, & JE Anderson (2003). Crossing Cultures: Insights from master teachers. Psychology Press. p. 163. ISBN   9780415308199.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  14. ↑ HL Tosi, NP Mero & JR Rizzo (2000). Managing Organizational Behavior (4 ed.). Wiley. p. 63. ISBN   9780631212577.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  15. ↑ Stella Ting-Toomey (1994). The Challenge of Facework: Cross-cultural and interpersonal issues. SUNY Press. p. 243. ISBN   9780791416341.
  16. ↑ DK Deardorff (2009). The SAGE Handbook of Intercultural Competence. SAGE. p. 224. ISBN   9781412960458.
  17. ↑ "Robert Kohls; Official, Author Led Training in Overseas Life". Washington Post. Retrieved 2 July 2015.
  18. ↑ Dr. Alena Korshuk, Means of developing cultural awareness, national identity and intercultural communication skills (PDF), Minsk: Belarusian State University, ISSN   1392-0561, archived from the original (PDF) on April 2, 2012
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