Significance of culture and its dynamics can be illustrated in many ways, as culture is

embedded in a person’s life and makes a person’s attribute different. It is important that

we respect and embrace all culture to have a better idea of how it works. However, culture

is difficult to quantify as it exists at an unconscious level or so pervasive.

According to the article, culture can be defined as values, concepts and ways of

living that are inherited and shared by people of the same social group. Culture, which is

divided by two kinds, the “generic culture” which is a shared culture by all humans

meanwhile the “local culture” refers to symbols and schemas shared by a particular group. It

is not owned by a certain social class and everyone has not one but many cultures which

causes complexity in the term, further culture evolves over time which may cause conflict.

The first meaning “civilization” which involves arts and craft, education and manners,

the second meaning refers to the value and norms dominant in their society which causes

one to think, feel and act accordingly is a broader definition of culture.

Hofstede Geert describes culture as “the collective programming of the mind

distinguishing the members of one group or category of people from another.” To

simplify it, a particular ethnic group that comes from the same social background that has the

same values is referred to as culture. Culture for me is the characteristic that is repetitive of

a certain group of people who practiced a set of norms, values, customs, belief, arts,

language, and religion within their society.

Culture is significant as it influences an individual's life and gives the feeling of

belonging to a society as it provides one with a sense of identity and purpose. Culture is

created by people living in a society which shapes the way we interact and understand our

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surroundings. In today’s organization, there are a lot of International Companies that are

multiculturalism, where people come all walks of life. If you ever call Groupon Malaysia’s

hotline, there are high chances for you to be attended by a Philippines nationally as our

Malaysian line is linked to them. Each organization have their own way or own culture of

how things work. It could be dress code, laws, language, flexible culture or sales driven

culture for an instance, Goggle dress code is casual, a laid back culture meanwhile some

have strict dress code attire, some companies may have certain culture where their staff does

morning exercise before starting work as it is a great way to start work such as in Japan.

Culture has many roles as it represents the society, it molds a person and the manner

we perceive things, it helps one to give priority to what is important. Each and everyone have

different priority some are more career minded, some are family oriented, but it does not

make one individual better than the other. Further it preserves knowledge and helps its

transmission from generation to generation through its means that is language, helps not only

the transmission of knowledge but also its preservation, accumulation and diffusion such as

recipes, remedy, arts and so on. It also defines, conditions and governs ones social

situation on what to drink, what to eat, what to wear and so on, for instance an Hindu or

Buddhist does not consume beef meanwhile a Muslim consume beef but not pork. Language

is intrinsic to the expression of culture and to understand language it is important to

understand culture as language plays an infinite role in culture. It is not only a mode of

communication but a tool to express ones belief, interpretation and concepts.

In a nutshell, culture plays an important role on how a society works and how it effect

organizations. It provides one with a better prospective of life, allows one to explore the

uniqueness of other culture and cultural diversity. “Those who know nothing of foreign

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languages know nothing of their own.” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe), culture has

visible components in the way of how a company should run by goal settings and

communication but it is ultimately the pace of creating, defining and refining a company’s

value is set by the owner or management.

Cross-culture occurs when there is any type of interaction between two or more

people from different cultures or background that takes place, as every human in a society

have their own culture. Even in International companies, cross culture is an important issue as

success of International companies also depend on the smooth interaction of their employees

as most of them are from different cultures. Therefore I agree with the author that cross-

cultural dissimilarities do occur among different cultures.

The mode of communication varies widely between and even within, cultures. Words

and phrases are used in different ways across cultures and the usage of Language is one

aspect of communication, there is also non-verbal communication, face expressions, body

gesture and so on. In other words, there is a natural and vital relationship between language

and communication (Gülmez, 1987), For instance, Indian in Malaysia say “Vanakam” when

they meet or greet people while Muslim say “As-salamu alaykum” when they greet, this is

same country but different culture. Further Malaysians communication style tends to be

subtle, indirect where a person may hint at a point rather than making a direct statement,

since that might cause the other person to lose face. Rather than say "no" and directly reject,

they might say, "I will try", or "I will see what I can do". This allows the person making the

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request and the person turning it down to save face and maintain harmony in their

relationship.

Even when dining, there a different ways for different culture, when your invited to

have dinner in many Asian countries and Central America, mostly it is well-mannered to

leave right after the dinner, when one does not leave, it may indicate they have not eaten

enough. In the Indian Sub-Continent, European and North American countries this is

considered rude, as it indicates that the guest only wanted to eat but do not want to enjoy the

host’s company. Something I have personally encountered when I dine in Malay’s shop is

that they will not take money from you until you have finished your food and drink

meanwhile if you go to a Chinese shop you are to pay upon the arrival of the food and drinks,

this is cultural difference within one Country.

Additional to that, punctuality and respect for “time” is something that most

Malaysians have issues with, we often call it the “Malaysia time”, even for weddings,

functions, the card will state one time but the function will always start at least 30 minutes

later, maybe because Malaysian do not value time or are just have punctuality issues. In

Mediterranean European countries, Latin America and Sub Saharan Africa, it is normal, or at

least widely tolerated, to arrive half an hour late for a dinner invitation, whereas in Germany

and Switzerland this would be extremely rude.

Further, cross culture can be experienced by an employee who is transferred to a

location in another country. The employee must learn the language and culture of those

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around him or her, and vice-versa. This can be more difficult if this person is acting in a

managerial capacity; someone in this position who cannot effectively communicate with or

understand their employees' actions can lose their credibility. In an ever-expanding global

economy, cross culture and adaptability will continue to be important factors in the business

world. “Cross-cultural management explains the behavior of people in organizations around

the world and shows people how to work in organizations with employees and client

populations from many different cultures.” Nancy Adler (2008). For an instance, our

Government recently brought in 1.5 million Bangaladeshi nationalities to work here, plus we

have a lot of foreign workers from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Canada, Indonesia and more. All

these people still have to adapt and learn our culture as what we eat, how we talk, how we

handle crisis, are different.

It’s stated in the article given that Hofstede&Hofstede (2005) studied individualism

and collectivism in different countries. The result was that the United States ranked first in

individualism where parents bring up their children on self-reliance. American children were

raised to express their own opinions and ideas; they are responsible for their choices when it

comes to their college study as well as job choices. This is a contrast to the Asian culture

where this decision is normally made by the parents or overlooked by them, rather than

letting the children decide on what they want.

Based the given difference among cultures, it is a clear evident that dissimilarities

between cultures does happen. We interact with countless individuals in our daily life and we

depend on our ability to make sense on others point of view or figuring out why they act as

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such. Different cultures have different ideas and that is what makes each and every culture

unique at its very own and allows people to see the difference.

Cultural conflict is a type of conflict that occurs when there is a clash between

cultural values, beliefs and behavior patterns, further conflict that may find expressions in

high rates of criminality and delinquency. The word “conflict” is a strong way of

illustrating an active disagreement and carries a negative meaning, hence as of to-date I

have encountered difference but not any sort of cultural conflicts as I have been exposed to

many type of cultures from a small child and this has given me the ability to adapt and

embrace other cultures and be culturally intelligent. (Early 2002; Early & Ang 2003)

defines culturally intelligence as “ a person’s capability to adapt effectively to new cultural

contexts”.

From my early childhood I grew up being exposed to different cultures, of course

the first culture I was exposed to was my very own, Indian and as I am a Christian this also

allowed me to be exposed to other cultures, in Church there a lot of people from different

cultures like Eurasian, Chinese, Philippines, Indonesian and more. I use to hang with an

Indonesian Chinese girl after mass and her family would invite me over for lunch to their

house where they used to cook for me and make their Indonesian goodies and teach me the

language.

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 Further, my neighbors were Chinese and Malays and we used to play together during

weekends and during festive season we use to visit their houses and that was another cultural

exposure for me. At a very young age I knew of the existence of different culture and had

knowledge of other cultures, such as how and when they disagree with something, how they

communicate, how or what they eat and don’t and more. For instance, My Malay neighbor is

a Muslim family by religion and the men go for Friday afternoon prayer’s while the woman

normally don’t go but if they really want to go they can, both men and woman are to pray in a

different floor or area or woman will be at the back while men are in the front contrasting to

my Chinese neighbor, who are Buddhist, where both man and woman can go and pray

anytime they want.

In addition to that, my mother used to babysit a lot of foreigner’s children such as

Australians, Americans, Scottish and more. Eventually we became more like family friends

and I use to play with them very often, go for dinners to their place and have gatherings.

Further, they normally buy us gifts like clothes, chocolates, books, games, movies and more

from overseas, this helped me to gain cultural knowledge thorough multiple channels. I used

to play video games at the age of 7 years. This learning experience optimized my mind

during the process, such as through carefully identifying what is unique about one culture,

analyzing why it is unique, and forecasting when and how you could utilize this knowledge in

the future. I saw the difference of parenting in their culture whereby the children are more

independent, allowed to ask questions, strict but at the same time lenient while we Asian are

too follow whatever our parents say and are not to ask any questions as it is considered to be

very rude.

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 Auxiliary to that, was when once I start going to school, my world of culture was

broaden at a bigger scale, not that it is not big enough, I had a lot of friends in my school who

were from different culture but my best friend was and still is, the same Punjabi girl. Getting

to know her and her culture was different, as Punjabi’s celebration were different, the food is

good, very unique and fun as there was a lot of dancing and I love dancing. I started having

more Punjabi friends as once you get to know one eventually all become your friend. From

then on I started attending a lot of functions and got to know her cousins and we all started

becoming more close. Punjabi is the race while the religion is Sikh, Sikh men are required to

keep long hair from birth and not shave, this is because it is believed that to be one with God

you must maintain the form that God gave you, as hair is one of the many gifts from God,

therefore Sikh man have long hair and beard while woman are not to share other parts of

body.

I have always been a person who enjoys talking and interacting and the biggest plus

point for me was that as I grew up with the exposure I am able to communicate, adapt as I

can change my behavior towards the cultural needs which does not mean that I change who I

am but does change how I express it. Further it allowed me to empathize and put myself in a

culturally different shoe and imagine the situation from their perspective, on how they handle

issues and why as such. Further by being perceptual acuity, it allowed me to be more

sensitive to others and more subtle during intercultural interactions as certain things are more

sensitive to different cultures. “As culture specific content knowledge is acquired, it is

categorized in order to cope with the complexity of the environment” (Rosch, 1975). All

these broad sets of skills have helped me to understand other culture, appreciate the

difference and embrace the diversity.

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 Therefore my experiences with different cultures enable me to develop cross cultural

skills from a very young age through experiential learning by communicating, understanding

and spending a lot of time with them. Further being adaptive towards new cultural definably

requires knowledge inherit for me to understand more. Thus I have not encountered any

cultural conflicts.