Culture forms an integral aspect of Australian demographics and it is necessary to know how to understand and appreciate people from different cultures in order to be able to work with them effectively and without offending sentiments in a business setting. This essay looks at some of the ways in which theories on culture can be understood in the Nepalese context, while also trying to understand other essential aspects about culture and its meaning.
According to Trompenaar, culture is one of the most common ways by which groups of people interpret and understand the world. For instance, there are certain products that are commonly available in various corners of the globe and can be bought by customers for a similar if not the same price. In one part of the world however, this product is viewed as a cost effective alternative while in another part of the world it is viewed as a luxury product (Young & Rudin-Brown, 2017). For Trompenaar, culture can be viewed in different layers just like that of an onion. To understand culture it must be unpeeled layer by layer. Every culture comprises of an outer layer, a middle layer and the core. The outer layer refers to what is known as explicit culture. It is the first impression that people have of this culture as foreigners. It implies the observable realities of monuments, houses, buildings, monuments, language, markets, shrines, agriculture, food, art and fashion. The middle layer refers to all the deeper layers associated with a particular culture. As such, these refer to the values and norms of an individual group. The norms essentially mean what is right and wrong, the values determine what is good and what is bad. The core of the culture is by far the most value that people strive for, which is survival. People always organize themselves to detect ways and means by which they can respond to their environment in the most effective way, using all the resources made available to them. For example, Africans have to deal with drought, the Swiss with avalanches and earthquakes and the Dutch with rising water. Solutions disappear from human awareness and become part of assumptions. Different cultures have developed in different types of geographic reasons and because of this, they have developed different solutions to survive and thrive (Khan et al., 2016).
When it comes to analyzing my own Nepalese culture with the onion model, it is safe to say that the outer layer of the onion or of the model as developed by Trompenaar is the view that outsiders have of Nepalese culture being quite harmonious. This is not true. There are many class and caste divisions in Nepalese culture with the higher castes often oppressing the lower castes. When it comes to the middle layer, it is important to note that Nepalese culture is quite a value strung one (Baral et al., 2016). We have strong standards and norms about what should and should not be. Children are not supposed to be disobedient with their parents, girls should ideally opt for arranged marriages and marry into a culture that is befitting of their families and women should ideally get married and have children even if they are working professionals (Seo & Skelton, 2017). The core of Nepalese culture is in my view, resilience (Gautam, 2017). We are a country that is affected hugely by earthquakes, something that has made us as a people very strong and resilient. Even when overthrown or disappointed by mishaps in life we know how to overcome life’s challenges and adapt to circumstances depending on what the circumstances demand (Chauhan, 2017).
ABS Clock provides up to date information about Australian demographics. The central world factsheet gives information about the government, people, history, transportation, communication, transnational issues and military of as many as 267 countries of the world (Bezirgiannis et al., 2017). Both these tools can be used by international managers to successfully manage and control a diverse group of people working under them. The tools will provide them with the data that they need to understand how ethnically and culturally diverse the Australian population is, and, how to best understand and overcome cultural differences at the workplace (Robson & McKartan, 2016).
Theoretically, cultural intelligence refers to the capability of a person to effectively function in situations that are characterized by a good degree of cultural diversity. It is essentially a four factor and multi dimensional construct (Livermore & Soon, 2015). People who have high levels of cultural intelligence possess four key capabilities. Such people are able to anticipate with ease what is likely to transpire in cross-cultural situations, they have enough confidence in their own abilities and are also interested intrinsically in experiencing settings that are culturally diverse. People with high cultural intelligence are able to vary their non-verbal and verbal behaviors as a response to the cultural characteristics of a situation. They also have an excellent and extensive understanding of all multicultural situations (Livermore & Soon, 2015).
In my view, cultural intelligence is a term that refers to the capability of relating to and working effectively across different cultures. I am personally quite global in my outlook to life. While I am of Nepalese descent, I can easily relate to the culture of my fellow white Australians and the culture of other ethnic groups living here in Australia like the Chinese and Indians. I can relate to their mannerisms and cultural traits when spending time with them in public and in private and do not feel isolated, alienated or out of place when interacting with people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
Wesfarmers is a renowned farmer’s cooperative in Australia that is well known for its six corporate values. These are to be outstanding people, to strive for commercial excellence, to empower culture, to encourage innovation, to undertake social responsibilities and to always aim for robust financial capacity.
In order to make myself indispensable at work, I will, first and foremost take up tasks that matter rather doing the type of work that is easy. As stated by Hoover, it is important to dig deeper and think about the type of work that is matters to the company you are working for and its business success. Therefore, I will focus on tackling difficult projects instead of easy ones. Another way, by which I can make myself indispensable at work, is to monopolize particular skills. I will look for tasks that the organization that I am working for needs to get done at the earliest, and I will try to make sure that only I am capable of performing such a task. A third way by which I can make myself indispensable at work is to display willingness to do extra work. This of course does not mean that I will allow myself to be exploited by my employer. I will just make it clear that I am willing to take up tasks and assignments that other employees do not want to do and that I do not have any qualms in putting in a few extra hours in order to get all the tasks accomplished in a timely manner (Guerra et al., 2015).
References:
Baral, Y. R., Skinner, J., Van Teijlingen, E., & Lyons, K. (2016). The uptake of skilled birth attendants’ services in rural Nepal: A qualitative study. Journal of Asian Midwives, 3(2), 48-55
Bezirgiannis, N., de Boer, F., & de Gouw, S. (2017, September). Human-in-the-loop simulation of cloud services. In European Conference on Service-Oriented and Cloud Computing (pp. 143-158). Springer, Cham.
Chauhan, R. K. (2017). Perception and Practices of Academic Leadership in Technical Schools. Journal of Training and Development, 3, 22-32.
Cross-cultural differences in automotive hmi design: a comparative study between uk and indian users’ design preferences. Journal of Usability Studies, 11(2), 45-65.al of Asian Midwives, 3(2), 48-55.
Gautam, B. (2017). Case Study 8: Disaster Recovery through Art and Tourism. In Good Intentions Are Not Enough: Why We Fail at Helping Others (pp. 119-120).
Guerra, R., Gaertner, S. L., António, R., & Deegan, M. (2015). Do we need them? When immigrant communities are perceived as indispensable to national identity or functioning of the host society. European Journal of Social Psychology, 45(7), 868-879.
Livermore, D., & Soon, A. N. G. (2015). Leading with cultural intelligence: The real secret to success. Amacom.
Robson, C., & McCartan, K. (2016). Real world research. John Wiley & Sons
Seo, S., & Skelton, T. (2017). Regulatory migration regimes and the production of space: The case of Nepalese workers in South Korea. Geoforum, 78, 159-168.
Young, K. L., & Rudin-Brown, C. M. (2017). Designing Automotive Technology for Cross-Cultural Acceptance. Driver Acceptance of New Technology: Theory, Measurement and Optimisation, 317
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