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Cultural Norms And Value
Differences Between Australian & Indian Cultures
Continued
From :
Communication
Competencies In Cross Cultural Settings
Researchers and cultural authorities have put
forth many such differences, differences based on beliefs of time,
relationships, age, gender, face (status), belonging, fate etc. But we
will look at only a few of the important ones.
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AUSTRALIAN
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INDIAN |
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Individualistic: Australians place greater emphasis on the
self, cherish their independence from group. They give high
value to self-serving goals and practices and have personal
control over their choices. They readily accept blame and
take credit. Respect is always earned through personal
efforts. They also believe in doing their own thing and
hence have dignity of labor as part of their normal culture.
So a manager’s wife can very well be a ‘cleaner’ |
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Collectivistic: Indians rely greatly on the family, or
groups, for they are influenced by the group thoughts and
pledge allegiance to the group. Indians even address
themselves in the collective pronoun. e.g. ‘aap’, hum, etc.
A great value is placed on duty and tradition. We respect
people for their status, like elders, rich, high caste, boss
etc. Work and
alignments is derived from group status, so it is very rare
to find a garage mechanic in a family of engineers. |
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For example we may not be successful in selling products to
an aussie if we prevail upon his emotions towards his
family. Whereas appeals to his own benefits will weigh
heavily on him. |
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Whereas many
Indians can be influenced if we urge him to buy a gift for
his mother or other elders. A benefit to the family, or
group can influence their buying styles. |
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Low context
communication culture. Australians rely on language to mean
just exactly that. A direct and logical inference can be
derived from their speech patterns. There’s no ‘beating
about the bush’
For example an Australian will turn around and say, “Look
I’m not happy with your call. Please do not bother me
again.” Here we can see the aussie belief in individual
opinion or self-expression. |
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High context
communication culture. Indian messages are very subtle and
heavy with implications. The decoder has to sift through the
context to understand the underlying meaning.
Whereas an Indian will say ‘Look I’m certainly interested,
but can you please call me later? I’m busy right now.’
Indians like to save face and are taking care of the
collective face of the caller and self, to avoid
humiliation. |
Low power distance culture
Aussies believe in one person as being just as good as the
other, and therefore have done away with differences in
social, work, education, and etc groups.
Thus they prefer to call and be addressed with their first
names rather than titles.
There is very little distance between the CEO and the
cleaner and no intimidating hierarchy to hinder constructive
communication. |
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High power
distance culture
Since there are many classes, in an Indian society and since
it’s imperative to keep them distinct, high power distances
are very strongly adhered to.
For example even while talking to an unknown child we tend
to use the collective pronoun. To convey news or views, we
always follow the proper channels rather than approach the
head honcho directly. |
| As
we can see, it might seem that Australians are rude, and
insensitive, and lack self-control, because they express
their views freely. |
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On the other
hand Indians with their pregnant and subtle conversational
gambits appear as evasive, cunning and underhand to the
other culture. |
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Friendships are preferred with others of similar likes and
orientations. |
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Friendships
are carefully chosen to blend with self-status and part of
group belonging. |
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Australians embrace change as inevitable and novel. |
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Traditions are
adhered to with great tenacity. |
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Aussies tend to deal head-on with conflict and clear the air
instantly. |
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Whereas
Indians avoid, ignore, or tolerate conflict. |
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Aussies don’t bring work home, and keep it distinct and
separate, as part of their lifestyle. |
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Indians treat
work as their god and are involved deeply in carrying it
out. |
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Aussies tend to believe in creating own destiny and are sole
battlers. |
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Indians
generally believe in fate with a “what can I do?” attitude. |
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Aussies can be seen as materialistic with very little
religious input. |
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Indians place
materialism second to their spirituality, more are
god-fearing. |
As we can see it’s
easy enough to list the differences in norms and values of the two
cultures, but the important task is to look to ways of bridging this
gap and achieving competent and successful communication. Some of
the conversational strategies that can be used to overcome these
value differences are.
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1 Approximation.
By this we approximate or copy the other party’s language use,
which includes language structure, accent, dialect, speech rate and
lexical diversity. It enables us to get accepted plus close the distance
considerably. It puts the other party straightaway in their comfort zone
and creates a common platform for interaction. And since we are the
initiators it puts us well ahead of the resulting outcome.
2 Interpretability or picking up clues:
It is the attention to other’s interpretative competence or
ability to understand. As an initiator the agent should be able to
regulate the conversation to ensure its smoothness. |
Agent should modify speech processes, use
other’s culture specific responses, other party’s vocabulary, increase
clarity by changing pitch and tempo, clarifying, and repeating, and
choosing topics which are safe, not controversial for better rapport and
note it for future reference.
3
Discourse management. It involves judging and responding to
the conversational need of others. Rather than sticking to a script all
the way through, which can sound stilted and mechanical, agent should go
with the flow. By thus forming decisions, managing conflict, responding,
sharing and generally facilitating tactful conversation, agent will
always be in control of conversation.
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4
Interpersonal control. It relates to role relations with the
other party. When an agent is a good communicator, she can dictate her
role. What this means is by being in control she can manipulate role
relations to be positive or negative, assertive, dominating, or
submissive. She could swap roles midstream, decide to disclose real
self, or create a persona, all towards greater communication.
As these above strategies for the agent
already in place, there need to be more detailed training program for
the brand new recruit.
1. Passive observation: of
cross-cultural communication in action. This can be real call center
communications, or watching movies, documentaries and other media
productions involving two cultures. |
2. Active strategy of
role playing, reading up on language variations and usage.
3. Self-disclosure,
by sharing own culture and influences with others of a different
culture, exchanging information and learning from the encounter.
Finally since culture is
always evolving and despite exhaustive awareness there might still be
some aspects of others culture that we are not aware of, we need to
ensure a continuous input. A competent trainer can do a lot of different
things. A few are listed here.
1. Proactively customer profile
2. Record or anecdote interesting conversations.
3. Ask call recipients/clients to provide feedback through surveys.
4. Listen to staff and empower them with knowledge.
5. Have group discussions on experiences.
6. Subscribe to periodicals from other culture.
Disclaimer:
The views and thoughts expressed in this article are purely those of the
contributing writer.
Contributing Writer: Lalita Bhalerao
I've a Masters in Communication and have worked in customer facing
roles more than a decade in Australia. November 2007
lalitabhalerao@hotmail.com
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