Cultural Intelligence and National Culture Impacts

Cultural Intelligence and National Culture Impacts

Cultural Intelligence has become a necessary skill/ability for managers

Nowadays there is greater integration of businesses across borders and is likely to continue due to many factors including the communication revolution, trade agreements, and vast improvements in transportation.  This globalization resulted in a significant movement of people and knowledge across different countries.

Attitudes, beliefs, and perspectives vary significantly from culture to culture. Therefore, to remain competitive, it has become important for managers to understand the different cultures in their workplace and incorporate this understanding into their business processes. Every culture is unique; managers should integrate and utilize this difference to make cultural diversity itself a source of advantage. Managers with high levels of Cultural Intelligence have better abilities of decision making, operation management, conflict resolution, negotiation, and feedback.

On the other hand, a manager can offset some of the negative aspects of culture by understanding the different perspectives, planning involvement, communicating, and aligning personal objectives to the corporate goals; easily said than done!

National culture impacts or might impact motivation, communications, ethics and social responsibility, group dynamics, and conflict resolution.

National culture should be considered when deciding when and how to communicate because speech and non-verbal communications are interpreted differently across cultures. For example, during meetings and negotiations in the USA it is expected that you go directly to the point, in contrast, in the Arab world you are supposed to build rapport, people must get to know you first and build a personal relationship before they can do business.

National culture also influences motivation and work dynamics. For example, in the high-power distance countries, there is lots of respect for those in authority, as opposed to the low-power distance countries where employees are not afraid to speak up and approach managers. Considering this difference ensures addressing the right person through the right channel.

In the highly-developed world, there is a strong emphasis on education, awareness, regulations and law to protect people’s rights and the environment. During one of our family visits to Sudan, my son Bushra five years old at that time, accustomed to the Canadian culture insisted on holding his empty juice bottle for over an hour until he spotted a garbage bin, yet he can clearly see thousand of waste dropped everywhere. Unfortunately, in the underdeveloped countries, there is more corruption and less understanding and appreciation of social responsibility.

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