Adapting the New Cultural Environment

            Most business organizations become exclusively successful the moment they learn the culture of the surrounding community as well as the one for their employees. Employees in a company tend to adapt a specific way of executing their daily duties, and it can take time to change the way the employees operate in a business organization. The two cultural dimensional theories, Hall and Hofstede, clearly outline the adaptability of the new culture in an environment, and the manner in which the new changes can affect the normal operations of the business organization.

The Geert Hofstede’s theory of cultural dimensions gives a description of the possible effects of the society’s culture on the outstanding values of its members, as well as how the same values relate to the normal behaviors. For the case of the Mike’s experience as the general manager of the company, the theory narrows down to significance of international communication and the essence of acquiring the most relevant knowledge on cultural diversification. Hofstede’s model gives an insight of the cross-cultural communication skills that have to be acquired by professionals who work internationally.

The model suggests that the cultural dimensions mainly affect all levels of communication, which entails the verbal, non-verbal as well as the etiquette. One is expected to learn the new language, the new styles of dining and clothing, as well as the new body languages and gestures that exist in the new environment. In this context, Mike had to learn the new Chinese words in his new working environment because he noted that his managers and employees in the company were used to common words in relaying the meaning of the message. After staying for sometime at Green Villa and at the same time, at his work place, Mike learned that “cha-bu-duo” was a common word used by his managers and employees and the English translation meant that “almost okay.” He also learned that “yan-jiu-yan-jiu” meant, “let’s review and discuss.” His ability of learning the new language made him to quickly adapt and work in his new environment, which proved more difficult to his predecessors as the general manager.

Hall theory expounds on the explanation of the high context culture and the contrasting low context culture. The choice of communication styles reflects much on the expectations and experiences from which the inferences are drawn from. The theory suggests that in the high context culture, there is an aspect of assuming many things and the culture is left to explain most of these things. On the other hand, in the lower context culture, the communicator is always required to be more explicit and the meaning of each single word is not always taken into consideration. Any individual working internationally is always required to adapt the new culture in the new environment. The theory suggests that an individual who moves to either a lower or a higher context culture may essentially need to adapt, as well as well as accommodate the new ways rather than move within cultures of almost equal contexts.

In his meetings, Mike was very observant on how the Chinese behaved and the way they handled their meetings. He was, however, flexible enough to accommodate the new changes especially in dining and communicating. He learned that everything worn by the Chinese people always had a meaning. For example, when Qinlin moved to the podium to give a speech, he was wearing a huge Chinese knot of red silk, which stood for a symbol of cooperation. Despite his flexibility, language barrier became one of his toughest challenges but later on decided to accommodate it by making Feng Chen his close friend. Feng Cheng could translate most of the Chinese words in English, which made him easily understand most of them.

It sounds more challenging to adapt new cultures. However, both Hall and Hofstede’s cultural theories explains on how one can easily achieve this. Mike’s experience is such an inspiring one that gives the best example of the possibility of an individual to adapt the aspects of the new environment.

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