Читать книгу Going Abroad 2014 - Waldemar A. Pfoertsch - Страница 9

“The first step to understanding another culture is, understanding your own”. This is a very important statement made by Lennie Copeland and Lewis Griggs in their book “Going International”, which was published by Plume Printing in the year 1985 when many US companies were expanding internationally.

Many aspects, explanations and examples given in this chapter originate from Copeland and Grigg’s publication, but they can also be identified in many other publications. Culture does not only exist in a region or a country, it can also be a significant part of a company. A company can have its own “corporate culture”. Two international corporations, Proctor & Gamble and IBM, are cited by Copeland and Griggs as companies whose cultures are defined by “the American way of doing business”.

If we take the “American way” as an example, we can identify strong and particular attitudes and behaviors that are common at work. Certain things are silently expected, others are declined, forming a special kind of “American glasses” through which the world is viewed, interpreted and evaluated. Copeland and Griggs see a fundamental problem in wearing “cultural glasses”. As travelers and visitors to other nations, people are often not aware of the frame of reference they are carrying along, whether it is American or some other nationality. When confronted by people who eat, dress, communicate and generally act in unfamiliar ways, travelers have difficulties understanding differences and are not aware of influences from their own values and behaviors.

According to Copeland and Griggs, “cultures are not right or wrong, better or worse, just different”. Cultures are shaped by their own logic, which makes it hard for foreigners to understand and make sense of it. Anthropologists explain this phenomenon to have developed from the different climates, terrains or resources that peoples had to adapt to in the past. Just like animals, “mankind evolved diverse solutions to life’s problems”.