76CHAPTER 3 Culture Dean Foster and the Business of Cultural Diversity As an undergraduate, Dean Foster didn’t have a clue what “I work with crosscultural challenges in ways that I like to believe change people’s lives.” Dean Foster those who are different and who have less power. The long, ugly history of religious confl ict, ethnic clashes, racist violence, and warfare between nations is one result of this tendency. Therefore, to understand culture more fully, we must inevitably study confl ict, relations of power (a topic explored in Chapter 5), and the domination of some groups by others. CULTURE: CONSENSUS AND CONFLICT People from the same culture may share the same language, religion, worldview, history, and traditions. When this happens, cultures he would do with sociology, but he thought the subject was fascinating. He found especially appealing the basic premise that “we can understand how we work as cultural and social beings and use this understanding to improve our collective lives.” When he looks back today and considers the benefits he gained from sociology, his list is extensive: “My professional career, cross-cultural friendships, life goals, and purpose.” Foster is the founder and president of DFA (Dean Foster Associates) Intercultural Global Solutions. DFA helps organizations and businesses working with other cultures around the globe develop intercultural competencies. Foster spends much of his time traveling to present intercultural seminars, give speeches, and conduct interviews around the world. Describing his work as the “perfect job,” Foster notes that “I meet wonderful people from places I only could have dreamed I would visit and work in as a child. I help deal with important cross-cultural challenges in ways that I like to believe change people’s lives.” When working internationally, businesses must anticipate and address some common differences among cultures. For example, different cultures have various ideas about time. Some value punctuality; in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland being late is considered a sign of disrespect and incompetence. In the countries of Latin America, by contrast, there is more latitude when it comes to meeting times and deadlines. In addition, norms governing appropriate relationships between employers and their employees can vary a great deal from one culture to another. In some countries, employees are expected to be deferential to their bosses, avoiding eye contact with them and obeying instructions without comment. In other countries, employees are expected to be candid with, although still respectful of, their bosses, giving their input on the task at hand. In all these cases, global businesses must understand the cultural norms within a given society—and convey that understanding to their employees—if they are to communicate and work successfully in international settings. and programming in languages such as French, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, Farsi, Arabic, and Urdo. People who live in a multicultural society have an extraordinary opportunity to learn about and appreciate the rich diversity of human cultures. Diversity also brings with it challenges and problems, however, as people with different ways of life attempt to coexist. Unfortunately, cultural difference often leads to inequality and confl ict as groups with more power oppress, exploit, or otherwise discriminate against A cottage industry of diversity training specialists such as Dean Foster—often with backgrounds in sociology, anthropology, and psychology— has emerged in response to businesses’ need for cultural awareness in today’s global economy. Foster notes, however, that when he was a student, “there was no such field as intercultural training, so there were no internships, mentors, or courses of study.” In fact, he first earned a living as a songwriter and folksinger, playing in clubs in New York’s Greenwich Village. By the mid-1980s, though, he had used his sociological knowledge to start one of the first intercultural training consultancies. Foster’s work, he says, forces him “to constantly expect that which cannot be imagined, a testament to the power of culture, and the limits it places on us as cultural beings. I find this is the same kind of challenge that sociology places on us when we try to imagine how is it that we are who we are and behave as we behave. I deal with this question professionally every day.” think about it 1. What do international businesspeople who come to the United States need to know about culturally specific work routines that people in this country are likely to take for granted? 2. In your travels, have you experienced uncertainty about basic cultural norms? What happened? What did you learn as a result?
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