Culture Shock

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Culture Shock

1 Definition of Culture

Culture as the most complex terms has countless different definitions ranging from complicated phrases to the simple statement describing culture as "the way we do things around here". The widely used definition of culture is that of Meads (1951), "A body of learned behaviour, a collection of beliefs, habits and traditions, shared by a group of people and successively learned by people who enter the society"(Joynt and Warner, 1996, P. 33). Hofstede(1980) created the very illustrative definition of culture as "the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another". Again to Hofstede's option, culture is learned not inherited, it is not impossible to learn new cultural traits and to unlearn old ones (Manz, 2003, online). Therefore, it must be feasible to integrate cultural differences.

Culture has significant influence on the behaviour of individuals. In general, a person's perceptions, attitudes, motivations, values, learning experience and personality are shaped by culture.

The importance of culture lies in the fact that it provides the body of knowledge and techniques that enable people to act, both physically and socially, in the world and make sense of the people and around world . (Forester, 2000, p.63)

Culture items 'above the waterline' include language, food, festival, clothing and dress, architecture and art. Those ''below water line' are much more numerous and include business ethics, values, morality, facial and body language, male/female relationships, family fidelity, learning style, work motivation and employee loyalty(Forester, 2000, P.64).

It is essential to understand and respect the different element of culture if people have to adapt to working and living in foreign culture. With the rapid process of globalization, the individual's ability to adapt to new cultures is one of the most important elements of a...