How do we address culture in a Globalized World?

Posted on October 4, 2010 by Jeffrey Tobias in Globalization

I thought this was an interesting perspective on globalisation
http://www.fastcompany.com/1689868/bridging-across-cultures-or-developing-a-global-culture-which-way-is-the-business-world-head

Points of relevance are:

  • In a globalised world, culture is usually ignored
  • Rather than flattening culture in a flat world, we should be embracing and harnessing differences.
  • We are not good at working across different cultures
  • Are we addressing the following issues in a globalized world?: individual versus collective orientation, patterns of activity, work habits, dress, language, gender roles, hierarchy, view of time, communication practices, tastes

We have the opportunity to harness cultural differences as we globalize, but I do not believe we are successful at doing so. Large corporates, with centralized practices such as HR, finance, etc, tend to continue to roll out the western culture machine irrespective of location – China, India, etc. The local satellites struggle to integrate  western practices locally – those employees who fail are deemed to be not resilient enough in a global economy.

The opportunity is to harness the differences in culture, embrace and capitalize on them, not flatten them with the western steamroller.