Getting to Know Another's Culture: Total Points Possible for all related work:

Objective: To gain a deeper understanding of the culture identity from someone from another country.

Directions: You are to interview two people from a country different than your home country. If you are not from the United States, you may interview only one US citizen. You may not interview anyone currently in International Management. This is a significant assignment for international management as at some point if you have not already done so, you will be working with people from other countries/cultures. What you do now to gain experience and a breadth of knowledge will make a difference for you in the future on campus and in the professional environment as a manager, co-worker, customer/buyer, and global citizen.

I recommend using your laptop to ask the questions so you can type responses quickly. Once you have completed each interview, you need to write a reflection piece on what you learned and more importantly what you think it would be like to live in each respective culture. Submit the completed interview and reflection to the dropbox. There is a separate dropbox for each interview and reflection. This is a two week assignment. The first is due by 6PM on TuesdayOctober 21st, and the second is due at 6PM on TuesdayOctober 31st. Each interview is to be detailed and the reflection very well written. When the assignment is over, I will be posting your reflections (without your name) for everyone to read and write an overall reflection on the postings.

Who to interview:This is up to you as long as you follow the rules noted above. However, I would like to see a significant cross section of cultures and would strongly encourage you to interview faculty and business professionals, too.

Do not include the name of the individual you interviewed in your assignment. Just the country/culture and the role of the person (student, faculty, business professional, etc.).

Once the second interviews are complete and posted, I will post a document with all of your interviews. You will then be assigned to review all of the posted reviews. Then answer the following questions:

1. What 10 things stood out to you?
2. Did any of the interviews make you want to travel to a particular country? Why?
3. What did you learn about your cultural knowledge?
4. Why would it be important for an international manager (expatriate manager in another country), to develop an international cadre?

You're welcome to ask clarifying questions.

Get to Know Another's Culture Assignment Questions

1. What are typical foods served in the culture?
2. Are there any typical styles of dress?
3. What do people do for recreation?
4. Do buildings have identifiable features?
5. How is public space used? For example, do people tend to "hang out" on the street, or are they in public because they are going from one place to the next?
6. What is the weather like in your country?

Recognized Behaviors

1. How do people greet one another?
2. Describe how a holiday is celebrated.
3. How would a visitor be welcomed to someone's home?
4. What are the norms around weddings? Births?Deaths?

Explicit Beliefs

1. How important is hierarchy?
2. How are gender roles perceived?
3. How do people view obligations toward one another?
4. What personal activities are seen as public? What activities are seen as private?
5. What are the cultural attitudes toward aging and the elderly?

Deeply Embedded Beliefs

1. How important is the individual in the culture? How important is the group?
2. How is space used (e.g., how close should two people who are social acquaintances stand next to one another when they are having a conversation?)
3. How is time understood and measured? (e.g., how late can you be to a business appointment before you are considered rude?)
4. Is change considered positive or negative?
5. What are the criteria for individual success?
6. What is the relationship between humans and nature? (e.g., do humans dominate nature? does nature dominate humans? do the two live in harmony?)
7. How is divine power viewed in relation to human effort?
8. Is the culture a high-context or low-context one?
9. What is humorous?
10. How do individuals "know" things? (e.g., are people encouraged to question things? are they encouraged to master accepted wisdom?)
11. Are people encouraged to be more action-oriented or to be more contemplative?
12. What is the role of luck in people's lives?