September Articles 2011

The Articulate CEO

Facebook – The Communication Tool That Can’t Communicate

Why is it that every major Facebook change seems to also be a major public relations disaster? With Mark Zuckerberg, the darling of mass media, considered some sort of business guru, you would think that there would be a little more thought that goes into the company’s approach to privacy, major user interface changes, and how those are communicated to the very people those changes affect.

Cultural Differences – The Power Distance Relationship

The final in our series on cross-cultural communication issues looks at the concept of ‘power distance’. Power distance refers to the way in which power is distributed and the extent to which the less powerful accept that power is distributed unequally. Put simply, people in some cultures accept a higher degree of unequally distributed power than do people in other cultures. When in a high power distance culture the relationship between bosses and subordinates is one of dependence. When in a low power distance society the relationship between bosses and subordiantes is one of interdependence.

Cultural Differences – The Past, Present, Future Conundrum

As we continue our blog series on issues of cross-cultural communication issues one of the most mystifying can be that of whether the culture has a past, present or future orientation.

It is an orientation that can shape every aspect of managerial behaviour and, when the orientations are not matched, the clashes are quite spectacular.

Past-oriented societies are concerned with traditional values and ways of doing things. Tradition is, in fact, highly valued and attempts to mess with that tradition are regarded with a lot of distrust and suspicion.

Cultural Differences – Individualism versus Collectivism

Continuing our series looking at issues of cross-cultural communication we are now going to turn our attention to the ideas of individualism and collectivism.

In individualist cultures, individual uniqueness and self-determination is valued. A person is all the more admirable if they are a “self-made man” or “makes up their own mind” or show initiative or work well independently.

Collectivist cultures, on the other hand, expect people to identify with and work well in groups which protect them in exchange for loyalty and compliance.

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