Course description: International and multicultural issues and how they affect the global impact of technology in education, training, and quality management.
I grew up between Galveston and Houston, Texas. I graduated from The University of Texas at Tyler with my business degree and moved to Orlando for UCF. I work for a company based in Tyler, TX as their technology director. I help facilitate training to small, paper-based insurance agencies to help automate and streamline their business practices.
While I was at UT, I took a course about marketing in China. As part of the course, we spent time in Beijing. In addition to visiting popular tourist attractions, we experienced some of the business aspects of China from the US Department of Commerce office and a small law and accounting firm. From the US Department of Commerce office, we got a view of their experiences working between US businesses and the Chinese government. What I found surprising was it was easy to set up shop in China, but difficult to maintain stability. Often the role of the commerce office was to mediate, usually unsuccessfully, issues where the Chinese government nationalizes US business operations. Copyright and patent issues were also a problem I was educated about. Chinese enforcement of US patent law is not common.
The law firm we learned from in China was primarily engaged in trying to resolve issues with the accounting practices of businesses in China. Bribes and mismanagement of funds within companies were commonplace for their clients. A large percentage of businesses became insolvent, not because the books were disorganized or "cooked", but just because gatekeepers were bribed to spend, take (or not take) actions, or otherwise inappropriately direct the company they worked for.
More important I think was the cultural immersion experiences. For example, my wife and I visited a McDonald's to compare the menu and food with the USA. While the menu, kitchen, decor, and uniforms were all the same, each employee took more pride in their work. An employee greeted us when we got our food just to make sure we were able to find a seat in the dining area. The buns were fluffier, the patties were centered in the bun, the wrapper was carefully folded around the hamburger, and the condiments seemed to be organized on the sandwich. The care they put into making our food was so extraordinary that we even noticed it for fast food.
Beijing is a heavily populated area. The air is heavily polluted, parts of the town are complete shambles, and not everyone has a car. It wasn't until we returned from China where we realized from rich to poor, the Chinese we encountered had very little sense of entitlements. People who lived in one room apartments with a single light in the ceiling, a bed, and plumbing were happy to have a place to live. It was a stark contrast to what I would see on CSPAN about the new Medicare plans that were being debated when I returned.
My interesting fact is my car. When I was in high school, my first car was a minivan by choice and has been my recurring car style purchase since.
My definition of culture is the sense of purpose a group of people have in life. Stereotypes of USA culture say people should grow up, get educated, get married, buy a house, have kids, and retire to a life of cruise ships and RVing. The culture to participate in the culture, the things you do in life should contribute to the success of that family and the business you work for. I believe there are four basic elements to create culture differences: geographic distribution, religion, language, and history.
My knowledge of cross cultural training comes from the orientation I had before flying to China and from leading a software development project with members from European countries. Language seems to be the biggest barrier I've experienced. It can lead to misunderstandings that were never meant. I've heard others cite cultures where something like waving at someone inappropriately or speaking at a time they shouldn't, can be offensive, however I haven't experienced that. The only example I can provide is an Indian family I knew when I grew up that would always point with their middle fingers. They just thought they were pointing and never understood they were giving the bird to everyone who saw.
My perception is the internet has caused not only training, but a large percent of global communication in general to move to English formats. If I could pick one international trend, I would say learning English is the biggest international trend right now.
My goal in this course it to take something worthwhile back to the company I work for that will help them with training customers the company is starting to acquire in Central and South America.
In my self assessment, I said I wanted to be able to take something back to the company I work for to help with training new customers in Central and South America. I got perspective on the troubles a foreign expatriate might experience when visiting the USA. What I will be able to bring to the company I work for will actually be related to hiring people from overseas. I will be able to prepare a set of tips for hiring foreigners since training the existing employees how they could improve their interactions with a new employee, will help the new employee adapt and be more successful.
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A recurring training practice I noticed was a self-awareness goal. One thing I expected to see a lot of in this course was content on specific differences between major cultures. None of the research or our class discussion seemed to emphasize reading pamphlets of differences between cultures. I can recommend when companies send employees overseas they should send people with the best ability to adapt to a different environment, not necessarily the person with the highest technical expertise, as is the common practice. As I said in assignment 2, by getting training participants to know they will have to make an effort to observe, internalize, and adapt to new host cultures, as expatriates, they will be much better off. Experiential learning methods seemed to be the best way to create adaptive expatriates
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I know using surveys or assessments to screen expatriate candidates can improve success in the host environment. An obvious training tip I hadn't thought of before this class is the importance of language training for expatriates planning on making a long-term commitment. The class discussion about the importance of educators in Asia was enlightening. I would have liked to have tried out a cross-cultural training workshop like I found in Delany-Barmann and Minner's 1996 publication from assignment 2 without knowing what the workshop was beforehand.
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This was the first class I actually had to use the university's online, library, journal, search system. It didn't help me with using a search engine so much as it just got me familiar with resources I haven't used before. I also realized during this semester the type of assignments I created for this class can be part of an online portfolio of research. After the end of last semester, the files I posted to my WebCT site were deleted. By putting the files on my website, I can keep them as a reference for myself and for Google searches. I don't think I'm the only person that has finished a class only later to realize 3 months later I did a brain wash of 70% of the things I learned earlier.
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The biggest part of the course I will take away isn't directly related to cross-cultural training. I will be able to apply the class discussion regarding the evaluation of training design with proper linking of objectives to assessment.
Doing the research to find information on cross-cultural training was informative, however I would have liked to had more professor-recommended cross-cultural training advice. Instead of assignment 5, I would have rather had a face-to-face meeting for professor-recommended training. I didn't feel like I got a lot out of assignment 5 or the class discussion.
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Each assignment was time consuming enough to take place of a class meeting to justify the mixed-mode design of the course. I can't speak for everyone, but it took me, give or take, 6 hours to complete each assignment from the time I started researching to when I posted the report. I'm sure I absorbed some information from all the publications I wasn't able to use as references. If the assignments were easier, I would say there should be a face-to-face meeting instead of skipping a class. I would expect if I took the class again to have to do similar research and report writing.
Next time, have the class meet on days where we wouldn't have to miss for Memorial Day. I missed the class time.
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Questions posed during class discussion to use where commonly, "did anyone else find something like that," but think I the most active discussion during class was when there was disagreement. I think tossing more hypothetical and devils's advocate type comments into the discussion would get more people to freely reference their research to defend their thoughts.
The cross-cultural training programs have a common goal, to assist in the acculturation of their clientele; however, the mediums and their individual focuses differ between the training programs. Many programs use a combination of different mediums to effectively train their clients while others focus on a specific medium. Some programs even use mixed modes in order to provide both a classroom setting and online training modules. In addition some programs instead of focusing on the acculturation will focus on the practicalities of the different cultures in order to provide information necessary for survival in society.
Important aspects common to all training programs include pre-training assessments of language and culture, relocation counseling and face to face instruction. Worldwork, Vital International, and VIP all use modes such a role-playing, simulations, group discussions, and games in order to provide their clientele with several different methods which individuals can learn. In comparison, Cg Associates concentrates on seminars and Window of the World uses a mixed mode of online modules and face to face interactions. Some programs focus on the practicality instead of the actual acculturation. This can be found especially in the University setting where the focus is on financial necessities and information pertinent to survival such as health care, employment, and transportation. Universities instead of providing seminars, or actual training sessions provide a guideline booklet to assist in international students arrivals to the new country. Worldwork and Cg Associates differed drastically in their instruction method between active workshops for Worldwork and passive lectures for Cg Associates. Likely, the optimal solution is to reinforce passive lectures with some sort of hands-on demonstration of knowledge.
Cross-cultural training programs also differ in their evaluation of their clientele. Olive Garden sends employees to train in Tuscany and upon completion trainees are required to demonstrate their training by preparing a meal. This is similar to the Executive Training Program in Japan where trainees must demonstrate their knowledge of Japanese language and culture by working in Japan. The Institute for Medical Education uses testing to determine if their clients have acculturated. Multi Lingua uses language tests to evaluate where students need help, then they offer on-the-spot assistance with phrase translation. One of the assignments predicted increased use of the internet for training and instruction.