The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges...

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The Basics Convergenc e Divergenc e Communicatio n Ecology Person or Group Perceptio n Person or Group Perceptio n Cultu re Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions Meaning-- culturally relative absolute universal Action Perception doesn’t “happen” to us – it’s something we do”

Transcript of The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges...

Page 1: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

The Basics

ConvergenceDivergence

Communication

Ecology

Person or Group

Perception

Person or Group

Perception

Culture Emerges from self-organization

Stimuli categories dimensions

Meaning--culturally relative

absolute universal

Action

Perception doesn’t“happen” to us –

it’s something we “do”

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Cultures must emerge, adapt and replicate —The Minimum Requirements for the Formation & Growth of a Culture

A problem or challenge to getting needs met in an ecology

People, (or agents, particles) that try to solve that problem

Communication between those people

Lot’s of iterations — in parallel or in sequence — of potential solutions

Over those iterations complex cultures can emerge from relatively simple “rules of thumb” (or values, perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, expectations, etc.)

21 min www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ_9-Qx5Hz4

Blackmore, S (1999). The Meme Machine. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.

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An emerging answer to the question – “What is Culture”We want to speak of 'the feeling of one's own culture and the feeling of other cultures. … The most fundamental fact of ethnocentrism is that things "feel right" in one's own culture. This intuitive feeling of culture is build on sensory feeling, but it resides more at the interface between physical sensation and conscious awareness--what we will refer to as embodied feeling.

Adaptation to culture is indistinguishable in essence from the physical adaptation that characterizes all living systems. … Cultural adaptation also occurs through our bodies. … What happens, for instance, when our bodies experience different spatial situations? If we enter a formal Japanese restaurant, with flat tables, rice-paper walls, silence, and low light, this atmosphere induces in us a certain psychophysical state that is totally different from the one we would have in a typical Italian trattoria. Apart from any preference we might have, we may perhaps notice that something happens to the way we breath. In fact, to fit in the Italian place, where everybody is sitting next to each other and people are talking loudly, we probably shorten the depth of our breathing. We shrink the breath to mimic a necessary shrinking of our body. Shallow breathing is one behavior that we give off as a forming of the feeling for the whole of the trattoria reality. Conversely, our breathing might relax and deepen in the formal Japanese restaurant. The similarity of adaptation (in this case, breathing) that characterizes each situation is … a coupling among the people themselves … people in each situation are – [together] – feeling the culture of the place. By giving form to that feeling with their bodies, they feed back into the network the behavior that in turn becomes the form of the environment … .

(Adapted From: Bennett, M.J. & Castiglioni, I. (2004). Embodied Ethnocentrism and the Feeling of Culture. In Landis, D., & Bennett, J. M. & Bennett, M. J. (eds.), Handbook of Intercultural Training, Third Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.)

In this way, for example, the culture of Japanese Karaoke bars is preserved as different from Portuguese “Houses of Fado!”

Culture is shared way of living in the world or some part of the world

2 min

9 min

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Cultures – Not different worlds …

Cultures – Not “different worlds,” but the world differently

Aswang & UFOs

“A quiet voice, a prickling on the back of your neck, a little twist in your chest, or an uncomfortable feeling” (Yudkin, M., (1990). Intuition. New Realities, p. 30).

If a stimulus situation is ambiguous, it is shaped or reshaped on the basis of our hypotheses such that the content arrives in consciousness in a clear and intelligible fashion. ... Cognition admits no chaos; something is always given” (Poppel, E. (1988). Mindworks: Time and conscious experience, p. 69).

“We think we see the whole world, but we actually see a very particular part of it. … We’re not nearly as smart as we think we are. … Without focus, the world is chaos; there’s simply too much to see, hear, and understand, and focus lets us drill down to the input we believe is most useful to us .“ (Cathy Davidson (2011) Now you see it … 2)

We see what we are looking for … and who tells us what to look for? Our culture gives us the focus from the day of our birth.

Normally our consciousness will not admit uncategorized stimuli — it will either squeeze them into existing perceptual categories within dimensions of meaning or will not admit them at all. And our culture gives us our categories based on what has worked for it to survive … up to us!

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Attention Blindness and Culture

“Attention blindness is key to everything we do as individuals, from how we work in groups to what we value in our institutions, in our classrooms, at work, and in ourselves. … It plays a part in interpersonal relations at home and in the office, in cultural misunderstandings, and even in dangerous global political confrontations. “

“Infants track just about anything and everything and have no idea that one thing counts as more worthy of attention than another. They eventually learn because we teach them, from the day they are born, what we consider to be important enough to focus on.” “It’s also in the nursery that we learned that the world is far, far too vast to be mastered one bit at a time. We need to organize all the stuff of the world around us. We need priorities and categories that make navigating through life easier and more efficient. “ And we detect the feeling of the categories by the people who we care for most and on whom we depend for everything. (Adapted from Davidson pp. 2-5)

Again, our culture

It’s not just that we see everything and attend to some things. Over time we don’t even see them — we can become neurologically incapable of seeing them — the Hebbian principle “Neurons that fire together, wire together” and those that don’t atrophy away (from Donald Hebb) .

“There are worlds upon worlds right here in front of us. And they are nothing to laugh at.” (Castaneda, C. (1972). Journey to Ixtlan, p. 165).

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“… And they are nothing to laugh at.”

“There are worlds upon worlds right here in front of us. And they are nothing to laugh at.” (Castaneda, C. (1972). Journey to Ixtlan, p. 165).

TIME Magazine’s Best Viral Photos of 2011 http://lightbox.time.com/2011/12/15/time-picks-the-best-viral-photos-of-2011/#ixzz1kPA2XJbr

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Culture

“Living” – our perceptions of the world, our actions upon it & the consequences of those actions in the world.

Culture isn’t just situated in our heads; it’s in our heads & our bodies & our world?

Individual versus cultural experience.The more broadly shared an experience the more cultural it is.Awareness of sharing & identification as a requirement?Culture & power!

People with a shared way of living in the

world of the world or some part of the world

Products of those actions

Emergent properties of shared way of living

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Levels of Culture

EcologyOrgB

Sita

Taskb

Taskc

MicroCulture

Organizational or

Relationship Culture

MacroCulture&

SubculturesOrgA

RelC

OrgDRel

EMacro

a

Org

b

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The Game

http://icosystem.com/game.htm

Aggressor Rule: Everyone randomly selects 2 persons - A & B. Participants move so that they always keep A between themselves & B - A is their protector from the aggressor B.Defender Rule: Everyone now moves so that they keep themselves between A & B - they are A's defender from B.

“The Game" illustrates through simulation how simple rules at the local level (perceptual/behavioral/communication) can produce emergence of unpredictable and complex structures at a global (organizational) level without the need to infer leadership, management, plans, recipes, or templates to guide behavior.

As you start playing the game note that changing rules (e.g., for appropriate behavior) and parameters (e.g., population and sight distance) change outcomes drastically and unpredictably resulting in patterns that are very complex and appear planned or organized--but by who!

Note how changing sight distance affects outcome in terms of number and stability of the emerging clusters (or teams). Play with the parameters (e.g., try population=78 or so, sight distance=7).

Note that communication difficulty or cultural diversity, etc. could be functionally similar to sight distance and be sufficient to produce cultural clustering without postulating other social psychological explanations. In what ways might cultural differences in the rules for local interactions affect the self-organization process and hence the global outcomes?

Note how medium (e.g., online vrs f2f) could also be related to sight distance in effects?

How much of what goes on in teams is attributable to leadership or management or previously learned global plans and how much "simply" emerges from relatively simple rules we learn for interacting at the local level?

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MicroCultures & the Ecology

Physical/technological

Environment

Parameters of appropriateness of perceptions,

actions & cultures

Ecology

1.Perception-ecology link2.Action-ecology link3.Culture-ecology link

SocioculturalEnvironment

BiologicalEnvironment

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Communication & the Culture-Ecology Link

Communication Perception supported in Perception supported inDimension closed layout open layout

Voice level Lower in common areas; Lower in common areas & inwhatever in own office. own workplace or it’s intrusive.

Greetings OK when you see others-- OK 1st time you see othersit’s impolite not to. but not after or you’ll always be greeting them.

Entering others’ OK unless door is closed; OK unless some “busy signal”space respect closed door. is up, then respect it.

Chatting OK in any hallway or common Not OK near someone else’s areaworkspace or they’ll be forced to join in.

Talking on As loud as desired if your Lower voice level so othersthe phone door is shut. aren’t distracted.

Use of radios OK in own office. Group consensus necessary.

Email/Web OK OK

Adapted from Steele, 1986

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or HSBC Ads

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUCODUvKbzE&feature=related 7 min

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Contrast “American” Episodes

Smith: Yes, my replacement, Mr. Jackson, will be here next week. And I’d certainly like to bring him over so I could introduce him to you.

Konda: Ah, Mr. Jackson. You know Mr. Jackson?Smith: Yes, we worked together several years ago in Germany.Konda: Ah! Is he a good man?Smith: Oh yes, he is a very fine manager. He’s a graduate of Harvard, he’s

worked for several firms, and his last position with us was a major one.Konda: I see.

---------------------------------------------Konda: You like tea?Smith: Yes, (accepting a cup) thank you.Konda: Yes, tea is good.Smith: That’s good tea. It’s very good.Konda: Ah, yes. Well, tell us all about yourself.Smith: Ok. I went to school in Texas, at the University of Texas, and of course

I’m an engineer; and I spent my last year in Germany in our engineering division. And now I’m here principally as an advisor.

---------------------------------------------Smith: Well, Kahn’s team can bring in some bulldozers and a road grader--

that’s big construction equipment--and we can level the road, and cut down some of the trees along the edge of the road and dig drainage ditches.

Konda: You say you have to cut trees?Smith: Well, yes. I mean, this will straighten out the road. And, of course, we’ll

only cut the trees right next to the road. They’re mostly old trees anyway, and too old to grow fruit.

Konda: Yes, indeed, these are old trees, Mr. Smith.Adapted from Kraemer

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Some Common & Important Cultural Differences

The individual & self vrs the collective as the primary unit of value.

Emphasis on honesty & directness vrs harmony, indirectness & face.

Value on doing vrs being or belonging--implications for equality, status & age.

Emphasis on the quality of the deal vrs the quality of the relationship in making decisions to do business--implications for ritual & the bargaining process.

Preference for high power distance in which bosses make all the decisions vrs low power distance in which subordinates expect to participate.

Belief in control vrs fatalism--implications for uncertainty avoidance, planning, decision making & training.

Belief in high vrs low work centrality.

Preference for monochronic vrs polychronic structuring of activities in time.

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Some Common & Important Cultural Differences (cont)

A past vrs present vrs future orientation--implications for valuing progress, change, tradition & continuity.

Perception of people & nature as independent & competitive vrs interdependent and in balance--implications for valuing technology.

Belief in universalism vrs particularism or rules vrs relationships.

Emphasis on analytic vrs holistic, relational or intuitive understanding--implications for research, education & training.

Different strategies for forming, maintaining & dissolving relationships--including the value on individual attitudes vrs role performance.

Differences in verbal & nonverbal communication symbols.

Preference for high vrs low context communication.

Different conflict resolution strategies and skills!!!

Adapted from Hall, Stewart, Hofstede, Trompenaars

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Some Key Differences in Corporate and National Cultures

Relationships & rules Universalist vrs Particularist orientations.

The Group and the individual Individualism vrs Communitarianism

Feelings and relationships Affective vrs Neutral cultures

How far we get involved Specific vrs Diffuse cultures

How we accord status Ascription vrs Achievement

How we manage time Sequentially vrs Synchronistically

How we relate to nature Internal vrs External Control

Corporate cultures Family (person-oriented); Eiffel Tower (role-oriented);

Guided Missile (project-oriented); Incubator (fulfillment oriented)

Trompenaars, F. & Hampden-Turner, C. (1998). Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Cultural Diversity in Global Business.

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Culture, Dialectics & Thought

Peng and Nisbett assert that, while logicians attempt to identify processes that allow valid logical inference, the information-processing methods people actually use in their daily lives are largely dependent on what the people around them are using — their culture.

Chinese reasoning —Principle of change Bian Yi Lu (Reality is process in constant flux)Principle of contradiction Mao Dun Lu (Reality is opposites--old/new, good/bad, strong/weak)Principle of relationship Zheng He Lu (Reality is connected, nothing is isolated)

Western reasoning —Law of identity (Everything must be identical with itself)Law of noncontradiction (Nothing can be both true and false)Law of the excluded middle (Everything must be either true or false)

Thus even though culture is an emergent effect of its participants, it also has an immergent effect on those participants — the culture's way of interpreting facts is presumed to be the correct way. (K&E 407-408)

Peng, K. & Nisbett, R. E. (1999). Culture, dialectics, and reasoning about contradiction. American Psychologist, 54, 741-755.

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“Lost”

Imagine that your cruise ship has just sunk in the open ocean. Your group is safe on a raft with a good chance to survive. There is still room for three more people.

(1) As a group make a choice from the list below of the three persons you would take on board.

A ten-year-old childAn injured womanA thirty-year-old manA married couple in their seventiesA medical doctorA religious leaderA ship's officerA newly wed couple

(2) List the perceptual dimensions you used in differentiating among the persons to make your selection: For example, "survivability," "ability to provide assistance," or "most likely to benefit from a longer life." Identify the categories within each dimension (values) which led each person to be selected or excluded. For example within the dimension of survivability, you might identify “ woman” because they typically survive such experiences longer.

(3) Now, what process did you use to get this task done?

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Stereotyping

CriticalAttribute

Noncritical Attribute

Usefulness of stereotypingCan aid prediction with critical attributesGives confidence

Dangers of stereotypingPoor prediction with noncritical attributesCan justify discriminatory behaviorOften has a self-fulfilling effect or “prophecy”

Stereotype

Attributing characteristics to specific individuals/groups based on perceived attributes of their social category

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And don’t forget the ecology …Squatting, the ecology of the human body and the left hand

How to Use a Squat Toilet

If you're traveling to Asia, Africa, the Middle East, France, Italy, and some parts of Latin America, you're likely to encounter a squat toilet (otherwise known as a squatty potty). Even though most of the people in the world (and most of the people throughout human history) find squatting to be the most natural way to go, it can be an intimidating (and messy) task if you've never done it before. Sure, the explicitness of these instructions might make you a little uncomfortable, but not nearly as uncomfortable as it'd be to ask someone how to use a squat toilet, or walk away from one with a mess on the floor and on your clothes. Also it's hard at first when you first encounter it.

150 years ago, no one could have predicted how this change would affect the health of the population. But today, many physicians blame the modern toilet for the high incidence of a number of serious ailments. Westernized countries have much higher rates of colon and pelvic disease, as illustrated by this report in the Israel Journal of Medical Science:

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The Three Challenges

Getting the job done by dealing effectively with

diversity & change

Maintaining motivationthe will to continue

Coping with “ecoshock”Our reaction to new people, places,

cultures & technologies

Page 22: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

Ecoshock on the rails

The “Shakujikoen Sardine Run” 1 min

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TUu-0DZD8c

Or, if that doesn’t get you try this —

www.metacafe.com/watch/4183494/the_darjeeling_limited_movie_trailer/ 2 min

Or, this —

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xo219_babel-trailer_blog 2 min

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Symptoms of Ecoshock

Short-term illness and clumsiness from the breakdown of the immune system and imbalanced physiological reactions.

Long-term illness from the wearing effects of prolonged high stress .

Nervousness or unfocused anxiety.

Depression manifested in boredom, fatigue, withdrawal from others, sleeping all the time, inability to get interested in anything, and--in serious cases--substance abuse & suicide.

Irritability and other rapid, unpredictable mood changes, often over matters that otherwise might appear minor.

Fears of being taken advantage of, cheated, discriminated against, talked about.

Feelings of vulnerability to disease, crime, failure, and other bad things.

Narrowed, rigid and habitual thought processes.

Breakdown in ongoing relationships and difficulty in establishing and maintaining new ones.

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Ecoshock

Change in physiological state

from normal

Change instress levelfrom optimal

Performance(Challenge 2)

Motivation(Challenge 3)

Increased unpredictabilitySeparation from familiar arrays – “Homesickness;” “Separation anxiety”

Change inattentional focus

away from specially favored activities & experiences

A change in us

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What I Like to do

SupportedBefore ? Now ? List below activities you most

enjoy

____________________________________ + - + -

____________________________________ + - + -

____________________________________ + - + -

____________________________________ + - + -

____________________________________ + - + -

____________________________________ + - + -

____________________________________ + - + -

____________________________________ + - + -

____________________________________ + - + -

____________________________________ + - + -

Net ScoreNet ScoreNet Score

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A change in us

“At a very basic level, we are involved – that is to say, tangled up – with the places we find ourselves. We are of them. A person is not a self-contained module or autonomous whole. We are not like the berry that can be easily plucked, but rather like the plant itself, rooted in the earth and enmeshed in the brambles. When we transplant ourselves as immigrants get transplanted, when we move from one town to another or one country to another, we suffer injury, however subtly or grotesquely or even painlessly, and so we are altered. … Our life is a flow of activity, and it depends on our possession of habits and skills and practical knowledge whose very actuality in turn implicates our particular niches. No matter how charming you may be, how wonderful a raconteur, if you find yourself in a strange land where a strange language is spoken, you can’t tell a good story – that is, you can’t be what you are.

You yourself are changed!

(Noë, 2009, 69; a writer & philosopher at UC Berkeley at the Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences and the Center for New Media.)

35 min

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Phases of Ecoshock

Contact

Disintegration

Reintegration

Autonomy

Re-entry

Culturefatigue

Back

Page 28: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

The Three Challenges

Getting the job done by dealing effectively with

diversity & change

Maintaining motivationthe will to continue

Coping with “ecoshock”Our reaction to new people, places,

cultures & technologies

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Commonly Described Strategies forDealing with Diversity

Their wayOur way CompromiseTheir way

Our way

RelativePower

People elsewhere aredifferent, so try to do it ...

People elsewhere aredifferent, so try to do it ...

People everywhere aredifferent but our way is best, so try to do it ...

People everywhere arethe same, so try to do it ...

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The Optimal Strategy forDealing with Diversity

Their wayOur way Compromise

Their way

Our way

Accommodationto the ecology by building new

“Third Cultures” or

Intercultural/InternationalMicrocultures

(IMCs)or

Organizational cultures

Otherways

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Skills for Developing International & Intercultural MicroCultures

IMC

Use of a

sense of presenceto identify the necessary,

possible & desirable

Social skills

Communicationskills

Stress-managementskills

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Presence in f2f, online and in virtual environments

Presence & PresencingSenge et al. (2004)

Virtual PresenceDitlea (1990)

Sense of PresenceLombard & Ditton (1997)

Remote PresenceUttal (1989)

Sense of PresenceFontaine (1989 & 2008)

Multiple PresenceLipnack & Stamps (2000)

TelepresenceLombard & Ditton (1997)

User PresenceRiva et al. (2002)

ICP, Beijing, 2004 with Daniel Kahneman

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A Sense of Presence – “Stopping the World,” a wiping away of the “gloss” … a more basic, pre-cultural “contact” with the world

Including necessary

possible & desirable

actions

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Multiple “presences” in today’s world

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Presence & Mindfulness

Ellen Langer describes a state of mind called mindfulness with much of the same emphasis on at least a sense of immediacy — "We can become more mindful and oriented in the present. ... Mindfully engaged individuals will actively attend to changed signals. She and her colleagues have studied the impact of mindfulness — as opposed to "mindlessness" — on a variety of behaviors ranging from business effectiveness to mental health to creativity. Even though mindfulness has not been explicitly applied to intercultural and international "strange lands," Langer often notes the importance of it in relation to awareness of the ecology and ecological change. However mindfulness, as she usually describes it, most significantly involves conscious differentiation of perceptual categories appropriate to the stimuli of concern. Thus it appears a more analytic state than presence. In fact, she specifically differentiates it from less analytic "eastern" descriptions of more holistic cognitive states.

Langer, E. J. (1989). Mindfulness. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 5 & 67 (emphasis mine).Langer, E. J. (1989). Mindfulness. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

dialogin Editor Peter Franklin Mindfulness - and what else it takes to 'do' intercultural business communication (part 1 of 2)

(part 2 of 2)

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Social Skills for Developing MicroCultures

Maintaining relationshipswhile doing the job

Since conflict is almost inevitable, skills in conflict resolution are critical; since conflict resolution

strategies are so diverse, we need mutual trust and giving the benefit of the doubt

Dissolving relationshipswhen the job is completed

Since expectations for relationships are so diverse, we must recognize that “dissolving” them may alter but not eliminate, future obligations; and we must “leave the door open” for ourselves and those following us

Building relationshipsnecessary for getting the job done

Since there are often fewer institutionalized channels for establishing relationships, doing so requires self-

confidence, creativity, timing, and persistence

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Communication Skillsin New, Diverse or Changing Ecologies

Ritual Matching

Information Exchange

Agenda Matching

Language Matching

Context Matching

Perspective Sharing

Social InfluenceEffective

Communication

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Stress-management Skillsin New, Diverse or Changing Ecologies

Eat

Drink

SexShopPray

ShopSuicide

Acceptance

Sight see

Fight

Seeksolitude

Relaxation

GainperspectiveHike

SleepEscape

Exercise

Drugs

Meditate

Massage Anger

Get help

Sex

SmokeWork Read

Cry

Self-pity

Blameothers

Competitive sports

Analyze it

Therapy

Hobbies

Share it

Expanded “tool kit”for new ecologies

Stress-management “tool kit” for home

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The Three Challenges

Getting the job done by dealing effectively with

diversity & change

Maintaining motivationthe will to continue

Coping with “ecoshock”Our reaction to new people, places,

cultures & technologies

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Motives to Go, Stay and Return Again

Collector/consumerConcentrates on collecting

things to bring home & friends, romance & sex

relationships

Collector/consumerConcentrates on collecting

things to bring home & friends, romance & sex

relationships

ExplorerPeople & places

The world & the self

ExplorerPeople & places

The world & the self

ExplorerPeople & places

The world & the self

Family travelerKeeping family together

Family travelerKeeping family together

Job/career traveler$, promotion, training, contacts

Opportunities to use knowledge/skillsTeach or help others

Job/career traveler$, promotion, training, contacts

Opportunities to use knowledge/skillsTeach or help others

Presence seekerImmediacyVividnessChallenge

Presence seekerImmediacyVividnessChallenge

Recreation seekerEntertainment, sports, hobbiesRelaxation & emotional releaseLikes planes, hotels, restaurants

Recreation seekerEntertainment, sports, hobbiesRelaxation & emotional releaseLikes planes, hotels, restaurants

Motivationprofile

OthersThe special treatment & status

To be with friendsTo get away from home

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Motivational Profile of International Travelers

Presence-SeekingExplorer

RecreationJob/Career

Collector/ConsumerFamily Stability

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

2.0

2.2

2.4

2.6

Mea

n M

otiv

e St

reng

th

Motivational Profile of International Travelers

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Motivational Profiles of Selected International Travelers

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Motivational Profile of the COM Foreign Study Students

Mean

Mean

Mean

Mean

Mean

Mean

UH

UH

UH

UH

UH

UH

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

Pres

ence

Exp

lore

r

R &

R Job

Col

lect

or

Fam

ily

Page 44: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

Skills for Maintaining Motivation

assignee’s motivation profile

Skill to pick the “right” assignment based on the

match between the assignee’s motivational profile & the

assignment ecology.

Skill to

adapt an assignee’s motivational profile to the assignment ecology

Skills of attentional regulation

& attentional flexibility

to assure ample time is spend on activities & experiences important to the assignee.

Social skills

for maintaining existing social relationships & developing new ones.

Page 45: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

Helping people & organizations thrive in their World

We need to understand intervention in multicultural organizations in the much broader context of Human Resource Management, Organization Management & Organization Development particularly with respect to the necessities for dealing with dramatic changes in organizational ecologies as we move further into the 21st Century —

Changes in workforce (increased diversity in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, nationality, etc.)

Qualitative changes in the nature of jobsChanges in the knowledge & skills due to new technology, demographics, products,

etc.

Globalization (enough said!)

Changes in organizational design in a “flattening world” (Thomas Friedman, 2006)

Until recently, intercultural training & intervention has evolved mostly outside the mainstream of this process. However, the steps & concerns involved in planning, designing, implementing & evaluating organization management & development programs overlap significantly with those in intercultural training and continued integration of the fields is absolutely necessary.

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Brief History of Intercultural Training & Intervention a

Hawaii-Tony Marsella, Ken Sanborn, Paul Pedersen, Ken Tokuno, Norm Dinges, Gary Fontaine; 1970s

Formerly Experiment in International Living in Vermont; Don Batchelder, Al Fantini; Theodore Gochenour, Gordon Murray; 1930s

US Foreign Service Institute; Robert Kohls; 1940s

UK Center for International Briefing; 1950s

1960s

Army Human Resources Research Office; Defense Department Race Relations Institute (DRRI); Navy Overseas Duty Support Program (ODSP); Al Kraemer, Ed Stewart, James Downs, Sandra Mumford-Fowler; 1960s, 1970s & 1980s

World Bank; Pierre Casse; 1970s

International Society for Intercultural Education, Training & Research (SIETAR), 1970s

Culture Learning Inst Richard Brislin; 1970s

International Journal of Intercultural Relations; Dan Landis; 1970s

Page 47: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

Brief History of Intercultural Training & Intervention b

United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR); refugee processing centers in the Philippines (ICMC) & Thailand (Save the Children); 1980s; US Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) & Center for Applied Linguistics; 1980s.

Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA); 1980’s

Stanford Institute for Intercultural Communication Cliff Clarke; 1980s; Intercultural Communication Institute (ICI, in Portland); Janet & Milton Bennett; 1980s

Global Integration Strategies (GIS); Cliff Clarke, Naomi Takashiro; 2000

Gary Fontaine; 1980s

International Academy of Intercultural Research; 1990s

Asia Pacific Management Forum in KL; Rod Davies, Clarence Henderson;1995

The Delta Intercultural Academy – online growing from SIETAR Europa Peter Franklin 2010

Going further into the 21st Century there’s a rapid global blossoming of intercultural training & intervention programs & organizations – government/ngo/private

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Intercultural Training & Intervention Programs a

Training

Screening &Self-selection

Travel & Relocation

Orientation

The Challenges of dealing with

diversity at home, abroad & online

SocialSupport

OrganizationSupport

HealthMental Health & Counseling

Consulting& Coaching

Organization Management & Development

Community & International

Mediation

Foreign Study & Multicultural

Education

Page 49: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

Intercultural Models & Skills

To be effective in intercultural intervention we must have a good theory or model of the challenges faced and the strategies & skills necessary to address these challenges. For example, the challenges --

Getting the job done by dealing effectively with

diversity & change

Maintaining motivation

Coping with “ecoshock”

Contact

Disintegration

Reintegration

Autonomy

Re-entry

Culturefatigue

Relationships & rules Universalist vrs Particularist orientations.

The Group and the individual Individualism vrs Communitarianism

Feelings and relationships Affective vrs Neutral cultures

How far we get involved Specific vrs Diffuse cultures

How we accord status Ascription vrs Achievement

How we manage time Sequentially vrs Synchronistically

How we relate to nature Internal vrs External Control

Corporate cultures Family (person-oriented); Eiffel Tower (role-oriented); Guided Missile (project-oriented); Incubator (fulfillment oriented)

. Adler

Bennett & Bennett

Trompenaars

Fontaine

DenialDefense Minimization

Acceptance Adaptation Integration

Ethnocentric Stages Ethnorelative Stages

Development of Intercultural Sensitivity

Page 50: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

“Screening” Map for Asia & Middle East

Adapted from the TIBS Screening Program

“Knowledgeable” > 65

“OK” > 50

“Maybe in a pinch” > 35

One point for -

Country

Capital

Population

Page 51: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

Training for Intercultural Effectiveness

Stress-management training

Stress-management training

Cross-cultural trainingCross-cultural training

Culture training

Culture-Specific

Culture-General

Culture training

Culture-Specific

Culture-General

Technical, Professional or

Management training

Technical, Professional or

Management training

Language training

Working with interpreters

Working with 2nd language speakers

Language training

Working with interpreters

Working with 2nd language speakers

Intercultural trainingIntercultural training

Page 52: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

Training Approaches & Techniques

Lecture, group discussion & media presentations

Self-awareness training - Contrast American Episodes and individual & organizational cultural self-assessments

Attribution or sensitivity training - Cultural Assimilators and Critical Incidents

Experiential/Simulation/Role-playing training - Experiential exercises with stop-the-world techniques

Interaction training - Immersions exercises in or outside of training environment

IMC training - Task analysis

Conflict Resolution training - Workplace Conflict exercise

Social Support training - Social support exercise

Case Studies

Massive multiplayer online gaming (MMPOG) & simulations – Urgent Evoke, Opinion Space (see Cathy Davidson (2011). “Now you see it: How the brain science of attention will transform the way we live, work, and learn. “

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Experiential & Interaction Training

Stop-the-world

experiences

Identification of differences in culture and broader ecology

Identification of strategy options for successful interaction

Identification of skills needed to implement those strategies

Practice with skills

An “iterative”

process

Page 55: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

Evoke, swarm, change the world!

This is not a simulation. You are about to tackle real problems –

food securityenergywater securitydisaster reliefpovertypandemiceducationhuman rights

Welcome to the Evoke Network. Welcome to your crash course in changing the world.

What's an "evoke"?

There's an old saying here: "If you have a problem, and you can't solve it alone, evoke it."

When we evoke, we look for creative solutions.We use whatever resources we have.We get as many people involved as possible.We take risks.We come up with ideas that have never been tried before.

An evoke is an urgent call to innovation.Evoking first started in Africa, but it can happen anywhere.

www.urgentevoke.com/page/how-to-play 1:30 min

The evoke blog – blog.urgentevoke.net/

Developed by the World Bank Institute, the learning and knowledge arm of the World Bank Group, and directed by alternate reality game master Jane McGonigal.

Page 56: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

Opinion Space

3 min

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Key Training Concerns

• Who should receive training?

• When should training be provided?

• How long should the training be?

• Where should training take place?

• Who should provide training?

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F(1) 2 [ ] A(5) 4 [ ] B(5) 1 [ ] F(2) 4 [ ] E(2) 5 [ ]

--------- [ ] --------- [ ] --------- [ ] --------- [ ] --------- [ ]

E(2) 5 [ ] D(1) 2 [ ] E(3) 2 [ ] D(3) 3 [ ] F(1) 2 [ ]

--------- [ ] --------- [ ] --------- [ ] --------- [ ] --------- [ ]

C(5) 5 [ ] C(1) 1 [ ] F(4) 1 [ ] D(5) 1 [ ] C(5) 5 [ ]

--------- [ ] --------- [ ] --------- [ ] --------- [ ] --------- [ ]

F(3) 3 [ ] C(3) 3 [ ] B(1) 2 [ ] B(2) 5 [ ] F(3) 3 [ ]

--------- [ ] --------- [ ] --------- [ ] --------- [ ] --------- [ ]

A(3) 5 [ ] A(4) 2 [ ] C(4) 4 [ ] A(2) 3 [ ] A(3) 5 [ ]

--------- [ ] --------- [ ] --------- [ ] --------- [ ] --------- [ ]

A1A2 Exercise

Correct responseYour

command

Score + or -Partner’s turn

Figure Grid

Response Grid

Page 59: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

Out of our heads

"Traditional approaches to vision have tended to supposed that vision happens in us. It is a phenomenon of the retina and structures in the brain. ... I want to point out what ought to be entirely obvious anyway, that seeing is, in many ways, a bodily activity. Seeing involves moving the eyes and head and body. More important, movements of your eyes or your head or your body actively produces changes in sensory stimulation to your eyes. Or, put differently, how things look depends, in subtle and fine-grained ways, on what you do. Approach an object and it looks in your visual field. Now turn away: it leaves your field of view. Now shut your eyes: it is gone. Walk around the object and its profile changes. It these and many other ways, there are patterns of dependence between simple sensory stimulation on the one hand and your own bodily movement on the other. It should be clear that a central task for ay perceiving organism is to master these dynamic patterns of sensory stimulation and movement. ... According to this sensorimotor, enactive, or actionist approach, seeing is not something that happens in us. It is not something that happens to us or in our brains. It is something we do." 59-60“Consciousness of the world around us is something that we do: we enact it, with the world's help, in our dynamic living activities. It is not something that happens in us. 64

Noë, Alva. (2009). Out of our heads: Why you are not your brain and other lessons from the Biology of Consciousness. NY: Hill & Wang.

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Out of our heads

"Traditional approaches to the mind in cognitive science have failed to appreciate the importance of habit, for they start from the assumption that the really interesting thing about us human beings is that we are very smart. We are deliberators, we are propositional, we use reason. We perceive, we evaluate, we plan, we act. We are the rational animal. This idea has roots in Plato's view that the rightly ordered person subordinates emotions to reason. A similar picture can be found in Descartes, who insisted that each of us has an intellectual responsibility to call into doubt even our most mundane beliefs ... and to rebuild our system of knowledge piece by piece from the ground up. Descartes seems to have thought that we could, at least in principle, achieve in this way a sort of perfect rational mastery over our world conception. What these views have in common--and what they have bequeathed to cognitive science--is the idea that we are, in our truest nature, thinkers." 98 But from an emerging biological, evolutionary, connectionist, actionist, paradigm we are primarily doers, not thinkers, and we do things in the context of our environment.

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Out of our heads

"The mutual interdependence of organism and environment is exemplified in the existence of the path or trail. Trails are made by the very act of walking: our movements pat down the earth and sweep aside rocks and vegetation. Once the trail has come to be, it is difficult to avoid using it. We travel along grooves that our own repeated action has made for us: the paths we take are well-worn because we take them every day, and we take them in part because, being so well-worn, they are the paths of least resistance and also because of venturing off the beaten path demands more work, and even risk. Just as the trickle of water creates a groove that, once existent, will attract over greater quantities, of water to it, so our own locomotion changes the ground itself and constrains our subsequent actions.Most of us live in cities. But what is city but a highly fortified structure of well-beaten trails and paths of least resistance? ... Our possible movements are now laid down once and for all in concrete. ... It is also worthwhile to avoid the romantic idea that there is freedom only outside the city. The hiker would be well advised to keep to the trails unless she is able to fend for herself.Here is an exercise: Plot the course of your movements on a map for the next month. If you are like most people, then you will find at the end of the month that certain routes are blackened out through repetition; here and there, occasionally, a thin line will sprout off the thick rope of daily routine. Vast stretches of your hometown are never visited. So predictable is our adherence to familiar routes it is almost as if, like the water rushing along in the bed of a stream, we have no choice at all. What fixes our course? Are we so unimaginative that we don't even consider altering our journey?The riverbed of habit makes travel along certain lines safe and reliable, efficient and easy. Have you ever go on vacation in a new city and found that, after the first day, your movements tend to be confined to certain tried and tested routes? You use the same train station and change your money at the same bank; you take breakfast in the same cafe. Trying something new is always risky; by relying on what has been tested, we save our energy for the excursions that count the most ... ." 122-123. [So 2 reasons for returning to the same restaurant when traveling--(1) it's easier and less risky, if it was good, then trying other ones, and (2) it provides a certain familiar, repetitive setting in which connections can be made with others]

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Out of our heads

"As with cities and transportation, so with thinking, reading, conversation, friendship, and politics. We travel along familiar paths of thought and intellectual exploration not because we are lazy but because we must. It is almost impossible to bat a path through thickets and brambles; if we want to go someplace and do something, we have to stick to the path. And so it is with our intellectual lives. The paths we lay down are paved with the skills needed to move forward. ... The challenge ... is to make something new that is comprehensible; to be comprehensible it must already be, in a way, at least partly, old." 123-124

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Out of our heads

"It does not seem to us perceivers as if the brain builds up an internal model of the world [a typical vision science view], rather, it seems to us as if the world is here and we are here in it. When I look out the window, it doesn't seem to me as if all the environmental detail is represented in my consciousness; rather, the detail seems to me to be there, in the garden, past the fence, across the street. If I want to describe what I see, I turn my attention not to my internal model but to the world. What I see is never the content of a mental snapshot; the world does not seem to be reproduced inside me. Rather--and this is the key--the world seems available to me. What guarantees its availability is, first of all, its actually being here, and second, my possessing the skills needed to gain access to it. I gather the detail as I need it by turning my head or shifting my attention. Granted, I do have a sense now that the entire scene is present; it doesn't seem to me as if the scene is brought into being by the fact that now I am looking at it. But what explains this is that although I don't now represent all the detail at once, I do have access to all the detail--and moreover, in some basic, practical way, I know that I do. ... So vision science--even the new, radically skeptical vision science--has been barking up the wrong tree. There is no need to explain how the brain makes it the case that we have all the detail in consciousness at once, because we don't. And it doesn't even seem to us as if we do! ... The world doesn't show up for me as present all at once in my mind. It shows up as within reach, as more or less nearby, as more or less present." 140-141"Seeing is an activity of exploring the world, one that depends on the world and on the full character of our embodiment. Far from its being the case that the world is a grand illusion, we find that we are at home in the world, that we are of it. Perceptual consciousness arises from our entanglement with it." 146

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Out of our heads

"The central claim of this book is that the brain is not, on its own, a source of experience or cognition. Experience and cognition are not bodily by-products. What gives the living animal's states their significance is the animal's dynamic engagement with the world around it." 165"We are out of our heads. We are in the world and are of it. We are patterns of active-engagement with fluid boundaries and changing components. We are distributed." 183"The substrate of our lives, and of our conscious experience, is the meaningful world in which we find ourselves. The broader world, and the character of our situation in it, is the raw material of a theory of conscious life. The brain plays a starring role in the story, to be sure. But the brain's job is not to 'generate' consciousness. Consciousness isn't that kind of thing. It isn't a thing at all. The brain's job is to enable us to carry on as we do in relation to the world around us. Brain, body, and world--each plays a critical role in making us the kind of beings we are." 184"As we move forward, then, we will appreciate that the foundations of consciousness are not distinctively neural. Insofar as we seek to understand the brain basis o experience, we will ask how the brain subserves our dynamic transactions with the world around us. We will keep the whole organism in focus and will think of the nervous system in the context of its normal embodiment. The developmental and evolutionary perspectives will be paramount, and we will pay close attention to the comparison of different species of animal. Just we do not draw such an impermeable boundary around the brain, we will not draw such a boundary around the individual organism itself. The environment of the organism will include not only the physical environment but also the habitat, including, sometimes, the cultural habitat of the organism." 185 [i.e., the ecology!]

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The Ecology of Global Assignments

Historical

Political & MacroEconomic

Background

SimilaritiesDifferences

Task

specifics

A different

Place

Less

Support

Harder to

Communicate

Takes more

Time

New

People

Complex

Travel

Less

Structure

Cosmopolitan vrs provincial destination

Short vrs long term

assignment

Giving vrs exchanging vrs

getting role

Available technologies

F2f vrs gdts

Higher

“Sense of Presence”

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International Roles

Senior Executives

International Assignees

International Business Travelers

Home Office Staff

Global

Managers

Host-Country

Counterparts

Adapted from Wederspahn 2000

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Key Areas of Cultural Difference in International Business

Communication

Rewards

Values

Appearance

Eating Habits

Time

Relationships

Management Process

Adapted from Harris & Moran

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Means on Work-related Perceptions b

Power UncertaintyDistance Avoidance Individualism “Masculinity”

Philippines 94 Greece 112 USA 91 Japan 95Mexico 81 Portugal 104 Australia 90 Austria 79Venezuela 73 Belgium 94 GB 89 Venezuela 73India 77 Japan 92 Canada 80 Italy 70Singapore 74 Peru 87 Netherlds 80 Switzerld 70Brazil 69 France 86 New Zeald 79 Mexico 69Hong Kong68 Chile 86 Italy 76 Ireland 68France 68 Spain 86 Belgium 75 GB 66Colombia 67 Argentina 86 Denmark 74 Germany 66Turkey 66 Turkey 85 Sweden 71 Philippines 64USA 40 USA 46 USA 62Ireland 28 Ireland 35 Taiwan 17 Finland 26New Zeald 22 HK 29 Peru 16 Denmark 16Denmark 18 Sweden 29 Pakistan 14 Netherlds 14Israel 13 Denmark 23 Colombia 13 Norway 8Austria 11 Singapore 8 Venezuela 12 Sweden 6

Confucian Work Dynamism (Michael Bond) differentiates between a long-term orientation to life and valuing persistence, status differences, sense of shame (China, Japan, South Korea, India) and a short-term orientation to life valuing tradition, personal steadiness, reciprocity, and face (Pakistan, Nigeria, Philippines, Canada, UK, US).

Adapted from Hofstede http://www.geerthofstede.nl/

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Some selected cultural differences reviewed

Power Distance

UncertaintyAvoidance

Individualism

“Masculinity”

Confucian Work Dynamism

The individual & self vrs the collective as the primary unit of value.

Emphasis on honesty & directness vrs harmony, indirectness & face.

Value on doing vrs being or belonging--implications for equality, status & age.

Emphasis on the quality of the deal vrs the quality of the relationship in making decisions to do business--implications for ritual & the bargaining process.

Preference for high power distance in which bosses make all the decisions vrs low power distance in which subordinates expect to participate.

Belief in control vrs fatalism--implications for uncertainty avoidance, planning, decision making & training.

Belief in high vrs low work centrality.

Preference for monochronic vrs polychronic structuring of activities in time.

A past vrs present vrs future orientation--implications for valuing progress, change, tradition & continuity.

Perception of people & nature as independent & competitive vrs interdependent and in balance--implications for valuing technology.

Belief in universalism vrs particularism or rules vrs relationships.

Emphasis on analytic vrs holistic, relational or intuitive understanding--implications for research, education & training.

Different strategies for forming, maintaining & dissolving relationships--including the value on individual attitudes vrs role performance.

Differences in verbal & nonverbal communication symbols.

Preference for high vrs low context communication.

Different conflict resolution strategies and skills!!!

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Some Key Bases of Differences in Corporate and National Cultures

Relationships & rules Universalist vrs Particularist orientations.

The Group and the individual Individualism vrs Communitarianism

Feelings and relationships Affective vrs Neutral cultures

How far we get involved Specific vrs Diffuse cultures

How we accord status Ascription vrs Achievement

How we manage time Sequentially vrs Synchronistically

How we relate to nature Internal vrs External Control

Corporate cultures Family (person-oriented); Eiffel Tower (role-oriented);

Guided Missile (project-oriented); Incubator (fulfillment oriented)

Trompenaars, F. & Hampden-Turner, C. (1998). Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Cultural Diversity in Global Business.

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A Tale of "O"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p56b6nzslaU 9:31 min

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Service Delivery to Multicultural Communities

Intercultural problems in service delivery to multicultural communities typically occur within three types of relationships —

Provider system — community interaction

Provider professional — client interaction

Interaction within the provider system

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Health, Mental Health & Counseling Services

Dimensions of cultural difference —

The definition of healthThe causes of health problems — four basic etiologies —

SorceryBreach of tabooLoss of soulDemon (the biomedical model)

The objective of intervention (treatment)The person(s) responsible for interventionThe intervention approach

Typical western biomedical approach —

Active, intervening, "curing" counselor roleConfrontation with problemVerbalization of problem (directed or non-directed)Analysis of problem and causePresenting solution(s)Focus on self and individual level of analysisEmpathy

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Criminal Justice Services

Areas of cultural difference—

What is a crime (and separation of civil from criminal)

What is appropriate punishment (banishment, shame, confinement, monetary, corporal, capital)

Who administers justice (authority, family, peers, system)

Basic assumptions (innocent or guilty)

Criteria of guilt

Actus reas (illegal act)Mens rea (guilty mind)

Potential defenses

Incompetence defenseInsanity defenseCultural excuse

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Culture & the CJSCase Study 1

Kong Muoa, a Hmong tribesman from the hills of Laos, immigrated to the USA and traveled to Fresno City College in California looking for his intended bride who had immigrated several years earlier. When he located her at her job in the student finance center, he spirited her away to his cousin’s house. Kong Muoa called it zij poj niam, or “marriage by capture” (a Hmong marital custom). His “bride,” also a Hmong but more assimilated into American culture, and the prosecutor called it kidnapping and rape. Should Kong Muoa be found guilty of those charges and, if so, what should be the sentence?

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Culture & the CJSCase Study 2

Maria, a Mexican born woman living in Los Angeles, was accused of child abuse after she disciplined her 15-year-old son by beating him with a wooden spoon and biting him as punishment for taking money from her purse. She argued that what she did was acceptable discipline in Mexico. Should Maria be found guilty of that charge and, if so, what should be the sentence?

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Culture & the CJSCase Study 3

Taky Traore and Oura Dacoure, both 31-year-old immigrants from the West African state of Mali, admitted paying another woman $30 each to cut genital parts from their 3-year-old daughters in Seattle. On the witness stand accused of child abuse and with the help of a Malian translator, they said they were only conforming to the ancient tradition of “female circumcision,” something they had undergone, as had their mothers and grandmothers before them. Should they be found guilty of that charge and, if so, what should be the sentence?

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Studying abroad

A long process (at least one semester class)A new life

Change of homeChange of friendsChange of identity

Change of nameChange of personality (change the way you act or behave)Change of look (the way you dress, make up)

Change of attitude

The way you see things around youThe way you see yourself

(Gill, S. (2007). Overseas students’ intercultural adaptation as intercultural learning: a transformative framework. Compare, 37(2), 167-183.)

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Multicultural Classrooms

teachers

domestic studentsinternational students

? ? ? ?Differences in verbal & non-verbal communication & academic writing

Expectations for interaction in the class

Some prefer to be in their own cultural group

Timeliness in class

& assignment

deadlines

Expectation is often that they

are the expert on their country

Differences in

grading systems

Respect for

teachers shown

in different ways

What is acceptable discipline?

Use of cell phones, iPads, laptops & internet inside & outside class

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Cultural Differences in Educational Values & Practice

Power Distance (the structure of authority in the classroom)

High: Stress on knowledge or wisdom of faculty students expected to listen & learn.Low: Stress on inquiry and reasoning skills of students students expected to participate in questioning and discussion.

Uncertainty Avoidance (the structure of activity in the classroom)

High: Value multiple choice and true-false exams.Low: Value essay exams.

Individualism & Collectivism in the classroom

High Individualism: Students "speak up" in large classes & value education for the knowledge and skills provided.High Collectivism: Students "speak up" in small groups & value education for the diploma or networking.

Masculinity (or work centrality in the classroom)

High: Students expected to engage in learning activities outside class.Low: Most learning expected to take place in class.

Page 81: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

Culture Shock in Studying abroad

The International student experience…Columbia Business School Orientation, January 2008

Part 1 8 min

Part 2 5 min

Part 3 7 min

Part 4 4 min

Part 5 6 min

Page 82: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

The Classroom as a Microcosm of Society

The hijab in school http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWta4xB4gQ0

19 min

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Cultures & Kids & Swarming

I didn't place the topic of intercultural marriage last in our look at the specific contexts of intercultural interaction because it is least important. In fact — as research in "Culture, Self-Organization and Swarm Intelligence" suggest — it is by far the most important topic from the perspective of your culture & our species.

The most important contribution you can ever make to both is to have babies and raise them as you believe best. That's the primary reason your culture or your species needs you.

The essence of your culture’s & your species' survival is to evolve by continually adapting to a changing world by merging what has worked best for you in the past & what has worked for your best neighbors — that's what “swarm intelligence” is all about. In that context, both continuity & diversity in producing and socializing kids play a pivotal, but complex and sensitive role.

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Intercultural Marriage a

“Happy Talk” & “The Joy Luck Club” & “Crossing the Line”

… and … 11.4 min

55 min

Dinner 3 min

5 min

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Intercultural Marriage b

Sensitivity & history of topic

Benefits of research

Definitions of “intercultural” marriage & implications for frequency

Stability of relationships

Common intracultural motives for marriage—

ParentsPregnancyAffectChildrenConformityCompanionship

Demographics as explanations for intercultural marriage--group size, sex ratio, proximity & opportunity

Psychological motives for intercultural marriage

Utilitarian--money, culture learning, culture access, etc.RebellionIncest tabooDeviant socializationMarginality--in value or in valuesRelationship freedomAdventure/exploration/diversity/heightened sense of presence

Relationship dynamics, Marital problem areas & Conflict resolution

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Key Potential Marital Problem Areas

Marital goals (What are the motives? Individual vs relationship centered?)

Decisions (Who makes decisions over what? How?)

Children (How many? Who's responsible for rearing?)

Money (How saved? Where spent? Who manages?)

Cooking & housekeeping (Who? What?)

Sex (How? How often? Who initiates? Who responds? What's it mean?)

Extended family (Importance? Residence? Roles?)

Work (Who works? Where? How work centered?)

Lifestyle (Homebound? Social & Entertainment? Travel?)

Conflict resolution (Direct, confrontative vs avoiding, mediated?)

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Marital Conflict

ConflictSymptoms:

Confrontations, discussions, arguments & fightsDirect & indirect hostility

Solutions:Changes in organizational, relationship or microculture

Ignorance of ConflictSymptoms:

Lack of synchrony, responsiveness & enthusiasmSolutions:

Increased sense of presence & improved perspective sharing

Ambiguity in Attributing Conflict Symptoms:

Problem solving difficultiesThreats to relationship stability

Solutions:Maintaining motivation

Tolerance & trust in affect or intentionsStress management

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Workplace Conflict Exercise

A good boss should be--

strong, decisive, and firm but fair. He/she should be protective, generous, and indulgent to loyal subordinates.

impersonal and correct, avoiding the exercise of authority for his/her own advantage. He/she should demand from subordinates only that which is required by the formal system.

egalitarian and influenceable in matters concerning the task.

responsive to the personal needs and values of others. He/she should provide satisfying work opportunities for subordinates.

3Your

partner’srank

2Your

rank of partner

1Yourrank 3 - 1

3 - 2

Attribution Conflict Score (total of 3 -1; range 0 to 56) = Ignorance of Attribution Conflict Score (total of 3 - 2; range 0 to 56) =

 Adapted from C.B. Handy, Understanding organizations. Penguin Books.

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The Basics

ConvergenceDivergence

Communication

Ecology

Person or Group

Perception

Person or Group

Perception

Culture Emerges from self-organization

Stimuli categories dimensions

Meaning--culturally relative

absolute universal

Action

Perception doesn’t“happen” to us –

it’s something we “do”

Page 91: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

Culture, Self-Organization and Swarm Intelligence

Gary FontaineSchool of Communications, University of Hawaii

[email protected]

Page 92: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

A Story about the Fireflies

"Imagine a tree thirty-five to forty feet high ... with a firefly on every leaf and all the fireflies flashing in perfect unison at the rate of about three times in two seconds, the tree being in complete darkness between the flashes. Imagine a dozen such trees standing close together along the river's edge with synchronously flashing fireflies on every leaf. Imagine a tenth of a mile of river front with an unbroken line of ... trees with fireflies on every leaf flashing in synchronism, the insects on the trees at the ends of the line acting in perfect unison with those in between. Then, if one's imagination is sufficiently vivid, he may form some conception of this amazing spectacle" (Smith, 1935).

Photo from the 2007 National Georgraphic article by Peter Miller that led to “The Smart Swam.” //ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/07/swarms/swarms-photography

Steven Strogatz on syncwww.ted.com/talks/steven_strogatz_on_sync.html

(2:45-10:08)

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And the Termites"Some of the largest and most sophisticated of all animal structures are the mounds built by African termites, the fungus growers. These castles of clay, relative to the individual termites that helped build them, are air-conditioned skyscrapers immensely larger and arguably more sophisticated than the vast majority of human buildings."

"These termites are able to build elaborate domed structures that are begun as pillars; in the course of building, the pillars are tilted toward one another until their tops touch and they form an arch. Connecting arches results in the typical dome. As it is frequently remarked that the invention of the arch was a major milestone in the development of the architecture of civilized man, we might wonder how in the world a swarm of simple-minded termites could accomplish the feat.

If we were building an arch, we would start with a plan, that is, a central representation of the goal and the steps leading to it. Then, as the work would probably require more than one person …, a team of workers would be organized, with the architect or someone who understands the plan supervising the laborers, telling them where to put materials, controlling the timing of the ascension of the two pillars and their meeting. We are so dependent on centralized control of complex functions that it is sometimes impossible for us to understand how the same task could be accomplished by a distributed, noncentralized system. (Camazine et al., 2001, p. 158).

Africa

Pulau Tioman

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Termite mounds

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Human Mound - Harare

The extraordinary Eastgate Building in Harare, Zimbabwe, is just one example of sustainable architecture that uses dramatically less energy by copying the successful strategies of indigenous natural systems. The building - the country's largest commercial and shopping complex - uses the same heating and cooling principles as a local termite mound.

An example of “permaculture” — an approach to designing human settlements & systems that mimic the relationships found in natural ecologies.

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The Bases of Human Behavior in Organizations

Leaders — A person with knowledge of the overall mission directs the activity of the group. Blueprints — A plan or representation of the desired outcome of the activity— “Mission statements, Goals & Objectives.”

Recipes — A sequence of required actions or tasks necessary to produce the outcome— “Best practices.”

Templates — a fixed feature of the environment to which the activity is molded — A full-size model or mold that specifies strongly steers the pattern-formation process — “Cafeteria tables”

But how do the termites do it?

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So how do the termites do it? b

Termites build a dome by taking some dirt in their mouths, moistening it, and following these rules:

1. Move in the direction of the strongest pheromone concentration.2. Deposit what you are carrying where the smell is strongest.

After some random movements searching for a relatively strong pheromone field, the termites will have started a number of small pillars. The pillars signify places where a greater number of termites have recently passed, and thus the pheromone concentration is high there. The pheromone dissipates with time, so in order for it to accumulate, the number of termites must exceed some threshold; they must leave pheromones faster than the chemicals evaporate. This prevents the formation of a great number of pillars, or of a wasteland strewn with little mouthfuls of dirt.

The ascension of the pillars results from a … positive feedback cycle … The greater the number of termites depositing their mouthfuls in a place, the more attractive it is to other termites. … As termite pillars ascend and the termites become increasingly involved in depositing their loads, the pheromone concentration near the pillars increases. A termite approaching the area then detects the pheromone, and as there are multiple pillars and the termite is steering toward the highest concentration, it is likely to end up in the area between two pillars. It is attracted toward both, and eventually chooses one or the other. As it is approaching the pillar from the region in between, it is more likely to climb up the side of the pillar that faces the other one. As a consequence, deposits tend to be on the inner face of the pillars, and as each builds up with more substance on the facing side, the higher it goes the more it leans toward the other. The result is an arch" (Kennedy & Eberhart, 2001, p. 103-104).

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Self-organization & Emergence

Note that —

There is no central control, the individual termites are unaware of the "plan" they are carrying out, and a rather spectacular mound emerges from their self-organized behavior.

It involves self-organization — global patterns in a system emerge from local interactions among participants using behavioral rules executed with only local information and without reference to the global patterns. Those patterns emerge from the system, they are not imposed on it.

"Emergence refers to a process by which a system of interacting subunits acquires qualitatively new properties that cannot be understood as the simple addition of their individual contributions" (Camazine et al., 2001, p. 31).

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Swarm Intelligence & Particle Swarm Optimization

“Cornfield Vector” — “It is like finding something in a landscape where the searcher gets clues from other searchers” (Kennedy & Eberhart, 2001, p.114) —

Somebody seeing somebody seeing something

Swarm Intelligence (SI) involves intelligent multi-agent systems inspired by the collective behaviors of social organisms.

Recent work in biology, engineering & the social, behavioral & management sciences views agents in a population (e.g., people or teams) as potential problem solutions to challenges presented by the ecology and has explored algorithms for optimizing the solutions . Increasingly this approach is being used to make us better at communicating, decision making, solving complex problems & doing business, as well (e.g., Miller, 2010, The Smart Swarm).

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Swarms & Optimization

A particle swarm is "a loosely structured collection of interacting agents" — An ant colony can be thought of as a swarm whose individual agents are ants, a flock of birds, traffic is a swarm of cars, a crowd is a swarm of people, an immune system is a swarm of cells and molecules, and an economy is a swarm of economic agents" (Santa Fe Institute, FAQ, 1999). “They might also occur in high-dimensional cognitive space” (Kennedy & Eberhart, 2001, p.102) in which the agents are thoughts, attitudes, values.

Particle swarm optimization (PSO) uses a population of potential solutions to evolve optimal solutions to problems in a “solution or fitness landscape“ (a graphic representation of a range of solutions varying in effectiveness or "fitness").

It’s a “social” problem-solving strategy. Agents interact & communicate to solve mutual problems developing strategies derived from what worked best for one before & best for one's local neighbors. Some strategies generate improvements & some don’t. Better strategies spread — stochastically — a more optimal strategy and culture emerges.

Retrospectively, people may attribute rationality to what happened, but the process isn’t a rational one. The optimal strategy is not “figured out” by individual minds. In most cases the problems are too hard to figure out!

In a rational model of optimization intelligence is defined at the individual level and knowledge is seen as residing in individual minds & often abstracted from action or behavior. In an evolutionary or biological model intelligence occurs at the level of the collective, swarm, or network & is embodied in action & embedded in the network.

From this perspective, evolution is viewed as a kind of general problem solver in which each agent — or person or team or company — is a walking potential solution to some ecological challenge.

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Fitness Landscapes

Fujiyama Landscape with one optimum

A fitness landscape with multiple optima

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Search Strategies for Optimal Solutions

Two basic strategies for searching for optimal solutions in a "solution landscape" or “fitness landscape“ (an array of potential solutions) to problems in an ecology —

Exploration involves a broad sampling of alternative solutions across a variety of regions looking for the overall global optimum. A common exploration strategy is a "random walk" throughout the solution "landscape" hoping to hit upon the highest point, the best strategy, an Everest within the landscape.

Exploitation involves a more focused search within a promising region of the landscape seeking a solution that is the best available within that region, "good enough“— a local optimum. The most common exploitation strategy is "hill climbing“— once a promising region is found small trial and error steps are taken to find the best available solution in that region, the top of that hill.

One of the difficulties with hill climbing is that we can get stuck on the hill--or a specific region of solutions — and not get off it to search other regions for solutions that might be better. The trade-off between exploration and exploitation is central to optimization and the difference is the size of steps through the search space or the ability to "jump" from one solution region to others. That ability can be affected by "mutation" (random changes in the individuals searching), diversity of those individuals, immigration (bringing in new individuals), creativity, and chance encounters (with others outside the normal network.

The difference between exploration and exploitation is the size of steps through the search space.

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Moving Peaks on a Solution Landscape

We are living in a world of continual flux in which the optimal solutions, the best strategies are likewise constantly changing.

So an optimization algorithm must typically not only find an optimum, but also not lose sight of it as it changes (Clerk, 2006).

As Ant Colony Optimization tracks changing “food” sources, Particle Swarm Optimization has the capacity can continually adapt to changing optima (Moser, 2007).

Particle Swarm Optimization- a static and 3 different dynamic environments

30 sec

1 min

Page 104: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

Swarms & Optimization

A particle swarm is "a loosely structured collection of interacting agents" — An ant colony can be thought of as a swarm whose individual agents are ants, a flock of birds, traffic is a swarm of cars, a crowd is a swarm of people, an immune system is a swarm of cells and molecules, and an economy is a swarm of economic agents" (Santa Fe Institute, FAQ, 1999). “They might also occur in high-dimensional cognitive space” (Kennedy & Eberhart, 2001, p.102) in which the agents are thoughts, attitudes, values.

Particle swarm optimization (PSO) uses a population of potential solutions to evolve optimal solutions to problems in a “solution or fitness landscape“ (a graphic representation of a range of solutions varying in effectiveness or "fitness").

It’s a “social” problem-solving strategy. Agents interact & communicate to solve mutual problems developing strategies derived from what worked best for one before & best for one's local neighbors. Some strategies generate improvements & some don’t. Better strategies spread — stochastically — a more optimal strategy and culture emerges.

Retrospectively, people may attribute rationality to what happened, but the process isn’t a rational one. The optimal strategy is not “figured out” by individual minds. In most cases the problems are too hard to figure out!

In a rational model of optimization intelligence is defined at the individual level and knowledge is seen as residing in individual minds & often abstracted from action or behavior. In an evolutionary or biological model intelligence occurs at the level of the collective, swarm, or network & is embodied in action & embedded in the network.

From this perspective, evolution is viewed as a kind of general problem solver in which each agent — or person or team or company — is a walking potential solution to some ecological challenge.

Page 105: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

And a gift from Guan Yin Bodhisattva and …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgHmSdpjEIk&feature=fvw

The China Disabled People's Arts Troupe

An “art swarm?”

5:55 min

Or !!!Films which Utilize PSO 1 min

Page 106: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

Jennifer 8. Lee hunts for General Tso

Self-organization & optimizing & swarming & culture & Business

http://www.ted.com/talks/jennifer_8_lee_looks_for_general_tso.html 24 min

Jennifer 8. Lee is a reporter for the New York Times www.ted.com/speakers/jennifer_8_lee.html

Page 107: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

Collective Search & Problem solving – The Tactical Technology Collective

“Swarms within Swarms” & “The Cornfield Vector”

http://vodpod.com/watch/3256309-tactical-technology-collective-use-collective-intelligence 4:36 min

FaceBook, LinkedIn, Twitter – Networks of neighbors (relatively similar people living in relatively similar ecologies) linked to neighboring networks of neighbors in information & action challenging times. “Swarms within swarms.” Social networking technology so that we can better “see someone seeing something” to eat or to avoid!

Information is searched, gathered & processed by the swarms & the global image of “the field” (what is happening in the world or some immediately relevant part of the world) emerges from – is “evoked” by – the swarm. The search is not conducted & analyzed by a functionally specialized agency with a resulting image broadcast to the networks.

Swarm intelligence – many eyes & a powerful, self-organized, flexible & robust “thinking” network or “brain!”

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Global Swarming

Global SwarmingGary Fontaine

School of Communications, Univ. of Hawaii Paper presented at the “Third International Workshop on Swarm Intelligence and Patters” at the “Sixth International Conference on Intelligent System Design and Applications,” Jinan, Shandong, China, 2006.

The theory

[Fontaine, G. (2006). Global Swarming. Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Intelligent System Design and Applications (ISDA'06), 1212-1215. ]

Global SwarmingA Ride Along the Optimizing Journey of Multinational EnterprisesGary FontaineSchool of Communications, Univ. of Hawaii Paper presented at the “International Academy of Intercultural Research Sixth Biennial Conference” Honolulu, 2009.

The findings

Global Swarming Tracks along the Trail Gary FontaineSchool of Communications, Univ. of Hawaii Paper presented at the “Seventh International Conference on Knowledge, Culture & Change in Organisations,” Singapore, 2007.

The method

Page 109: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

The Theme

Over the last half century multinational enterprises (MNEs) have essentially "swarmed the globe” with regional & local offices to benefit from expanded production/market opportunities or to meet international social/health needs. The number of offices is enormous & rapidly expanding.

Over 6,000 local & regional offices of MNEs in Hong Kong alone.More than 1,500 U.S. firms & 700 British companies alone are based in SingaporeJapanese companies operating in California employ 95,600 California residentsTotal of 500,000 expatriates working in major cities like Shanghai and BeijingLarge MNEs may have country/affiliate offices in over 80 nations with scores of local or branch

offices in each.

The theme of this paper is that this phenomenon can usefully be viewed as significantly self-organized swarms searching for optimal strategies to complete key tasks in new and rapidly changing organizational ecologies across the globe.

Somebody seeing somebody seeing something The “Cornfield Vector” (Kennedy & Eberhart, 2001)

The agents in these swarms can be defined at different levels of analysis — the MNEs, themselves; their regional and local offices; individual departments within these offices; the more transitory, diverse teams completing the tasks necessary to get things done; the myriad of personnel shunted about between these them.

The latter — more micro — levels most clearly match a swarm intelligence optimization model.

Key tasks are those associated with marketing, leadership, communication, recruitment, staffing, screening, training, succession planning, management style, organizational design, community or government relations.

Organizational ecologies are typically characterized by cultural diversity & a broad range of other socio-cultural, physical/technological & biological factors.

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International Microcultures

Independent of the emergence of the swarm intelligence model, my colleagues and I in the intercultural field over the last couple decades have made the case that the optimal strategy for completing tasks in culturally diverse, changing or novel situations such as those encountered in globalization is the development of “Third Cultures” or International Microcultures (IMCs) (e.g., Fontaine, 1989, 2000 & 2006).

Developing an IMC requires a generic search process in which the specific strategy selected is one that fits best with the ecology of that task — particularly its international/intercultural characteristics.

IMCs are self-organized by the task participants — either f2f or online in geographically dispersed teams (gdts) — by looking at what they have done well in the past and what the best others locally are doing.

IMCs are “bare-bones” cultures in that they address only those issues associated with completing the tasks at hand; transient — as the ecology changes, they change; and rarely documented.

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IMCs as Self-Organizing Swarms

The development of IMCs is essentially a search process modelled well by particle swarm optimization.

Local offices of MNEs & the IMCs evolving in them are relatively "free to swarm" because —

constraints of distance, time & communication allow independence from the home office.they are often given somewhat more "latitude" by that home office because of the recognized need to do things differently to fit the local ecology.

Expat & host personnel at the local level communicate more with their neighbors — in & outside their company — than the home office.

Those neighbors are more "visible" than those elsewhere both in terms of the strategies they use and the ecologies in which they use them.

And the participants’ typically high sense of presence — or awareness of their immediate surroundings — gives local interactions more impact (Fontaine, 1993 & 2004).

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Tracking along the Trail

One requirement for an "evolutionary" – rather than "rational” – approach to optimization is lot's of iterations processed sequentially or in parallel. Natural selection must be allowed to "run it's course" so that the fittest strategies emerge.

But real-time longitudinal designs take a lot of real time! That's why much research in the area relies on computer simulations. Our study of swarming in MNEs is no exception.

Nevertheless, we can be on the "look out" for bits & pieces of data – tracks along the evolutionary, optimizing trail – that have been collected by others or ourselves.

The objective of this study is to do just that – look for evidence that key personnel are using local people (inside or outside their company) along with their own past experience as sources of strategy input rather than leadership, mission statements, strategies or action plans from the head office or other non-local sources of input such as books and websites or non-local consultants, trainers or coaches.

The hypothesis is that personnel developing relatively successful strategies report relying more on input from local sources along with their own past experience and less on non-local sources – particularly the home office – than those less successful.

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MethodData have been collected with an online survey posted on a specially designed web site (www2.hawaii.edu/~fontaine/GlobalSwarmingWebPage.html). Link to the survey has been provided directly to personnel in several MNEs & to a variety of web-based expat forums listed in "Transitionsabroad.com.” Recruitment has been weighted toward the Asia/Pacific region.

The survey opens with the following context-setting statement –

Those of us who work in international offices of multinational enterprises (those outside of the country in which our home office is located) are involved in a broad array of tasks. Such tasks could include--but certainly aren't limited to--leadership, organizational design, communication, policy-making, building partnerships/alliances/joint ventures, developing marketing strategies, managing meetings, succession planning, local government/union/community relations, decision-making, rewarding or disciplining, conflict resolution; and so forth). The strategies we select or develop to complete these tasks are typically influenced by a variety of sources.

We would be appreciative if you would think back over your international career. To what degree did each of the following sources influence your strategies for completing important tasks in your organization?

Key items assess the following task strategy input sources (No Influence, Small Influence, Modest Influence, Important Influence, Very Important Influence) and reported general success of the strategies (Unsuccessful, Mixed, Successful, Very Successful) —

Your own past organizational experience?People inside your company at your international location?People outside your company at your international location?People inside your company from other international locations?People outside your company from other internationals locations?People from your home office?Specialists such as consultants, trainers or coaches?Media such as books, journals, television, websites, etc.?In your own opinion, how successful have your strategies been?

Currently data available from 55 participants (mean international experience = 9.29 years (SD = 3.75 ).

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Characteristics of Assignees(Preliminary Data)

TypeComp

Frequency

ngogovprivate

50

40

30

20

10

0

Histogram of TypeComp

HomeReg

Frequency

Aus/NZAfricaLAmericaNAmericaEuropeAsia

40

30

20

10

0

Histogram of HomeReg

AssignReg

Frequency

AfricaLAmericaNAmericaEuropeAsia

50

40

30

20

10

0

Histogram of AssignReg

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Frequency Distribution of “Success" Categories (Preliminary Data)

Success

Frequency

VerySuccSuccMixedUnSucc

20

15

10

5

0

Histogram of Success

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Task Strategy Input Profiles for Lower & Higher Success Groups (Preliminary Data)

HigherLowerSelf-Reported Global Career Success

3.9

3.6

3.3

3

2.7

2.4

2.1

Me

an

Media

Specialists

Home office

People outside yourcompany-other

People inside your company-other

People outside your company-same

People inside yourcompany-same

Own past experience

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Results & Discussion a

(Preliminary Data)

Profile of Lower vrs Higher Success groups

The Higher Success group generally used more varied input in developing strategies than the Lower Success group.

The Lower Success group relied primarily on their own past experience and input from the home office.

The Higher Success group relied even more on their own past experience (p < .07) as well as on local others inside their company at their international location (p < .01), specialists (p < .01), outside their company at their location (p < .01), and outside their company at other locations (p < .05) than the Lower Success group.

The Higher Success group relied dramatically less on the home office (p < .01). No wonder the home office fears that expats might "Go Native" (though the data we've thus far collected suggests that maybe more of them should!).

Thus the current data rather strongly support the hypothesis that those developing more successful strategies are leaving "tracks" consistent with the use of self-organized, swarm intelligence processes. They are relying significantly more on input from their own past experience and that of their most relevant neighbors..

This interpretation of the findings is supported by a regression analysis that identifies inside their company at their international location, media (negative), outside their company at their location, home office (negative), and their own past experience as the best predictors of success.

A note about “Specialists”

The finding the Higher Success group make more use of specialists (consultants, trainers, coaches) by those more successful is encouraging – for those of us who are specialists! It's not necessarily predicted by a self-organization/swarm model, unless, of course, those specialists have knowledge of the "local" strategy-ecology links or how to discover them. Interestingly, Couzin, et al. (2005) have demonstrated how a handful of "experts" (those with more information than others) can guide the rest of a group along, even if the others are incapable of recognizing who the experts are.

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Results & Discussion b

(Preliminary Data)

A cautionary note about an alternative explanation

Apart from clear limitations on interpretation due to sample and method, reported success at developing strategies was positively correlated with years of experience abroad (r = .37, p < .01) and this could also produce similar differences in profiles.

Those more with more experience are more successful. We might expect that they would learn something during that experience. And, of course, we might expect that they would have more contacts both at their current international location and other locations from which to garner input. And, we might expect that those more experienced abroad might have less need of the home office all-together. Of course, we might also expect that it is those who are generally more successful who will have longer international careers. These two variables are clearly intertwined. Does success lead to longevity or longevity lead to success?

Implications of these findings for optimization, swarming, the importance of diversity in IMCs (Fontaine, 2005) & “The Knowledge Paradox” in expatriation strategies (Fontaine, 2003)

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The game is on!

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Some Implications of Global Swarming

The “Knowledge Paradox” in Global Management: Local versus Global Assignment Strategies

Gary Fontaine

School of Communications, Univ. of Hawaii Paper presented at "The Third International Conference on Knowledge, Culture and Change in Organizations," Penang, Malaysia, August 2003

The importance of expatriation

Fontaine, G. (2003). The “Knowledge Paradox” in Global Management: Local versus Global Assignment Strategies. International Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Change Management, Vol. 3, 659-669.

A Self-Organization Perspective on the Impact of Local verses Global Assignment Strategies and Knowledge Building

Gary Fontaine

School of Communications, Univ. of Hawaii Paper presented to “The Fifth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities, Nations,” Beijing, 2005.

The importance of diversity

Fontaine, G. (2005). A Self-Organization Perspective on the Impact of Local verses Global Assignment Strategies and Knowledge Building. International Journal of Diversity in Organisations, Communities and Nations, 5(1), 57-66.

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The Value of Diversity

The trade-off between exploration and exploitation is central to optimization of strategies for completing key tasks in Multinational Enterprises. The difference between the two is the size of steps through the search space or the ability to "jump" from one solution region to others.

This ability can be affected by "mutation" (random changes in the individuals searching), diversity of those individuals, immigration (bringing in new individuals), creativity, and chance encounters (with others outside the normal network).

The basic presumption has been that we could use self-organization to optimize systems that are typically and largely controlled through management, leadership, command and control processes. But I suggest that what actually happens in both our local and global worlds is significantly already self-organized.

Concern then becomes with how to do it best--how to enhance its effectiveness with different challenges, how diversity strengthens or weakens these processes, how resistance to change is often just self-organization and leadership colliding.

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Why "Being There" is Important

Expatriation policies and the international assignments associated with them are important for a number of reasons –

They can impact information exchange between local offices and headquarters.They can provide for supervision, leadership or other influence in local offices.

But in terms of the self-organization perspective presented in this paper, they are important because they can –

Provide opportunity participate in self-organization, feedback & optimization in the context of the local task ecology through the development of IMCs.

Provide opportunity for "chance encounters" that add to the diversity of ideas available for IMC development & optimization in new & rapidly changing ecologies

Provide opportunities to deal with what might otherwise be resistance to change.

One value of diversity is that it enhances the range of "solutions" through which the optimization process can search. Thus expatriation is not just a management strategy, it is an important component of the often self-organized, optimization strategies necessary for the organization to be competitive.

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The Paradox Sending a Barracuda through the Swarm

In seeking to enhance short-term performance multinational enterprises (MNEs) have increasingly shifted expatriation policies away from the use of expatriates. While short-term increments in performance may be partially attributable to this change in expatriation strategy, there is the danger of some longer-term decrements.

Although multinationals have recognized the problems the expats have working and living abroad and the impact of those problems on performance, they appear not to have been as attuned to the knowledge building within the organization produced by the shuffling around from subsidiary to subsidiary to headquarters to subsidiary, and so forth, of all those expats.

That is, these – frequently culture shocked – expats were nevertheless often learning a vastly expanded range of tools for dealing with global organizational challenges. They were involved with both the creation and exchange of knowledge associated with these tools. And they were learning to identify the organizational ecologies within which those tools worked best.

That expanded knowledge and associated skills are, of course, critical to prosperity, if not survival, in our rapidly evolving global world.

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Reasons for the Change in Expatriation Strategy

The challenges for International Assignees in coping with ecoshock, dealing effectively with diversity & maintaining motivation

The perception that Local Managers are more familiar with the local staff, clients, markets, and cultures, were less expensive to support, and doing so assuaged a variety of political, image and even ethical concerns. Additionally many now perceive that (a) there are more trained, experienced and competent local personnel available and/or (b) local knowledge and skills are now more recognized and valued.

The increased use of Geographically Dispersed Teams communicating significantly online.

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Knowledge Building & Exchange in MNEs

Headquarters

Global

Subsidiaries

Explicit & Tacit knowledge (e.g., Nonaka, 1991) Declarative (“knowing what”), procedural (“knowing how”), conditional (“knowing when”), &

axiomatic knowledge (“knowing why”) (Bertoin Antal, 2000). International & Intercultural Microcultures or IMCs (Fontaine, 1989 & 2000) The effective use of the Sense of Presence (Fontaine, 1989 & 2000) Difficulties of short-term assignments & gdts in terms of knowledge building

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Strategies for Dealing with the Knowledge Paradox

Diminishing the extended f2f interactions between expats & locals impacts knowledge building within MNEs in terms of –

Opportunities for knowledge exchangeDevelopment of skillsMotivation to build knowledge

Optimization of strategies through Swarming

Any expatriation strategy that addresses these impacts must include –

(1) Building a model of expatriation in meeting the mission of "our" MNE.(2) Designing and supporting high impact international assignments.(3) Creating and managing culturally diverse project teams.(4) Providing programs to assist expats and the colleagues with whom they work in

developing the skills necessary to optimize knowledge building. (5) Providing organizational mechanisms for periodically making tacit knowledge

explicit.(6) Providing the impetus for periodically "refreshing the screen."

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The Theme

The theme underlying these strategies for dealing with the knowledge paradox is that when we fly around the world on assignment to assignment we carry a lot more with us than our luggage and our business cards. We carry the seeds of knowledge about how to survive and succeed in strange lands. These seeds must be nurtured by ourselves and our organizations.

We must guard against sending a Barracuda through the Swarm!

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The game is on!

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Macro-Scale Intercultural Interaction, Social Change & Organizational Change

Organizational ChangeNew products or servicesNew clients, competitors and marketsNew workers or managementNew organizational structuresNew regulationsNew technologiesPersonnel relocationGlobalization

Macro-Scale Interaction of CulturesInvasionImmigration/Refugee relocationTourismTransplantation of a cultureOnline communities

Social ChangeWesternization/EasternizationModernization

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The Social & Organizational Opportunities of Intercultural Interaction

Culture learning (transfer of knowledge & skills)

Reduction of prejudice & hostilityContact theory = equal status, mutual goals, org support, close relationships (Pettigrew, 2008)

Synergy (enhanced productivity & quality)

Optimizing the benefits of diversity in solving problems in a

rapidly changing global ecology through self-organization & swarm intelligence –

Enhancing “exploration” vs “exploitation” on “ solution landscapes”

The “knowledge paradox”

Fontaine, G. (2003). The “Knowledge Paradox” in Global Management: Local versus Global Assignment Strategies. International Journal of Diversity in Organisations, Communities and Nations, 5(1), 57-66.

Fontaine, G. (2003). The “Knowledge Paradox” in Global Management: Local versus Global Assignment Strategies. International Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Change Management, Vol. 3, 659-669.

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“Solution Landscapes” & “Moving Peaks”

1 min

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The Personal Opportunities of Intercultural Interaction

Independence Peter Adler

Experience of nothingness Michael Novak

The Road Within O’Reilly et al.

Seeing Carlos Castaneda

Living with “Yahoos” Jonathan Swift

Playing with water James Hamilton-Paterson

Personal growth or change

A sense of presence

&

sex

Exploration

motives

Finding a more personally

compatible culture

Finding our personal identity apart from our culture Gordon Murray

Presencing

and

“Princess Ying Yaawolak”

Phases

and Benares

“Now youseeIt …”

“In the beginning …”

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“The good life”

"The deepest experience of rest is dwelling, which brings people … and people and nature together in terms of place. The world of dwelling involves regularity, repetition & cyclicity all grounded in care and concern. ... Movement, in contrast, has links with horizon, reach & unfamiliarity. It is associated with such active qualities as search, newness, exploration, alertness & exertion.“

"Journeying grows out of dwelling as dwelling is founded in journeying. The road & the hearth, journey and dwelling mutually imply each other. ... The journey cut off from the sphere of dwelling becomes aimless wandering, it deteriorates into mere distraction or even chaos. ... The journey requires a place of origin as the very background against which the figures of a new world can emerge. The hometown, the fatherland, the neighborhood, the parental home form together an organ of vision. To be without origin, to be homeless, is to be blind. On the other hand, the sphere of dwelling cannot maintain its vitality and viability without the renewal made possible by the path. A community without outlook atrophies, becomes decadent & incestuous.“

"In the small world of a traditional community, one sees few strangers. What it offers is human warmth and entanglements along settled paths rather than the poignancy of the chance encounter, at an unfamiliar place, with a stranger. ... From this necessary core we move, in search of our enlarged conception of community, to strangers – even those in another part of the world – who may nevertheless become our soul mates."

Tuan, Yi-Fu (1986, pp. 19, 113, 79). The good life. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

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We Kiss in a Shadow …

We hide from the moon

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“Bali Hai”

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“Happy talk”

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In 1986, Nguyen earned a master's degree in Clinical psychology and began a second career as a psychological counselor for abused women and children, and women in prison. She became a social activist in interracial issues for the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Council) and received a "Woman of the Year" award in 1989 for her work as a psychologist for abused women and children.

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Pulau Tioman

Oh, Pulau Tioman, Malaysia — "Bali Ha’i" — legend has it that a lovely Chinese princess — Guan Yin Bodhisattva — was flying from China to Singapore and encountered a beautiful, mountainous island in an azure sea and asked her goddess for permission to stay and live there. She was given permission on condition that that island would always be there as a respite for those who had lost their way. Thus the lyrics--

Most people live on a lonely island,Lost in the middle of a foggy sea.Most people long for another island,One where they know they will like to be.Bali Ha'i may call you,Any night, any day,In your heart, you'll hear it call you:"Come away...Come away."Bali Ha'i will whisperIn the wind of the sea:"Here am I, your special island!Come to me, come to me!"Your own special hopes,Your own special dreams,Bloom on the hillsideAnd shine in the streams.If you try, you'll find meWhere the sky meets the sea."Here am I your special islandCome to me, Come to me."Bali Ha'i,

Someday you'll see me floatin' in the sunshine,My head stickin' out from a low fluin' cloud,You'll hear me call you,Singin' through the sunshine,Sweet and clear as can be:"Come to me, here am I, come to me."If you try, you'll find meWhere the sky meets the sea."Here am I your special islandCome to me, Come to me."Bali Ha'i,

You can journey there, too — http://www.journeymalaysia.com/MI_tioman.htm

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Or sitting next to you in an Intercultural Communication class

Brooke Lee - Miss Universe

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A Chance Encounter with Mr. Min

So there we were… My daughter and I found ourselves in this small, very out-of-the-way plexiglass manufacturing workshop in a light industrial area of Honolulu. It was late afternoon. A torrential rain outside. We were seeking materials to build a display case for this large (2 foot) dragon origami she had made long ago for her mom on Mother's Day. While waiting for a worker to cut pieces for the case (so we could make it ourselves--half the price!) we were wandering around the tiny "lobby" area looking at a nevertheless vast array of both functional and artistic pieces made from plexiglass that were displayed. After a few minutes, up to us walked a very small, frail Chinese man clearly at least in his eighties. "Hello, I saw the two of you looking around and wondering about how these were done. Would you like me to show you?" I hesitated an instant because, of course, I had things to do (I needed to pick up my youngest son on the other side of the island after wrestling and, of course, get into Felix). But I said "sure." Because. I suddenly sensed, and I could sense that my daughter could also sense, that we were on the edge of a very special moment. A window (even if plexiglass) of opportunity. "What is your name," I asked. "Frank Min," he replied, "I am the owner.“

Mr. Min led us to his workshop, picked up a large, thick block of plexiglass and for the next 30 minutes created an incredible, impossibly beautiful orchid in the middle of the block as he told us some of his story. I had always wondered how they did that! How did they get that thing inside the plexiglass! When I had seen such things in shops or craft fairs. I had hypothesized that they somehow poured plastic around a real flower and then nuked it or something. He then presented his work to my somewhat awestruck daughter (who later said, "This would cost a hundred dollars in a store!"--she would know). "I never used to show people how to do this," he said, "because I needed to make a business. But now, now I want to show some special others the way." And he gave us some “signposts” along that way (how to grind the drill, where to get the plastic, how to color the flower). And then we needed to leave so we thanked him and picked-up our precious plexiglass orchid, and my son. It was a chance encounter that on the one hand answered an intriguing question (how do they do that?) and, on the other, provided the opportunity to open up a whole new land to discovery and creativity. Back

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Bhongs Key Duplicate

So yesterday, after our arrival, I needed to go have our house key duplicated so that my son could have one, too.  So off I went with my nephew who manages our place while we’re not here, to Bhongs Key Duplicate. And there I had one of those exquisite moments that happen now and again in life and on the road.  Bhong’s shop was about 10X6 ft open to the road and we sat on two rickety stools on the sidewalk to watch him work.  He had 3 files, a vise grips, an ancient calipers (so ancient I’m not sure how to even spell them), 6 inches of tire tread as a work area, strings of new blank keys, and what looked to be a dried up tail of a butiki (a 8 -12 inch lizard that bites — in some places it’s called the “fuck you” lizard because of the sound that it makes).  It wasn’t clear what the role of the butiki tail was in the process.  I handed Mr. Bhong the original, he smiled and went to work with a level of intensity, efficiency, skill and pleasure that was stunning. In about 20 minutes Mr. Bhong reproduced— by hand — three duplicates, smiled, handed them to us and received his 60 pisos (about $1. 20).  It was one of those moments that lead one to perhaps at least glimpse some deep essence of being human in this world.  By the way, the keys worked — perfectly.

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“The moonrise” a

I first noticed it as I was dragging my baroto up the beach after diving for shells in the late afternoon. It was a faint, pastel pinkish glow in the clouds low to the east over the Sibuyan Sea. I at first thought it must be a projection from the sunset in the west over the Sulu Sea — hidden from me by the hills behind our cottage on the tiny island of Boracay. As I tied up the baroto and walked up the steps to our cottage the late afternoon turned to evening and the glow became richer. I put my diving gear away and opened a San Miguel and walked out onto the deck that looked out over the Sibuyan Sea. Framed between the 'cocos' lining the shore and rising out of the horizon and over a glassy lagoon — made more so by a very low tide blocking any swell from the sea beyond — was a massive, blood red blob that I initially and incredulously perceived as the sun rising, again, in the east! As I blinked and watched, it became a huge glowing crimson orb filling the sky and — it's reflection — the lagoon. The cicadas stopped chirping. The dogs stopped barking. The ‘Atis' and other Filipino locals walking along the road between the sea and I stopped and watched. The fish that skimmed the surface for evening insects — stopped. And the moon rose.

It was my first moonrise. … The sky, the lagoon, then the entire sea outside the reef became blood red.

The allure! I watched and it pulled. It pulled and I was enticed. And as the evening otherwise turned to night, I was compelled back down to the beach and my baroto and the sea. This was a call to being, an invitation to play in reality, that I could not deny! I untied the boat and then, somewhat miraculously succeeded in dragging the boat over 400 meters of now nearly exposed sea grass and urchins into the lagoon. I sought the red disk. From years of experience I easily found the channel through the reef to open sea. And out to sea I went with no sound other than my paddle in the water. Until, again incredulously, a mile or more from the shore I saw lights under the water and heard the splashing and voices of a man and woman — they were snorkeling for squid in the black sea, alone! I said something like 'cera ulo ako, ikaw?' (I'm crazy, you?) But they didn't reply and continued splashing away. The moon, no less gigantic, no less red was now nearly overhead.

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“The moonrise” b

Sensing a vague fear from being so far at sea with no one knowing I was there but the squiders, I turned to paddle parallel the reef. I followed it for a mile or so. Then I heard music drifting over the water. Turning toward the shore I saw lights from a restaurant that I knew about but had never visited. I looked up to a moon now becoming real. And I turned in and sought a passage through the coral reef in this low tide. My bottom scraped several times, but I made it through and onto the beach in front of the restaurant. Two employees came out of the darkness to lend me a hand with my baroto. I picked up my shirt — soaked from my carelessly tossing it in on the water covered floorboards as I departed for the moon — and headed for the entrance. The lights were colorful and bright. All the staff waiters and waitresses, bartendresses and bartenders, and the singer — welcomed me with intense smiles as I staggered somewhat in my wet slippers and clothes to the bar. There were no customers … but a single man, also at the bar. The singer came over to me and said — "I'm buying this man a beer!" The man at the bar said "Hello, I'm from Perth." …. So we talked … for hours. Then I left. I paddled home along the shore inside the reef. I dragged the baroto back over the still exposed sea grass (had the tide got stuck!). And went to bed.

I know — because I remember it so clearly — that this description of my memory of that evening is simply an inadequate attempt — based on experiences, cultural constructions, and words I have, my gloss — to describe an experience of presence to a degree I had never had before.

Fontaine, G. (2008). Presence in Strange Lands. eBook available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001KBZFU8.

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Presence and PresencingManagement “guru” Peter Senge, Otto Scharmer and their colleagues at SOL (Society for Organizational Learning http://www.presence.net/) describe presencing as —

"We first thought of presence as being fully conscious and aware in the present moment. Then we began to appreciate presence as deep listening, of being open beyond one's preconceptions and historical ways of making sense. … Ultimately, we came to see all these aspects of presence as leading to a state of "letting come," of consciously participating in a larger field for change.“

Presencing starts with "stopping our habitual ways of thinking and perceiving … It is seeing from within the source from which the future whole is emerging, peering back at the present from the future."

They present a "U-curve" theory of different levels of perception and change − Sensing ("observe, observe, observe − become one with the world); Presencing (retreat and reflect − allow inner knowing to emerge); and Realizing ("act swiftly with a natural flow"). "What we're talking about is sensing the unfolding whole within each of us, within the present situation, and acting in service of it.“

Senge, P., Scharmer, C. O., Jawarski, J. & Flowers, B.S. (2004). Presence: Human purpose and the field of the future. Cambridge, MA: The Society for

Organizational Learning.Back

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“Beyond Experience”

"You must realize that each man has a definite repertoire of roles which he plays in ordinary circumstances... He has a role for every kind of circumstance in which he ordinarily finds himself in life; but put him into even only slightly different circumstances and he is unable to find a suitable role and for a short time he becomes himself.“

We learn a description of the world, but intercultural experience can strip one bare – we have stopped the world. We learn a new description and "where the mind glimpses the ultimately highly conditioned nature of its every minute operation and, at once horrified and liberated, we feel a deeply releasing sense of openness, space and tolerance.“

The consequence of the experience is unbecoming who we thought we were, stripped naked of our cultural clothing, and in the vacuum thus created, "becoming ourselves; getting in touch with deeper, simpler, more fundamental human characteristics beneath our culture-bound personalities.“

Murray, G. (1977). The inner side of cross-cultural interaction. I D. Batchelder & E. G. Warner (Eds.), Beyond experience. Washington, D. C.: Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research.

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“The experience of nothingness”

"A culture is constituted by the meaning it imposes on human experience. A culture comes into being and endures through its ability to create a myth ... all other people in history, live by myths because human beings have no other choice ... The experience of nothingness is the origin of all mythmaking.“

"The experience of nothingness arises when I discover that my myth is not necessary and inescapable, but arbitrate and socially prearranged. I then seek a more accurate version of reality, only to discover that alternative interpretations are also myths – better myths for some purposes, perhaps, but surely myths. The experiences of nothingness occurs at a time, at a place – on hearing a crow caw over a field of silvered corn stalks one November, on gazing out of a window one slack and empty afternoon.“

"The experience of nothingness places man in the position ... that from the depths of his own emptiness and abandonment, he must freely create his own values, his own identity – or fail to do so. Cultural supports, intellectual supports, and emotional supports have been taken away from him: He will be who he will be. In the night the terror of freedom passes through him. He decides for himself whether to seize and hold and, if so, which way to bend his life.“

"Granted that I am empty, alone, without guides, direction, will, or obligations, how shall I live? The courage to accept despair becomes the courage to be.“

Novak, M. (2008). The experience of nothingness (revised & expanded). New York: Harper and Row.

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In the beginning …

In the beginning there was neither existence nor non- existence …

Which path do you wish to take?

In the beginning there was neither existence nor non- existence; there was no atmosphere, no sky, and no realm beyond the sky. What power was there? Where was that power? Who was that power? Was it finite or infinite?There was neither death nor immortality. There was nothing to distinguish night from day. There was no wind or breath. God alone breathed by his own energy. Other than God there was nothing. In the beginning darkness was swathed in darkness. All was liquid and formless. God was clothed in emptiness.Then fire arose within God; and in the fire arose love. This was the seed of the soul. Sages have found this seed within their hearts; they have discovered that it is the bond between existence and non-existence.Who really knows what happened? Who can describe it? How were things produced? Where was creation born? When the universe was created, the one became many. Who knows how this occurred? Did creation happen at God's command, or did it happen without his command? He looks down upon creation from the highest heaven. Only he knows the answer -or perhaps he does not know.

Rig Veda 10:129.1-7 “The Upanishads”

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… a path with heart …

"It is a way of grabbing onto things. For instance, when I was learning about the devil's weed I was too eager. I grabbed onto things the way kids grab onto candy. The devil's weed is only one of a million paths. Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question. This question is one that only a very old man asks. My benefactor told me about it once when I was young, and my blood was too vigorous for me to understand it. Now I do understand it. I will tell you what it is: Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long, long paths, but I am not anywhere. My benefactor's question has meaning now. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead now; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.“

Castaneda, C. (1968). The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. Washington Square Press

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“The Road Within” — True Stories of Transformation

[Bodh Gaya, India] On the road, I'm nearly home now. Russet twilight stains the western sky long after the sun has slipped behind the fringe of trees at the edge of the world. The beauty of it commands my attention, the tenacity leaves me breathless. A subtle pressure in the air: the body of time. Countless births and deaths and rebirths, and in between the elastic span that we call life. This place is very old, and weary, and yet an invincible spirit permeates everything, animates even the tiny diamonds of light darting off the water.

I take refuge in these images: the molten river, a gnarled tree, a brackish pool in which a single white lotus, now closing gently against the evening coolness, will again miraculously bloom. Three women pass me, giggling at my cropped hair, my indeterminate features. Do they think I'm a boy? Do they know I'm a woman and wonder at my aloneness, here on this road? Each one wears the vermilion streak lining the part in her glossy black hair — the furrow split by the plow — signifying her married status. A young tea vendor pours a cup of milky brew the color of his palms and flashes a radiant gap-toothed grin at me. 'Chai, sister?' he beckons earnestly, forcing another refusal from me; the momentum of my stride carries me on. A thin old man drives his dusty gray and blue-black bullocks leisurely toward the patchy fields on the riverbank. Their massive haunches heave a lazy rhythm as they move past me, their tails halfheartedly flicking away flies. I run my hand over their broad backs, touch the pungent skin of the world.

Where am I in all this? A spectator, a ghost? A guest.

Suddenly I become lighter, transparent. Things pass through. My senses are as permeable as a membrane. Someone is laughing.

Walking on a dusty road in the gauzy half-light of an evening passing into night, lost to the gracious anonymity afforded by the gathering darkness. For an instant that stretches to infinity, there is no 'I,' only seeing. A moment of freedom from the bounded entity, the name and story that shores up the fragile and tenuous sense of self on which a life — my life — has been built in great earnestness.

Dresser, M. (1997). "Passing through." In O'Reilly, S., O'Reilly, J. & O'Reilly, T.(eds.). The road within: true stories of transformation. San Francisco: Travelers' Tales, 55-56.

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“Seeing”

"It's like blinking and — at least for a moment — wiping away the gloss, the gloss of our culture" (Castaneda, UCLA, 1974)

"Sorcerers say that we are inside a bubble. It is a bubble into which we are placed at the moment of our birth. At first the bubble is open, but then it begins to close until it has sealed us in. That bubble is our perception. We live inside that bubble all of our lives. And what we witness on its round walls is our own reflection.”

“I can say that when I began the apprenticeship, there was another reality, that is to say, there was a sorcery description of the world, which I did not know. Don Juan, as a sorcerer and a teacher, taught me that description. The ten-year apprenticeship I have undergone consisted, therefore, in setting up that unknown reality by unfolding its description, adding increasingly more complex parts as I went along. The termination of the apprenticeship meant that I had learned a new description of the world in a convincing and authentic manner and thus I had become capable of eliciting a new perception of the world.”

“Don Juan stated that in order to arrive at seeing one first had to stop the world. Stopping the world was indeed an appropriate rendition of certain states of awareness in which the reality of everyday life is altered because the flow of interpretation, which ordinarily runs uninterruptedly, has been stopped by a set of circumstances alien to that flow. Don Juan's precondition for stopping the world was that one had to be convinced; in other words, one had to learn the new description in a total sense, for the purpose of pitting it against the old one, and in that way break the dogmatic certainty, which we all share, that the validity of our perceptions, or our reality of the world, is not to be questioned.”

Castaneda, C. (1971), A separate reality; (1972), Journey to Ixtlan; (1974), Tales of power. New York: Simon and Schuster.

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1968 Radio interview 10 min

Tik tiks

Page 150: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

“A different world”

"If a stimulus situation is ambiguous, it is shaped or reshaped on the basis of our hypotheses such that the content arrives in consciousness in a clear and intelligible fashion. ... Cognition admits no chaos; something is always given” (Poppel, E. (1988). Mindworks: Time and conscious experience, p. 69)

Our consciousness will not admit uncategorized stimuli — it will either squeeze them into existing perceptual categories or will not admit them at all. And our culture gives us our categories!

“There are worlds upon worlds right here in front of us. And they are nothing to laugh at.” (Castaneda, C. (1972). Journey to Ixtlan, p. 165).

“This is a different world!” And she meant it not at all in the mundane ‘social science’ sense. A different world — a world where tik tiks steal the children, where aswang and wak-wak rule the night, and strange lights vanish into space!

“A quiet voice, a prickling on the back of your neck, a little twist in your chest, or an uncomfortable feeling” (Yudkin, M., (1990). Intuition. New Realities, p. 30.) “A Shadow behind you on your right” (Castaneda).

Navy pilots & UFOs

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Page 151: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

“Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World”A satire by Lemuel Gulliver

"The first money I laid out when I returned home was to buy two young horses. They understood me tolerably well and I converse with them every day. It was many months before I could look in a mirror without feeling some disgust for the human creature. But my family let me walk at my own pace and showed me a kindness that is, perhaps, greater than reason might allow. Until at last I was able to play with my son, Tom, like a true father and be again a husband to my wife, Mary, to whom I owe my life and freedom. All the Yahoo vices I can begin to accustom myself to once more. Except for pride: that I cannot tolerate.

I see myself for what I truly am. I have lost eight years of my life. And yet, and yet the marvels I have witnessed; the wonderful truths I have seen. You see, when night falls and you close your eyes to sleep and dream, I have seen the things that you can only dream about. ... I have been there. Oh, yes, all the way. And back! “

Gulliver’s Travels. NBC Television production. Screenplay by Simon Moore. Based on a novel by Jonathan Swift.

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Page 152: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

“and it is not a traveller’s feet which ache”

"And so with his half-relationships in half-lived-in places the footloose citizen of no abiding city wanders and wonders his days away. His life is bereft, satisfactory, privileged. Nothing very much comes of it, but of what might very much have come? ... But what is this love of his? Why this romping with the elements, the frisking with light, the bathing in fire, the scuffing up of earth? The playing with water? Will he not tire of it? Might he not weary even of the place beyond place? ... Experiences of great intensity–an especial dream, a period of concentrated work, a sudden absorption, maybe a love-affair–have in common that they are unusually real while they last. Yet it is precisely this quality which so easily vanishes. Afterwards, how unreal it all suddenly seems! … Yet there does remain a knowledge, like the pleasurable stiffness in muscles after a previous day’s unaccustomed exercise, to prove that something occurred. Something did after all take place to tax the muscles of the mind. For an unmeasurable time one went somewhere extraordinary and loved extraordinary things. One has been a traveller; and it is not a traveller’s feet which ache.“

Hamilton-Paterson, J. (1987). Playing with water: Passion and Solitude on a Philippine Island. New York: New Amsterdam Books, pp. 262-264.

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Page 153: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

Benares

Along the banks of the Ganges River in the sacred Hindu city of Benares is a Burning Ghat where the dead bodies of citizens from all parts of that region are burned on wood fires and their ashes thrown into the river where a host of others scavenge for gold teeth and jewelry. The Buddha preached his first sermon in the "Deer Park" just a short distance away. Ending at the Burning Ghat a long line of dead bodies accompanied by family members wound back into Benares along an impossibly twisted maze of roads that characterize that city. At first those in line were somber, often crying, tending their dead. But as I walked farther back it became clear that more and more of those "dead" were, in fact, still alive! They and their family members were just planning ahead and getting a place in line. In fact, the farther back in the line the more jovial the mood of all. In fact, way back in the line--blocks back in the line--one couldn't even determine what kind of line it was or where it was going. One family just followed the next in front of them to follow the path to the Ghat. They could have been lining up for a game, or a party, or to register for classes, or to apply for a job. But, really, all of those are just lines within lines, to the Burning Ghat.

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Page 154: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

Now you see it

“Whatever you see means there is something you don’t see”

“From infancy on, we are learning what to pay attention to, what to value, what is important, what counts. … Whether in the classroom or at work or in our sense of ourselves as human beings, what we value and what we pay attention to can blind us to everything else we could be seeing. The fact that we don’t see it doesn’t mean that it’s not there.”

If you change the context, if you change the questions you ask, if you change the structure, and the task, then you stop gazing one way and begin to look in a different way and a different direction. You know what happens next – “

Now you see it.

Adapted from Cathy Davidson (2011) Now

you see it … 290-292 Back

Page 155: The Basics Convergence Divergence Communication Ecology Person or Group Perception Culture Emerges from self-organization Stimuli categories dimensions.

Princess Ying Yaawolak -- "I believe in snow!"

Played by Joycelyne Lew Back