Kelly Post 8- Assigment from 02/20

1.Which type of culture has a stronger impact on workplace behavior: societal culture or organizational culture? Why?

According to Wikepedia, the definition for “Organizational Culture” is an idea in the field of Organizational studies and management which describes the psychology, attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values (personal and cultural) of an organization. A specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organization.

I believe organizational culture has more of an impact on workplace behavior because every workplace has tone that is set and you can usually tell what that tone is when you walk into the building and watch people interact. The environment may change and vary according to department, ie. the executive offices in my company are on the top floor and when you walk up there it is always very quiet and has more upscale office furniture. Whereas if you walk into the advertising department, people usually are dressed a little more casual and are more upbeat and energetic. Even with these slight differences in departments, the overall attitude within the company is usually the same. It appears in companies the HR employees have specific types of employees they would like to hire and this sets the tone for the overall workplace attitude. Every employee is interviewed and spoken to before a job is offered so the company can decide on a preliminary level if that particular person would mesh well with the others in the department and overall, the company.

2.Provide an example of a behavior in high context culture and low context culture.

I found a website called, www.culture-at-work.com/highlow.html that seemed to help answer this question.

Some attributes of high context culture are: long term relationships, more internalized understanding, face to face relationships. This culture seems to be more laid back, friendly and may have less communication boundaries.

Some attributes of low context culture are: rule oriented people play by external rules, shorter term relationships, task centered. This type of culture seems a lot more rigid, may micro manage employees, very time managed

3.Contact a person who is in the US from China. Seek their input on any instance of ethnocentric bias they experienced while in the US.

I was able to speak to someone who is Chinese from the company my sister works for. She said she came over to the United States to work about 10 years ago. She explained that people are often times rude to her because she still has difficulty pronouncing some English words. She also said she feels as though she does not get enough credit when she’s in meetings and often times feels she is not heard when in meetings with men in the United States. She said she feels Americans tend to feel like they no everything and do not give credit to her when she gives any inputs in meetings. She has not experienced the same issue with women.



4.Is China’s culture polychronic or monochronic? Justify your answer.

According to Wikepedia, some polychronic attributes are: change of plans more easily, highly distractable, do many things at once

Monochronic people do one thing at a time, concentrate on the job, adhere to plans and do not disturb others and emphasize promptness

I would say China is a polychronic culture because they do not seem to emphasize on schedules and being on time, the way we do in the United States. The culture seems to be a lot more laid back yet seem to be able to handle multi tasking more easily which may be the reason they do not set such strict emphasis on being on time. If a project headline changes, they adapt and change with it and keep moving forward.

5.What is Guanxi? Explain with an example from your workplace.

According to Wikepdia, Guanxi describes the basic dynamic personalized networks of influence, and is a central idea in Chinese society. It describes a personal connection between two people in which one is able to prevail upon another to perform a favor or service.

It appears Guanxi means, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. People working together to get something accomplished for one of the people involved.

An example in my workplace would be in my department, when the economy started to dip and companies were starting to lay off workers, the head of my department thought she was going to have to start letting people go as well. She went to another department asking for more work to give to us so we can keep our job. The other department obliged and we were all able to get extra work and keep our jobs.