“Icebreaker” Discussion: Room With A View

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Defining Culture:

elements, dimensions & interactions

Characteristics of Culture

According to Herbig (1998), the following

provide characteristics for culture:

  • Functional: Each culture has a function to perform; its purpose is to provide guidelines for behavior of a group of people
  • Social phenomenon: Human beings create culture; culture results from human interaction and is unique to human society
  • Perspective: Culture prescribes rules of social behavior

Characteristics of Culture

  • Learned: Culture is not inherited and/or received by succession; it is learned from other members of the society
  • Arbitrary: Cultural behaviors and practices are subject to judgment; certain behaviors are acceptable in one culture and not acceptable in other cultures
  • Value laden: Culture provides values and tells people what is right and wrong
  • Facilitates communication: Culture facilitates verbal and nonverbal communication

Characteristics of Culture

  • Adaptive/dynamic: Culture is constantly changing to adjust to new situations and environment; it changes as society changes and develops
  • Long term: Culture was accumulated by human beings in the course of time and is the sum of acquired experience and knowledge
  • Satisfies needs: Culture helps to satisfy the needs of the members of a society by offering direction and guidance

Subcultures

Every dominant culture is made up of several subcultures

  • Race
  • Ethnicity
  • Geographic region
  • Economic or social class

Race

  • Genetic or biological similarity among people (Lustig & Koester, 1993)
  • Group of people descended from same ancestors
  • Sociohistorical in nature
  • Racial categories evolve over time
  • Different racial categories in different cultures

Ethnicity

  • Groups of people sharing language, history and religion (Lustig & Koester, 1993)
  • Identify with a common nation or cultural system
  • Ethnic differences – color, language, religion, other common attributes
  • Shared descent or heritage of a group of people

Passed on to children

Geographical Region

  • Differences within countries
  • Similarities between countries
  • Results from differences
  • Geography
  • History
  • Politics
  • Economics
  • Language
  • Religion

Economic/Social Class

  • Socio-economic standing
  • Differences in income and wealth

Subculture and Dominant Culture

Subcultures

  • Characteristic patterns of behavior
  • Unique patterns of values, expectations, and interactions
  • Norms and rules (how to behave, interact and think within the subculture)
  • Small/large groups
  • Members of many different groups at same time

Subculture and Dominant Culture

  • Subculture community differs from parent culture
  • Subculture and dominant culture share dominant cultural patterns
  • Dominant culture directs forms of public social interaction
  • Subculture indicates forms of private social interaction
  • Members of dominant culture may belong to various subcultures
  • Different backgrounds
  • May not relate appropriately

Cultural Differences

Scollon & Scollon (1995): Aspects significant for

the understanding of cultural differences:

  • Ideology, history and worldview (beliefs, values, religion)
  • Socialization: education, enculturation, acculturation, theories of person and learning
  • Forms of discourse: functions of language and non-verbal communication
  • Face systems and social organizations: kinship, self, ingroup-outgroup, gemeinschaft (natural/community)/geseillschaft (created/society)

Cultural Differences in Communication

Verbal: differences in language features

  • Phonology (sound)
  • Morphology (structure, meaning units)
  • Semantics (word meanings)
  • Syntactics (word sequencing and interrelationships)
  • Pragmatics (effects of language on perceptions)

Cultural Differences in Communication

Non-verbal: differences in body language, use

of space/time/physical distance

  • Kinesics (body language): Emblems, illustrators, affect displays, regulators, adaptors
  • Proxemics (space): Personal space, territoriality
  • Touch: Meanings, context
  • Time: Orientations, systems, perceptions, use
  • Voice: Pace, levels, consistency
  • Other: Chemical, dermal, physical, artifactual

Cultural Differences in Social Categories

Kim and Gudykunst (1988):

  • Social roles
  • Social status/class/hierarchy
  • Attitudes towards human nature
  • Activity
  • Relationships between individuals
  • Time

Cultural Differences in Rules of Social Behavior

Argyle (1967), Triandis (1972):

  • Interpersonal relations

definition and importance; establishment and preservation

  • Interaction patterns

Greetings, self-presentations, conversations, expressiveness

Volume, depth, intensity

Frankness, dissatisfaction, criticism

Cultural Differences in Service

  • Differences in understanding concept of service
  • Interaction patterns between hosts and guests
  • Perceptions of proper guests’ treatment

Differences between US, Japanese, and Chinese Hosts

  • Chinese hosts tend to ignore guest expectations
  • Escorted guests, tight itinerary; little opportunity for private exploration
  • Viewed by Americans as intrusion/lack of trust
  • Japanese hosts cater to guest affairs in advance
  • Anticipate guests’ needs and fulfill beyond needs
  • Regarded by Americans as uncomfortable

Cultural Dimensions/Elements

  • Vary in their degree of importance
  • Vary in their impact on social behavior

Cultural Dimensions/Elements

Hall and Hall (1987):

  • Human nature (agreements)
  • Activity Orientation (monochromic/polychromic)
  • Human Relationships (amount of space, possessions, friendship, communication)
  • Relation to Time (past/future)
  • Space Orientation (public/private)

Cultural Dimensions/Elements

Hofstede (1980):

  • Power Distance (PD): Development of interpersonal relationships in hierarchical society
  • Uncertainty Avoidance (UA): Degree to which people feel threatened by ambiguous situations
  • Individualism-Collectivism (IC): Degree to which individual goals and needs take primacy over those of group
  • Masculinity-Femininity (MF): ….value of work and achievement versus quality of life and harmony
  • Confucian Work Dynamism: ….Chinese values apply in country of residence

Cultural Dimensions/Elements

Trompenaar (1993):

  • Human nature (universalism/particularism)
  • Modes of categorizing people or objects (general/specific)
  • Relation to nature (internal/external, inner/outer directed)
  • Activity orientation (achievement/ascription, analyzing/integrating)
  • People’s views of actions and self-expression through activities
  • Treatment of people/objects based on qualities ascribed to them

Cultural Dimensions/Elements

  • Trompenaar (1993):
  • Human relationships
  • equality/hierarchy, IC and communitarianism, affective/neutral
  • degree to which people seek gratification (immediate/self-restraint)
  • Relation to time (sequential/synchronic, past/present/future)

Cultural Dimensions/Elements

Maznevski (1994):

  • Human nature (good/evil, changeable)
  • Relation to nature (subjugation/mastery/harmony)
  • Activity orientation (doing/being, containing/controlling)
  • Human relationships (individual/collective, hierarchical)

Intercultural Interaction

  • All interactions are intercultural
  • Degree of interculturalness depends on degree of heterogeneity of interactants
  • Cultural backgrounds and dimensions/elements
  • Underlying assumption
  • Greater commonality between individuals belonging to same culture
  • Lesser commonality between individuals belonging to different cultures

Intercultural Interaction

  • Interactions occur in wide variety of situations
  • Members of different dominant cultures with extreme cultural differences

Western and Asian

  • Members of subcultures with differing values and perceptions

American and British

Intercultural Interaction

  • Degree of cultural difference depends on comparison of cultural dissimilarity
  • Minimum-maximum cultural differences among cultures and subcultures
  • Minimum – more in common

Same religion, language

Divergent beliefs, values, attitudes

  • Middle/Maximum – less in common
  • Important to analyze cultural differences in tourism

Identify which differences have detrimental effects

Cultural Differences in Tourism

  • Patterns of recreation
  • Amount of leisure time among nations
  • Patterns of vacation travel
  • Travel preferences and benefits
  • Perceptions/stereotype/image
  • Tour package, food and foodservice preferences
  • Service quality

Culture and Tourism Marketing Management

  • Differences in needs, perceptions and cultural values of international hosts and guests
  • Adequacy of product and satisfaction regarded differently by international and domestic tourists
  • International tourism marketers need to understand expectations of international tourists
  • Revise, adjust product offerings

Culture and Tourism Marketing Management

  • Tourism product should not be internationalized
  • Address market from cultural point of view prior to marketing
  • Understand cultural factors and their influence on behavior
  • Develop strategies to target particular group