Matakuliah
Tahun
: V0052
: 2008
CONCEPT OF CULTURE
Week 1
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this unit, the students should be able
to explain the meaning of culture, characteristics of
culture and cultural interaction, as well as to understand
the importance of learning cross culture awareness in
the hospitality and tourism industry.
Mahasiswa dapat menjelaskan pengertian budaya,
karakteristik budaya, dan interaksi antar budaya, serta
mahasiswa dapat memahami pentingnya mempelajari
lintas budaya dalam industri perhotelan dan pariwisata
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Subjects
• Concept and definitions of culture (Definisi dan konsep
budaya)
• Purpose and benefits of learning cross-cultural (Tujuan
dan manfaat mempelajari lintas budaya)
• Characteristics of culture (Karakteristik budaya)
• Sub culture (Sub budaya)
• Cultural differences (Perbedaan budaya)
• Dimensions of culture (Dimensi budaya)
• Model of inter-cultural interaction (Model interaksi antar
budaya)
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• When the US firm Gerber started selling baby food in
Africa they used the same packaging as in the US, i.e.
with a picture of a baby on the label. Sales flopped and
they soon realised that in Africa companies typically place
pictures of contents on their labels.
• Pepsodent tried to sell its toothpaste in South East Asia by
emphasizing that it "whitens your teeth." They found out
that the local natives chew betel nuts to blacken their teeth
which they find attractive.
• The film "Hollywood Buddha" showed a complete lack of
cultural sensitivity by causing outrage and protest on the
streets of Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Burma when the
designer of the film's poster decided to show the lead actor
sitting on the Buddha's head, an act of clear degradation
against something holy.
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• The concept of Big Brother was somehow taken to
the Middle East. The show was pulled of the air
after its first few episodes due to public protests
and pressure from religious bodies stating the
show's mixed sex format was against Islamic
principles.
• A golf ball manufacturing company packaged golf
balls in packs of four for convenient purchase in
Japan. Unfortunately, the number 4 is equivalent to
the number 13 due it sounding like the word
"death". The company had to repackage the
product.
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Culture comes in many shapes and sizes.
It includes areas such as politics, history,
faith, mentality, behaviour and lifestyle.
The examples above demonstrate how a
lack of cultural sensitivity led to failure.
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Week 1
Concept of Culture
– The are many definitions of the word
“Culture”
– Derives from the Latin “Colere” – Cultivate,
to settle, e.g. agriculture, horticulture
– Culture is developed within the individual as
well as the outside environment
– It is continually changing and dynamic
– Culture is reflected in communication
patterns
– Culture is way of acting, a way of behaving
– Culture is a collective phenomenon
• People who grow up in similar environment
tend to share common attitudes and behave
in similar ways
– Culture is not inherited, it is learned
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Week 1
Concept of Culture
• CULTURE
The web of ways of living, behaviours, beliefs,
values, customs, aesthetic standards, social
institutions and styles of communication which
a group of people have developed to maintain its
survival in a particular physical and human
environment. Its pervasive binding force
belongs to a group of people who identify
themselves as “Us”. Culture is a non-evaluative
term, neither good nor bad
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Week 1
What is Culture?
Culture is a complex whole which include knowledge,
belief, art, law, morals, custom and other capabilities
and habits acquired by man as a member of society
(Edward Tylor, 1958)
Culture is a complex whole that consists of all the ways we
think and do and everything we have as members of society
(Robert Bierstadt, 1974)
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Week 1
What is Culture?
Culture is what all human beings learn to do, to use,
to produce, to know, and to believe as they grow
to maturity and live out their lives in the social groups
to which they belong
Culture is the knowledge, language, values, customs
material objects that are passed from person to person
and from one generation to the next in a human group
or society
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CULTURE
(according to Geert Hofstede)
The collective programming of the mind
that distinguishes the members of
one category of people from another
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Week 1
Concept of Culture
– Culture is not only the way we do things. It is also our
attitudes, thoughts, expectations, goals and values. It is the
rules of our society – the norms that tell us what is and what
is not acceptable in the society
– Culture can also be viewed from an anthropological
perspective, that is, in its most traditional interpretation, such
as Aboriginal Culture
– Culture in the context of social development. If one is
cultured, you have an understanding of the arts, etc
– Is the elite could have culture, why not the rest? Hence the
idea of folk culture represented in dance, food, sport, etc.
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Week 1
Benefits to the Tourism & Hospitality Industries of
Improved Cultural Awareness
•
•
•
•
•
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Better service to international guests
Improved relations in the workplace
Increased return business
Improved the industry and the organization reputations
Better service to local community
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Three Levels of Uniqueness in Human Mental
Programming
Specific to Individual PERSONALITY
Specific to Group
or Category
Universal
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CULTURE
HUMAN NATURE
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Inherited & Learned
Learned
Inherited
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Week 1
The Cultural Iceberg
Visible Components
Dress
Habits
Tradition
Appearance
Behaviors
Language
Assumptions
Personality Styles
Expectations
Time Orientation
Values
Rules/Roles
Hidden
Thought processes
Components
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Space Orientation
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Week 1
Characteristics of Culture (Herbig : 1998)
• Functional: each culture has a function to perform; its
purpose is to provide guidelines for behavior of a group
of people
• Social Phenomenon: human being create culture;
culture results from human interaction and is unique to
human society
• Prescriptive: culture prescribes rules of social behavior
• Learned: culture is not inherited; it is learned from
other members of the society
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Week 1
Characteristics of Culture (Herbig : 1998)
• Arbitrary: cultural practices and behaviors are subject
to judgment. Certain behaviors are acceptable in one
culture and not acceptable in other culture
• Value Laden: culture provides values and tells people
what is right and wrong
• Facilitates Communication: culture facilitates verbal
and nonverbal communication
• Adaptive/ Dynamic: culture is constantly changing to
adjust to new situation and environment; it changes as
society changes and develops
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Week 1
Characteristics of Culture (Herbig : 1998)
• Long Term: culture is developed thousands of years
ago and it was accumulated by human beings in the
course of time and is the sum of acquired experience
and knowledge
• Satisfy Needs: culture helps to satisfy the needs of the
members of a society by offering direction and
guidance
(Source: Reisinger, 2003, p.14)
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Week 1
Subcultures
• Dominant culture consists of several subcultures
• Subcultures can be based on race, ethnicity,
geographic region or economic or social class
– Race: a genetic or biological similarity among people
(Lustig and Koester, 1993)
– Ethnicity: a wide variety of groups of people who share a
language, history and religion and identify themselves with
a common nation or cultural system (Lustig and Koester,
1993)
– Geographical region: geographic differences within
countries or similarities between countries
– Economic and social class: differences in the socioeconomic standing of people
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Week 1
Subcultures
• Each subculture community exhibits characteristic
patterns of behavior that distinguish it from others
within a parent culture
• Each subculture provides its members with a
different set of values and expectations as a result
of regional differences
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Week 1
Subcultures
Sub cultures indicate the form of
private social interaction
SUB CULTURE
SUB CULTURE
DOMINANT CULTURE
Dominant culture directs the form
of public social interaction
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Week 1
Cultural Differences
Cultural Differences in
Communication
Cultural Differences
in Rules of Social
Behavior
Cultural Differences in
Social Categories
Cultural Differences in
Service
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Week 1
Cultural Differences in Communication
• Different patterns of verbal communication
– Language
•
•
•
•
Phonology (differences in sound)
Morphology (differences in meaning units)
Semantic (differences in meaning of words)
Syntactics (differences in the sequence of the words and their
relationships to one another)
• Pragmatics (differences in effects of language on
perceptions) (Lustig and Koester, 1993)
– Paralanguage
• Intonation, laughing, crying, questioning
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Week 1
Cultural Differences in Communication
• Different patterns of non-verbal communication
– Body movement (kinesics)
– Space (proxemics): Use of personal space (intimate,
personal, social, public), Territoriality
– Touch
– Time
– Voice: Vocal communication (high/low, fast/slow,
smooth/staccato, loud/soft)
– Other non-verbal codes: clothing, building, furnishing,
jeweljery, lighting, cosmetics, skin and hair color, body shape
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Week 1
Cultural Differences in Social Categories
• Role, Status, Class, Hierarchy, Attitudes towards
human nature, Activity, Relationships between
individuals (Kim and Gudykunst, 1988)
• Standing, looking, touching, perceiving sense of
shame, feelings of obligations, responsibility,
saving face, avoidance of embarrassment,
confrontation, taking initiatives, responses and
external appearance (Argyle, 1967, 1978; Damen, 1987;
Dedd, 1987; Gudykunst and Kim, 1984; Hall, 1955, 1959, 1976,
1983; Taylor, 1974; Thiederman, 1989)
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Week 1
Cultural Differences in Rules of Social Behavior
• Describing reasons and opinions (Argyle, 1978)
• Expressing dissatisfaction and criticism (Nomura
and Barnlund, 1983)
• Joking, asking personal questions, complimenting
and complaining, expressing dislike, showing
warmth, addressing people, apologizing,
farewelling, expressing negative negative opinions
and gift giving
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Week 1
Cultural Differences in Service
• Cultural differences on the interaction process
between a service provider and a visitor
Example: Chinese Hosts & American Tourists
– Chinese escorting their guests everywhere, providing them with
a tight itinerary and not leaving an opportunity to experience
the Chinese life style privately. The Chinese hosts believe they
have provided their guests with courtesy.
– American tourists may view such hospitality as an intrusion and
lack of trust.
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Week 1
Cultural Dimensions
• There are many dimensions of which cultures differ
• Some of the dimensions are:
– Hall (1960, 1966, 1973) and Hall and Hall (1987)
According to Hall, cultures can be differentiated on the basis of
orientation towards:
• Human nature: agreements
• Activity orientation
• Human relationships: amount of space, possessions,
friendship, communication
• Relation to time: past/ future
• Space orientation: public/ private
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Week 1
Cultural Dimensions
– Hofstede (1980, 1984, 1991)
• Power distance (PD): interpersonal relationship
develop in hierarchical society
• Uncertainty Avoidance (UA): the degree to which
people feel threatened by ambiguous situations
• Individualism-Collectivism (IC): the degree to which
individual goals and needs take primary over group
goals and needs
• Masculinity-Femininity (MF): the degree to which
people value work and achievement vs quality of life
and harmonius human relations
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Week 1
Cultural Dimensions
– Adler (1986)
• Human activity
• Space
• Time
• Human nature
• Relationships with nature
• Human relationships
– Argyle (1986)
• Formality: formal/ informal cultures
• Touch: contact/ non-contact culture
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Week 1
Cultural Dimensions
– Trompenaar (1984, 1993)
• Human nature: universalism/ particularism
• Relation to nature: internal/ external, inner/outer directed
• Activity orientation: achievement/ascription, analysing/
integrating
• Human relationships: equality/hierarchy,
individualism/collectivism and communitarianism,
affective/natural
• Relation to time: sequential/synchronic, past/present/future
– Maznevski (1994)
•
•
•
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Human nature: good/evil, changeable
Relation to nature: subjugation/mastery/harmony
Activity orientation: doing/being, containing and controlling
Human relationships: individual/collective, hierarchical
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Week 1
Dimensions of Culture (Sociological Perspective)
Cognitif
Normative
Folk Ways
Symbols
(informal rules
in a society/ tradition)
Language
Mores
(standard social norm)
Beliefs
Values
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SYMBOLS
Anything that meaningfully represents something else
•A flag  patriotism, nationalism, school spirit
•A heart  love
•A dove  peace
•A siren  emergency situation
•Gestures  express our ideas or feelings to other
•Color of clothing  gender (blue for boys, pink for girls)
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LANGUAGE
A set of symbols that express ideas and enable
people to think and communicate with one another
Language and Gender
•The English language ignores women by using masculine
form to refer to human beings in general (Basow, 1992)
e.g. mankind, man = all human beings
•Use of the pronouns he and she affects our thinking about gender
•Women are sexual objects that often described by terms such as
fox, babe, doll; meanwhile men have performance pressure placed
on them by being defined in term of their sexual prowess, such as
dude, stud, hunk
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LANGUAGE
A set of symbols that express ideas and enable
people to think and communicate with one another
Language, Race and Ethnicity
•Language may create and reinforce our perceptions about race
and ethnicity
•The use of overtly derogatory terms such as nigger, honkey, savage
in movies, music, etc
•Words are used to create or reinforce perceptions about a group
e.g. blacks have been described as “uncivilized and cannibalistic”
•Words may have more than one meaning and create and reinforce
negative images  blackhearted = malevolent
Chinaman’s chance of success = unlikely to success
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VALUES
Collective ideas about what is right or wrong,
good or bad, and desirable or undesirable in
a particular culture
Values provides us with criteria by which we
evaluate people, objects and events.
E.g. Equality and fairness in a democratic society, tolerance,
support for diversity, compassion and generosity
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Week 1
Intercultural Interaction Model
CULTURAL INTERACTION MODEL (PORTER AND SAMOVAR, 1988)
CULTURE A
CULTURE B
text
text
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text
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t
x
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t
tex
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CULTURE C
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Week 1
Intercultural Interaction Model
• Differing shapes of the individual represent the influence of
different cultures on an individual
• When an individual from Culture A leaves its culture and
reaches Culture B, his or her behavior changes because of the
influence of a culturally different society.
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QUESTIONS?
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REVIEW QUESTIONS 1
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
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In your own words, briefly define the term CULTURE
Write 3 hidden and 3 visible components of culture
List 3 important benefits of a multicultural work force?
What is subculture?
Explain cultural differences in communication and service and
give examples
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