[Annotation blog post #6] Knowing yourself - Penny Carte and Chris Fox

1. This time I continue on the source that I previously posted for the first post. As people aren’t willing to abandon their cultural identities to fit into the organization mainstream, it is important for business to know and understand the cultures of the custom and deal with the cultural conflicts with appropriate respond. Each culture may expect different things from the business partner.
2. Quotes:
a. “No two cultures, or indeed individuals, are exactly the same. The number of variables is infinite.”
b. “Most of the misunderstandings…because the people involved assumed that their own beliefs, attitudes and behavior were normal…As a result, negative stereotypes were reinforced, motives were misinterpreted, goodwill was damaged and, on some occasions, communications broke down altogether.”
3. This chapter discusses on the tips of how we should interact with different culture. No one or culture is exactly the same with other. As one of the readings in our course about mature students, even they try to be the same as other college students, but they still feel something that make them different and want to define their identities in writing. By knowing yourself, and understand that business partner has culture gap with you, will help the business to avoid some misunderstandings.
4. I want to apply the tips to my life experiences. Because my topic is about intercultural and diversity, learning how people should interact is necessary. In this chapter, the author creates a scale that interprets between cultures. For example, on the scale, one should be on “individualist” side or “group-oriented” side. One culture/individual can be stay closer one side than the other, or some place in between. There is no totally accurate, I think, but having some kinds of model, it helps me to define where I stand, where others stand, and then I can find ways to communicate with others appropriately.
5. The authors are from a UK-based company whose lies in international communication. One is Penny Carte, the director the company, and other is Chris Fox, who is also a member of the company and published papers and article on cultural theories. I really feel this source is reliable and one of the reasons is because Penny Carte, one of the authors, has a fascinating background on intercultural communication. She one-to-one coaches and helps board directors, senior managers to prepare for international projects, published wide range of cross-cultural, managements skills for business training materials.
6. This source gives specific possible reactions of one culture and compares it with the others on the scale that I mentioned earlier. Different from other sources, this one is more on practical understanding, and more real life situations. This can be a good support for my ideas about cross-culture interactions.

Work cited:

Carté, Penny, and Chris J. Fox. Bridging the Culture Gap: a Practical Guide to Business Communication. London: Kogan Page, 2004. Print.