Exam 2: Cultural Competence for Leaders

Enculturation is the process whereby we learn the ways and manners of the other culture and reconcile it to our culture.

Frank Mitchell is a U.S. American businessman who was sent to Mexico to head up a manufacturing facility based largely upon his tenure with the company and his success as an accountant. Upon arrival in Mexico, he assumed that it would be "business as usual" (that everything would be the same) since he had previous success with his employees back in the U.S. However, Frank found it increasingly difficult to adjust to the culture and the work values of his team in Mexico - his superficial knowledge of Mexican culture based upon previous language study in high school, trips to Puerto Vallarta, and enjoying Mexican cuisine was certainly not enough. Frank needed to adjust because he was looking at this from an ____________ perspective

Like emotional intelligence, cultural intelligence (CQ) has certain aspects that deal with self-awareness and other-awareness. A person with strong cultural intelligence specifically can

The Cultural Sense-Making Model is made up of three steps:

A U.S. American consultant recently complained that he was having difficulty getting several Japanese-American joint ventures off the ground because the CEOs of the American companies kept sending junior executives to Japan to meet with the CEOS of the Japanese companies. This was insulting to the Japanese businesspeople, who responded by sending their own junior executives to the meetings, and nothing was getting done. In this particular instance, why was this insulting to the Japanese?

Regarding our discussion of the Cultural Sense-Making Model, we have little control over what script we select - that is why we need to develop intercultural competency.

The president of Leila Amari's firm asked her, as VP of the marketing division, and her staff (three males younger than she) to set up and close an important contract with a Saudi firm. He thought that his choice was especially good since Leila (a Jordanian American from California) knew the industry well and could also speak Arabic….As she and her staff were being introduced, Leila noticed a quizzical look on Mr. Al-Masri's face and heard him repeat "VP of Marketing" to his assistant in an unsure manner. After Leila had presented the merits of the strategy in Arabic, referring to notes provided by her staff, she asked Mr. Al-Masri what he thought….He responded by saying that he needed to discuss some things further with the head of her department. Leila explained that was why she was there….Mr. Al-Masri smiled politely and replied that she had done an especially good job of explaining, but that he wanted to talk things over with the person in charge. Beginning to be frustrated, Leila stated that she had authority for her company. Mr. Al-Masri glanced at his assistant, still smiling, and he asked the assistant to arrange for him to meet with Leila at another time. Why did Mr. Al-Masri hesitate to close the deal?

Whether you work abroad or at home, chances are you interact with a variety of people from diverse backgrounds and beliefs. Therefore we all need to develop:

Emotional intelligence means that you understand yourself and others. This includes three components: emotional self-awareness, accurate self-assessment, and self-confidence. These are important because

The first three phases of the Developmental Model of Intercultural Communication reject understanding cultural difference. One of these phases, minimization, means that there is: