Different Culture Value in Workplace

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Mei left after she told me that I have to give her exclusion and just perform her request without obey to the required process. She expected that I will stand on the same ground with her even though I had denied her suggestion. This can be implied that Mei is a high context person. According to Edward Hall’s theory of high and low context culture, high context people are tend to spoken with others in an indirect way (Pacific 2015). As mentioned, Mei left after the verbal communication without telling me directly what she will do or required. I am a rule-oriented and task-centered person. In other words, I am a low context person as I more concern about rules and what tasks should be done (Pacific 2015). Without a detailed answer from Mei, communication conflicts had formed between us due to the reason that both of us do not have a common opinion during the conversation.

Reflection of me in the situation, it can be known as uncertainty avoidance because was trying to avoid unnecessary troubles to be occurred by not following company’s standards. This can be known as strong uncertainty avoidance from Hofstede’s framework (Hofstede 2012). The framework also stated that a strong uncertainty avoidance person usually follow by standardized policies and steps (Tallinn 2009). This can be obtained through that I interacted with Mei formally by suggest Mei to follow the set instruction of the company persistently. Conversely, Mei was tended to ignore the standardized procedures and wanted me to give exceptions upon her request. As explained in Hofstede’s framework, people with weak uncertainty avoidance believe that no standardized rules are necessary and they are less rule-oriented (Kwintessential 2014).

After this incident and with the subject of International Business Skills, I have a better understanding on culture value. Every person is carrying different values while dealing with others. For this incident, I have realized that there is neither right nor wrong between Mei and I. This is because during every communication with others, we should not try to put our culture value and beliefs on others. As we unable to define value, we should not define others’ culture value.