Fashion Taste and Ethics - Essay Example

? Fashion Taste and Ethics Introduction Culture is a common word often used practically in day today conversations. Arguably, a culture of any particular group plays a key role on how the members of that group think. For instance, one might thing that through paying a visit to an art gallery or the symphony, he or she increases his or her appreciation of culture. At some point someone belonging to the cultural elite might have complained about the popular culture of nose rings, rap music, movies, TV sitcoms, soap operas, and computer games. Perhaps at some point one might have used personal tastes or people’s speech style to make a conclusion that certain individuals are somewhat more cultured as compared to others basing on their level of education, upbringing or social class. If the word can be taken within this context, ways in which the word culture is used seems to be fine. However, there arguably seem to be a different view concerning the term culture ought to be viewed. Perhaps this can enlist some reaction. With a view to help people appreciate the wholesome significance of a culture for the better understanding of humanity it is it certain that there is meaningless distinction between low cultures and high cultures. This thus implies that it is impossible for a certain group of people to be said to be more cultured or otherwise have more cultures than others. It goes without saying that the term culture from the anthropological point of view has a different distinctive meaning away from what it is known. This paper, therefore, investigates the word culture with a view to provide a fairly precise definition. In this paper, other terms that encompass the term culture shall be discussed. The paper shall cover some pertinent elements of culture, as well as elaborate how essential culture is as far as human species is concerned. The paper shall sum up with explaining the modern anthropological view concerning how physical or biological differences and cultural differences between the human populations are closely related. The most widely celebrated technological developments are those pertaining to culture. These technologies are widely celebrated because they have broken physical barriers, transforming the world into a village. The eventuality is that the current era is characterized by increased interaction of people across all cultures in the world. Therefore, it cannot be disputed that, as far as intercultural interactions are concerned, communications remains a pertinent subject. Indeed, communication barriers are not uncommon in communication, especially in communications involving low context and high context cultures. What may make the subject further critical is when nonverbal communication is involved. Eye-contact non-verbal communication is one of the critical areas of concern in high-context and low-context intercultural communication. Eye contact is not only an important form of verbal communication, buts also a human form for communication; animals are often disturbed by eye contact (Salas, 1992). A substantial focus has been directed to understanding intercultural eye-contact communication, in order to foster cultural competence and minimize cultural conflict. However, few studies have focused on assessing the implications of eye-contact on instruction adherence, especially in the multi-cultural learning environment. In the early phases of human revolutions, most human activities were limited to organized groups, that is, societies. As time went by, the interaction among these societies opened up, extending across regions, cultures, and languages. Undoubtedly, trends in business activities followed the same trend. Even intriguing is the fact that the world has evolved to the extent that globalizations has made human activities subject to cultural interactions. The world is now a global village, where people across diverse culture and all regions of the world interact more frequently than ever. To this extent, it cannot be overemphasized that human beings, as well as organizations, have to content with cultural diversity. Needless to say, cultural diversity presents a lot of opportunities for business organizations to prospect. On the other hand, however, if organizations do not develop an appropriate approach towards management of cultural diversity, the implications can be far reaching (Cox 1993). As such, organizations have to be keen in tackling with tackling, cultural related issues, challenging aspects that are referred to as cultural dilemma. It is worth noting that the root diversity of cultural dilemma is cultural diversity. Cultural diversity is a group characteristic of two or more people, which also points to differences in demography of one member or another in a given group. For the understanding of the effect of cultural diversity on the productivity of organization, it is appropriate to approach cultural aspects from points of view of gender, nationality, racial ethnicity, and age, among other areas of cultural diversity. These contrast with traditional approaches, which only inclined on race, nationality, and gender (Hill, 2007). During human day-to-day activities, these aspects of cultural diversity present substantial cultural dilemma considering that management approaches strand between the cultures to base. In some cases, questions have been raised on whether there is a universal management that solves cultural dilemma. In this regard, it is indispensable that cultural dilemma is the complex challenge. Even so, it is quite relieving that cultural dilemma issues, such as in the organizations, can be resolved by applying various, creative strategies. Fogler and LeBlanc (2008) device creative strategies that is typically suited to resolving cultural dilemma. Hereunder, there are no definite approaches that can satisfactorily resolve cultural dilemma other than creativity, a tool that helps mangers to come up with original solutions that are suited to certain cultural dilemma context. Such a problem-solving approach may be referred as heuristic, a process that offers guidance through processes of solution generation while generating other alternative channels of approach. The process of approaching cultural dilemma should begin with exploration of the underlying cultural issues; the managers should first “identify the problem” (Fogler and LeBlanc 2008). This includes identification information that could be available about the issue, followed by recalling fundamentals, gathering missing links, and finding remedy to a problem. As if not enough, the managers faced with cultural dilemma should go extra miles and include processes such as hypothesizing the current challenge, recalling the past experiences. These should be followed by a description of the solutions that may be presented qualitatively, but of which may include sketching potential channels that would lead to the satisfactory solution. After these steps, organizational managers should gather additional information to help resolve the cultural dilemma, before eventually taking action. The area is crucial, because, in the current world, the crucial role that education plays cannot be overemphasized. Yet, on the other hand, the effectiveness of instruction administration is all dependent upon communication, which includes nonverbal forms such as eye contact. Nevertheless, instruction adherence goes beyond education; learning even occurs in professional life. For learning process to be effective, instructions should be framed and administered in ways that dispels barriers, including cultural barriers. As such, in the administration of instructions, cultural competence is only useful if it delivers the learning goals. As such, as far as intercultural eye-contact communication is concerned, the crucial question is whether striving for cultural harmony is inclusive of effective instruction delivery. Does eye-contact favor or demean those who embrace it, in terms of instruction intake? The appropriate way of finding out is by conducting an investigation on multicultural groups. This would entail administering instructions to high-context and low-context multi-cultural groups and testing their adherence to instructions, with respect to eye-contact. This study would be particularly helpful in understanding how culture could be limiting, as far as high and low context non-verbal communication is concerned. This would also offer information on whether to borrow a leaf from high-context or low-context culture view of eye-contact communication in administration of instructions. Of particular importance, the results would be pertinent in improving multicultural learning processes. The line of distinction between high and low context cultural communication has been particularly described. According to Hall and Hall (1990), in high context communication, speakers tend to utilize relative indirect style of communication. On the other hand, in low context communication, speakers often employ more or less direct communication style. Clearly, these communication dimensions area is an overlap of the individualism-collectivism. According to Ting and Gudykunst (2002), collectivism and individualism are pertinent dimensions of cultural differences because they can be employed in explaining the commonalities and differences between cultural communications. Individualistic dimension is whereby the goals of the individuals matter than those of the group. On the other hand, in collectivistic dimensions, the interests of the groups override those of individuals. Salas (2004) further echoes that individualistic groups have the tendency of giving considerations to cues that are dispositional. On the contrary, collectivist groups have the tendency of giving considerations to the context, as well as situations, as a way of accounting for events. As such, collectivist societies often insist on individual-based information to interpret the communication of other parties. Individualistic societies insist on using information that does not only rate precise, but also clear (Moon,1997). Examples of individualistic societies include Australia, Italy and New Zealand (Moore, Hickson & Stacks, 2010). Collectivist societies are often concerned about their minimizing the chances of hurting other parties. Members who are not corresponding to the group may be considered to be out of the group. As such, in collective societies, there may be limited interactions and communication between the group and other groups. These groups value conformity and traditions. It is for this reason that they prefer to use high context communication. This mode of communication is favorable to them because it is ambiguous and only dependent on the context (Salas, 2004). Examples of collectivism societies include Latin, Arab, Africa and Southern Europe communities. Conyne (1999) points out those team members of collectivists often prefer communicating directly with their leaders, compared to the rest of the members. Additionally, collectivist societies have the tendency of with holding information, which is a feature that could be oriented towards culture. However, when they speak, they are likely to take longer than individualistic societies. Most collectivist societies are often concerned about avoiding responses that are negative, a move that is aimed at maintaining harmony. Any form of communication is aimed at fostering interpersonal communication. More often than not, the Sociability of communication is often extended to official communication, so that, the first encounters are often punctuated by acquaintance (Ting & Gudykunst, 1998). According to Ting (2000), body language, including body and facial expression is particularly complex because a single signal could have various meanings. For instance, frowning could mean sadness while a smile could imply happiness. Besides, eyes could give various forms of information such as boredom, confidence or concentration. Desirable eye contact could imply interest and friendliness. Eye contact, alongside other forms of verbal communication, is important factors that cause motivation and persuasion of other people towards a desirable outcome (Golembiewski, 1995). In the consideration to the complexity that underlies intercultural communication, klein and Steel (2002) propose a model, referred as the lens model that can be pivotal, as far as the conceptualization of the intercultural communication problems; hence, curb the underlying impetus. Simply, cultural lens model enables people to understand how cultural differences could trigger misunderstandings in communication. Human experiences, social and physical environment determine the world and the information (Moore, Hickson & Stacks, 2010). Such experiences are what offer perspectives for the lens model. Cultural lens can be perceived to consist of various cultural dimensions that that affect interpretation of the information. If multicultural people were to adopt cultural lenses of other people, they would be able to understand other cultures; hence, overcome intercultural communication barriers. Cultural model can be crucial in resolving mentions underlying this subject. Ting (2000) points out that in all situations in the service context, frequent eye contact, alongside other nonverbal cues, are pivotal in the enhancement of sincerity, believability and trust. However, employees in the service sectors are asked to avoid the use of nonverbal cues that imply unconcern or superiority such as piercing eye contacts. This may leave customers dissatisfied. Does this scenario apply for learning environment? Nierenburg (2001) states that people tend to exercise eye contact more when listening than speaking. People are likely to break the eye contact when asked a question that demeans them or makes them feel guilty. On the other hand, when responding to an extremely pressing or offending issue, people have the tendency of increasing the eye contact. According to Miller (2000), the eye contact of the instructors is pertinent. Attitude, intimacy, concern or indifference can all be ascertained through the teachers’ eye-contact with students. Argyle (1998) notes that five main functions of non verbal communication. These include expression of emotions, personality presentation, interaction in speeches between speakers and listeners, interpersonal attitudes and greetings. As such, eye-contact may also be perceived to accomplish the five functions. According to Conyne (1999), High context cultural communication pay attention to the information conveyed through the eye contact. For instance, Asians perceive extended eye contact as a signal of rudeness and, therefore, have preference fro short eye contacts. On the other hand, the Anglo-Americans tend to enjoy long durations of eye contact during communications. For Anglo-American, breaking eye contact implies that something is amiss. Europeans prefer to look straight into the eyes of the speakers when listening. This, American Blacks are likely to look away, which may be perceived by Anglo-Americans as a depiction of indifferences. On the other hand, American Blacks consider such type of eye contact as invasive. Conyne (1999) observe that majority of American population maintain eye contact with the groups that they address. On the other hand, Asian groups tend to focus on the important VIP or leaders. Burnnet, Wells and Moriarty (2003), further observe that Asian group interactions were characterized by the limited number of speeches. All these point to the evidence that high context and low context cultures hold different perceptions about eye-contact. Currently, a substantial focus has been directed to understanding intercultural eye-contact communication, in order to foster cultural competence and minimize cultural conflict (Champaneria & Axtell, 2004). However, few studies have focused on assessing the implications of eye-contact on instruction adherence, especially in the multi-cultural learning environment. As such, as far as intercultural eye-contact communication is concerned, the crucial question is whether striving for cultural harmony is inclusive of effective instruction delivery. Does eye-contact favor or demean those who embrace it, in terms of instruction intake? Is there significant difference between the instruction adherence between the low-context and high-context culture learners, in the way they are taught, in terms of eye-contact. Conclusion Eye-contact is one of various types of nonverbal communication. As far as the differences between high-context and low-context cultures are concerned, cultural problems cannot spare the eye-contact intercultural communication. Most intercultural communication studies have often focused on understanding cultural differences in order to minimize cultural conflict while promoting competence. Considering that intercultural communication matters significantly in the learning process, the point of concern is that the globe could be pursuing cultural competence at the expense of education goals. Examining intercultural eye-contact communication could shade the light on the subject. References Argyle, M. 1998. Body Language. Madison: International University. Burnnet, J., Wells, W., & Moriarty, S. 2003. Advertisement Principles and practices. New Jersey: Pearson Publishers. Champaneria, M.C., & Axtells, S. 2004. Cultural competences training at US medical schools. American Medical Association. 291(17): 2142. 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Understanding Training and Team Performance. Norwood: ABLEX. Ting, S. Steel, D. & Klein, A. 2002. Training Cultural Decentering. Fairborne: Klein Associates. Ting, S. 2000. Theories about Intercultural Communication. Newbury: SAGE. Moon, M. 1997. Understanding the Impact of Cultural Diversity on Organizations. Retrieved on 1st March, 2012 from http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/acsc/97-0607c.pdf Read More