Self Reflection on Culture and Communication - Assignment Example

Self-Reflection on Culture and Communication Working with other team-members There are three members in our group, Crystal, Tom and I. We three together have conducted the research about any developing country and made a presentation about it. For our work to be well organised three of us divided our work in terms of information collection responsibilities. We choose Japan in respect of a developing country from Asia for our research project. Our research was based on Japan’s culture, determinants, cross-cultural developments, along with its future prosperity. We separately collected information about Japan from various sources and prepared the presentation. Due to the research work, we came across valuable information regarding Japan. It is known as the “Land of rising sun”. Japan is a developing country with one of the largest economy as well as largest import-export facilities (MacQueen, 1998). Besides, information that was gathered was that Japan can improve the life expectancy along with lowering the rate of the infant mortality and the total population of Japan is approximately 126 million. With this large amount of population, Japan has an enriched traditional culture, which evolve from the culture of Asia, Europe along with North America. It has the heritage culture in terms of traditional Japanese crafts, paintings, literature as well. During the time of gathering all these information about Japan, we all faced some difficulties but we worked hard to manage the successfulness of the project (MacQueen, 1998). Useful Learning from Research Our teachers give us this type of presentation, in order to enrich our knowledge and learning. Besides, this helps to develop our basic inner selves in terms of group activity, leadership, collectivism, as well as motivation while working in a team. During this research, three of us worked in a team, to find out several cultural determinants, which distinctively differentiated from other culture. My part of job in this presentation is to research about following dimensions, which would show clearly; ‘Power distribution’ is unequal for this Asian country, which means that the country has ‘high power’ as well as ‘low power’ distances. From the understanding gained after collection of research, I can conclude that Japan has a centralised structure, where a former instruct the juniors. The culture of Japan is different from others as they obeyed instructions from seniors and follow collectivism to work efficiently. On the other hand, from the information gathered regarding cultural differences it can be stated that European countries has a flat as well as decentralised dimensional social structure. It was surprisingly for us to know that Japan in the contemporary scenario use centralised structure and is progressing. I also discovered that Japan has a collective culture rather than individualistic culture like European country. This implies that they help each other for performing better and achieve the organisational goals. Crystal was happy to state the fact that Japanese believe in ‘we’ nature than ‘I’. This culture is often common in most of all Asian countries like Japan. Another learning that we mentioned is regarding persistence of risk taking in Japanese people. Additionally another thing, all of us must say is that Japanese people are ready to push themselves beyond their boundaries as well as adhere a risk taking mentality for the growth the country (Adler & Graham, 1989). According to our research presentation as well as information gathered, I came across the fact that Japan is rich in culture and values their traditional norms. Their culture is more feminine culture than the masculine culture, which is all about the power and money orientation as evaluated by me through the research work. In contrast, Japanese people believe in quality of life as well as togetherness along with helping each other. From the above understandings, I can conclude my learning that, it is a homogenous country with ancient culture along with some associated terms of tradition, seniority based, and collective indirect culture. Japan is using these determinants as pillar to take advantage of globalisation and internationalisation concepts (Krafcik, 2008). I have also learnt that Japan is workaholic but belief in family for better future. Organise Problem Area of Presentation During this research work, we divided our works accordingly so that the time is saved and a well-researched quality paper can be presented. In this context, Tom was working in identifying Japanese traditional structure hierarchy. From this, Tom discovered that Japanese believes in traditional hierarchy structure with strong importance to seniority. They respect each other, are loyal towards their work, and believe in accomplishing the goals through the help of traditional cultures. Rest of us collected information about other western backgrounds of culture to differentiate both the cultures and gain better insight. However, from the research I had come across the fact that Japan is growing and expanding its nature but the country does not treat women as equal to men. This information made us to think and helped us to conclude that, having a traditional social culture in Japan would be effective and be a part of women empowerment in the period of globalisation. Another area is that, Japan induces family culture as its base of custom, but it would be a critical situation in terms of globalisation (Lieberman, Lau, & Williams, 2000). From Crystal’s observation, we came to know, that most of the European countries have a perspective of individualistic culture. In Tom’s opinion, individualistic culture should be introduced in to the Japanese cultural system to be more sustainable in global market. This aspect will help people to be more aggressive and help them in accomplishing their goals. Power distance is another aspect of cultural dimension that I have come across during my presentation. In this context, I learnt about the fact that Japanese are happy with the inequality they face. Most of the general people of Japan accept this unequal power distribution. In our opinion, being a largest importer as well as exporter, and having one of the leading economies, Japan has great opportunity to enrich in the field of agriculture, technology intensive industrial structure development, scientific research, as well as related developments (Pilkington, 2005). I am of the opinion that cultural determinants would overcome all of these cross-cultural dimensions with the help of positive leadership, as well as continuous improvements towards these determinants. During the time of collecting information about cultural determinants of Japan, three of us argued in various steps of our research, we contradict each other as well. This helped me in learning how to work in a team and perform efficiently. From the research work, I have learnt about the importance of culture and teamwork for deriving better output. From this part, individually we learn to argue t in a positive way with relevant information, as well as understand others opinions and lastly come to a specific fruitful conclusion (Roland, 1991). Time Management Time management is essential for any research as well as presentation. For the group presentation, time management is one of the most vital aspects in order to conduct the work efficiently. All of us in the selected group of presentation tried to manage the time effectively in terms of research as well as planning to collect the sources along with relevant information. During this research, we divided our activities and allocated time so that the work is completed within the stipulated timeframe. Moreover, we all realised that being punctual would be very important matter for the research to be effective. Managing time helped us in respecting each other, which proved to be beneficial for the total group. I also believe that time may not wait, but if considered in a right way, it provides positive opportunities (Covey, 1990). Communication In the basis of whole research work, Tom, Crystal, and I felt that communication in between us was overall mixed, mostly in positive way. Sometime we used to get late and messed up all the findings but lastly we are successful in providing a better paper evaluating the culture of Japan (Takahiro, 2008). Sometime it was difficult to coordinate with everyone, as it would take effort to pass the right message to the right person and enhance coordination (Tharp, n. d.). All of us belonged to different cultural background, as well as language differences existed but we coordinated properly for the work to be effective. I personally thought belonging from different culture would be a problem for us. However, surprisingly, we faced no problem as we communicated efficiently and respected each other’s opinion. Moreover, my perception regarding Tom was different but when communicated I identified that my judgement was wrong and it is not worthy to judge people without interacting with them. Tom put a lot of effort towards collecting all the information as well as he also helped in our part of presentation work and depicted a friendly approach. Crystal and I, both of us felt that it was very motivating as well as exciting to work with someone, who was not from same cultural group along with different language also. Three of us understood that it is good to listen to everyone and then make a decision. This practice would help in meeting situations like, in-group discussion, team managements, working in a group as well. Overall, this task was extremely enjoyable session for three of us as well as individually I experienced lot of things (The University of New South Wales, 2001). References Adler, N. J., & Graham, J. L. (1989). Cross-Cultural Interaction: The International Comparison Fallacy? Journal of International Business Studies, 20(3), 515-537. Covey, S. (1990). The seven habits of highly effective people. New York: Simon & Shuster. Krafcik, J. F. (2008). Triumph of the lean production system. Sloan management review, 30(1), 41-51. Lieberman, M. B., Lau, L. J., & Williams, M. D. (2000). Firm-level productivity and management influence: A comparison of US and Japanese automobile producers. Management Science, 36(10), 1193-1215. MacQueen, C. (1998). Getting ahead in tertiary study: a practical guide for business, social science and arts students. Sydney: UNSW Press. Pilkington, A. (2005). Japanese Production Strategies and Competitive Success: Mazdas Quiet Revolution. Asia Pacific Business Review, 1(4), 15-35. Roland, A. (1991). In Search of Self in India and Japan: Toward a Cross-cultural Psychology. Princeton University Press. Takahiro, F. U. J. I. M. O. T. O. (2008). The Toyota System in the 1950s. Japan in the 1950s. Tharp, B. M. (n. d.). Understanding Culture. Defining “Culture” and “Organizational Culture”: From Anthropology to the Office, 2-5. The University of New South Wales (2001). Plan Ahead and Prioritise. Time Management, 1-4. Bibliography Donahue, R. T. (1998). Japanese Culture and Communication: Critical Cultural Analysis. University Press of America. Kress, G. (1988). Communication and Culture: An Introduction. UNSW Press. Schirato, T., & Yell, S. (2000). Communication and Culture: An Introduction. SAGE. Read More