Cultures

Explain the difference between individualistic cultures and collectivist cultures and your personal experiences with culture shock.

Here are some of Hofstedes research findings from Motivation, Leadership, and Organization: Do American Theories Apply Abroad?  In a collectivist society people are born into extended families or clans who will protect them in exchange for loyalty (Hofstede, 1990). Where as people from individualist society’s we take care of our own families and focus on what is best for them. For people in collectivist society’s they focus on being a part of an organization, there is a sense of duty that is placed within that organization and people’s personal lives may be invaded by the organization if the consensus of the group is strong enough (Hofstede, 1990).  Everything is based on a group and I bet sometimes people do not want to go along with the group because they disagree with what they are saying, but the pressure is too high to speak up. In an individualist society we speak up for ourselves, make decisions based on what we want to do, and we place importance in becoming a stronger leader and we believe everyone has a right to a private life (Hofstede, 1990).

Culture Shock

I worked for AT&T at the National Passport Information Center back in 2007, we were given two weeks of training and then we were sent out on the floor to take calls with people who had gotten there security clearance( they called it buddy-jacking). During this time we would listen onto calls and maybe help the person who was training us with the call. We were a part of a mass hire and they had three shifts of training classes and some people worked very late till midnight and I started work at 6:00 AM. Gradually as more and more people were being hired my shift was adjusted and hour twice and that was a more reasonable time for me. In this culture you had to follow privacy laws, give out correct information, and figure out a solution for each problem that came up and work in a call center that did not have assigned seats. We had bins that we could leave things in and after our shift was over we would leave it under the desk, when new hires came we ran out of room and sometimes people could not sit in “their seat”. After awhile they opened up another whole wing for us because we were in an old mill building and we were free to move around or pick a spot and know it was ours.

Have you ever heard of Matt Harding? He created this video below and I wanted to share it with you all and no matter where you are from all these people have the same thing in common, can you guess what it is?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY