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The Model to Practice Dialogues™

January 29, 2022

The MTPD fosters awareness about national identity, as a cohesive whole, provides contexts and the impact these have on one’s role in the society. For example, the functioning of marginalized communities. We are educating students, addressing cultural differences, making clear that we share universal rights and dignity no matter where we are from, by emphasizing that one cannot explain away injustices by cultural relativism.

Dimond Industry
Cases

Diamond industry

Have you ever experienced working with someone from a different country or culture and somehow it just feels…odd? It is needless to say that people from different cultures act, speak, dress, communicate, and work different-ly, but that does not mean that there is a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. In this paper, the researchers demonstrate that intercultural competences are of great value in today’s multicultural companies, because they help us understand people with different backgrounds so that working with someone from another cul-ture suddenly does not feel odd anymore, but is exciting, mind-opening, and even informative in a way. We just need the right tools to see and un-derstand the differences. The example of the employee who was born and raised in Thailand, and is now working in a Dutch company, shows readers that their cultural background hugely influenced the interpretation of the Dutch behavior. Taking advantage of the Hofstede Model and the Erin Mey-er Culture Map gives people like this employee the opportunity to make themselves aware of their own interpretations and why they think and act the way they do. They can place themselves in dimensions to see the bigger picture. After they have understood themselves, they can start to interpret other’s behaviors without major prejudice and widen their horizon to then find their place in this globalized world.

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European mindset in an American company
Cases

European mindset in an American company

A group of four students, two from Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, one from Kozminski University in Warsaw Poland, and one from Auckland University of technology in Auckland New Zealand conducted an interview with a male Bulgarian national who has lived in Amsterdam for five years. The interviewee works for an American company with British colleagues that focus on business performance. The interview works predominantly with British and Dutch colleagues and clients. The aim of the interview was to identify any cultural limitations within the interviewee’s work environment. Cultural limitations identified were primarily centred around miscommunication caused by the conflict in high-context and low-context communication styles and expectations around workplace etiquette.

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