PERSONAGE REPORT ON CULTURAL DIFFERENCES
Table of Contents
Self-consciousness determination through conduction of personal interview.. 2
Cultural difference understanding through interviewing a colleague. 3
Comparison between these two cultures. 4
Appendix1: Questionnaires for a personal interview.. 8
Appendix2: My friend’s interview.. 9
Introduction
The report will discuss the concept of intercultural communication that has become a must for the society we currently live in. Since the people around the world are currently working and living together in different sectors of the country, hence it is quite evident that the values and ethics will differ. The concept of diversification is culture is something people often look to deal with. The culture pattern in different countries also varies differently. In this whole report, the emphasis has been provided to determine the cultural involvement and alignment in the form of autobiography, where two people will talk about their cultural difference and similarities. The report has been duly supported by applying Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory to establish the required factors. There are two autobiographies where one is about me, and another is about my Singaporeans colleague. A suitable conclusion at the end supports the study.
Discussion
The answers to be questions are addressed below-
Self-consciousness determination through conduction of personal interview
Since I am an Indian origin, the overall difference in culture has been high in my country compared to that of other countries. I owe to my parents, who have helped me a lot in improving my carrier and personal life. They have always given utmost importance and priority to the decisions I have made for my own experience and transport. Moreover, they have supported me in making a bright carrier in professional life. I have completed higher education and currently pursuing a job for which I owe to them for the sacrifice they have made for me overall. Unlike most of the Indian families, there belongs a sense of consciousness and chain of command in the family as well. However, since I currently live in Singapore, coming from such a ladder has made me face enormous challenges. Hence, understanding the similarities of Hofstede’s cultural diversities model can play an active role for me. Hofstede’s had mentioned six aspects like power distance, individualism, masculinity, long term orientation, avoidance, and indulgence. However, all my future goals and achievements are similar to those of my colleagues, which I have discussed below (Pearson et al. 2019).
On the other hand, in my autobiography, I have also told how I would approach my carrier. Many big and reputed companies in Singapore can provide me immense opportunity to shape my carrier in professional life. Hence I feel that if I get the chance to serve in any of these companies, I will able to fulfill my dream and ensure sustainability through my carrier. On the other hand the more I spend time with these people, I will get to know about their culture more precisely and abruptly. Furthermore, I have also found that my friend is also very concerned about giving his carrier perfect shape. Therefore I feel that both of our goals are the same in the long term.
Cultural difference understanding through interviewing a colleague
I have mentioned earlier that since I belong from different cultural backgrounds, and hence I have gone through a lot of challenges, and it took me some time to adjust to the culture maintained here. However, from the autobiography of Singaporean friend, I have found some sort of similarities and many dissimilarities which I would like to mention here. The significant similarity I have seen in both of our autobiographies is that both of us do not belong from joint families, and both of our parents have extended their supporting hands for shaping our carrier and personal life—however, the significant difference I have found between us the nature of mixing with people. While I am an extrovert person who can easily make friends and meet new people, my friend is a bit introverted in life, which I typically do not see in other countries (Sarala et al.2019).
On the other hand, we have much difference in hobbies as well. While I love movies, travel or party, my friend likes tom spend his quality time in gardening, which is also not many found in other cultures. Hence referring to Hofstede’s model, it can be said that despite differences, there are a lot of similarities between us among cultural standpoints, which had made a good bonding and understanding among us (Li and Li, 2019). However, through my friend’s interview, I learned about the aspect of coping with some uncertain situations. These aspects come along with uncertainty avoidance. It is related to all the people in every culture. However, while giving the interview, my friend was told how he coped up in different situations.
On the other hand, he had faced severe challenges when he had no money to meet both ends. Hence my colleague had faced specific stress on achieving the overall unconditional conditions as a whole. However, these are the particular change that has been based on the relating to biographies. Hence, in these cases, all these differences between the countries have been different based on the overall cultural dimensions. On the other hand, in India, people are very much concerned about global cultural activities and cultural aspects. Here I see that people welcome every type of people belonging from different races, origins, or even the visiting foreigners. Hence the sense of love and bonding can be found in the case of Indian people. However, coming to Singapore, I have faced differences in cultural aspects. The central element is that people in Singapore have not been as that much of welcoming and generally take care of their own business.
On the other hand, there are vast differences regarding rituals, celebrations, and other aspects. I have found that my friend has been very much connected to all these rituals. Hence he had not faced any issue regarding the cultural changes which I had faced immensely.
Figure 1: Hofstede’s analysis from India and Singapore
(Source: Hofstede Insights, 2020)
From this above analysis, it can be sent that in the case of individualism, the Indian dimension is 77 compared to that of Singapore. On the other hand, in the case of masculinity and individualism, India is far ahead than Singapore. However, based on indulgence and long term orientation. Hence it is seen that here Singapore and India have been diversified as well. Thus here, Singapore is way ahead than India (Smaldinoet al. 2019).
Comparison between these two cultures
| Similarities | Differences | |
| Race | Both autobiographies show that both of our parents are born from the base countries, and their origins are also the same as a whole. Therefore this is the reason both of us share good bonding (Peiffer-Smadja et al. 2019). | Since from the long term orientations and indulgence Singapore is way ahead than India, hence I can consider this as a significant difference In our cultural stability as a whole (Thompson and Sandberg, 2019). |
| Surroundings | The cultural environment and the family background are considered to be significant similarities between us. However, from these cultural changes, I have seen that the surroundings matter a lot in both of our cases. Hence, we need to stay in touch with relatives so that we can get the necessary support from them whenever possible. | Since I am from different culture, I have face issues in coping up with the surroundings and neighborhood that eventually was not an issue for my friend since he is used to this culture. However, due to the sudden change of lifestyle, it took a lot of time for me to be with people of their culture, and it was a vast learning experience for me being an Indian. However, my friend used to mix and talk to people easily. One more thing is that I had also faced an issue regarding communication, which my friend easily handled in his turn. |
| Mobility | In both of our cases, we have got family support for decision making regarding our life and carrier. Both of us have completed our education in our home country. | I have faced specific issues regarding my education since we had to move to Mumbai from Kolkata due to some personal issues. Hence I have started my schooling from Kolkata but done my higher study in Mumbai. On the other hand, my friend had completed his overall education in the city whereby birth he was living into. |
| Teaching | We both have completed our master’s degree courses. | The significant dissimilarity between us that I had not planned about coming to this country for starting my professional carrier while my friend had pre intentions. |
| relations structure | Both of us do not belong to much joint family (Litvin, 2019). | However, I have many relatives of mine nearby, which my friends do not have. Dissimilarity is that while I am the single child of my parents, my friend has a sister. |
| Relationship oriented celebrations. | Both of us try to value our culture and relationships. And put importance on our family first. | For my friend’s case, since he belongs from different culture, he has his independence of sharing his viewpoint with his family (Farooq et al. 2019). |
| Ritual and lifestyle | Both of us have big ambitions and live happily. Both of us love to engage in festivals and celebrate with our families. | The rituals are also different among us, while for my friend his is not accustomed to that much of ceremonies in this life as a whole. They also have specifically limited festivals like new year, Halloween that they celebrate in a bit elegant way while we the Indians loved to enjoy our rituals elaborately. |
Analysis of the results
From the results of Hofstede’s theory based on the cultural difference in India and Singapore, I can find that there are many areas where we Indians do not come close to foreign countries. For example, in the case of indulgence in jobs and other long term orientations, we are not even close to foreign countries. Since I belong from Indian culture, there are a lot of diversities and changes, and somehow there is a bit of strictness that I cannot find in Western culture. In countries like Singapore, the people welcome everything with gratitude and loves to live a peaceful life. There nobody is interested in others life and personal preference that is pretty much engaged in the Indian culture.
Furthermore, in our culture, we can see that our parents, especially our fathers, make decisions while in foreign countries, their family members can express their viewpoints regarding decision-making. On the other hand, in terms of engaging in cultures, it can be said that there are communisms that cannot be generally found in western cultures. Hence as per our autobiography, I can state that despite friendship and bonding, there are many areas where we lack adaptation, and most importantly, we rely on superstition, which the western culture does not follow (Saroglou, 2019).
Conclusion
Hence from this overall report, it can be concluded that India is rich by cultures where many people of different cultures can live. However, the people here are very welcoming; therefore, even a foreigner can adopt this effectively. On the other hand, stepping into a western culture has been tough for me. Hofstede’s model of cultural differentiation has stated that cultural and community issues have been a deep concern for us, which we lack the most. Vice versa, while interviewing my friend, I have found that how much adaptive they are with their culture and how do they make decisions.
References
Farooq, Q., Hao, Y. and Liu, X., 2019. Understanding corporate social responsibility with cross‐cultural differences: A more in-depth look at religiosity. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 26(4), pp.965-971.
Li, Y. and Li, Y., 2019. Cultural Differences in Everyday Conversation between the East and the West.
Litvin, S.W., 2019. Hofstede, cultural differences, and TripAdvisor hotel reviews. International Journal of Tourism Research, 21(5), pp.712-717.
Muthukrishna, M., and Schaller, M., 2020. Are collectivistic cultures more prone to rapid transformation? Computational models of cross-cultural differences, social network structure, powerful social influence, and cultural change. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 24(2), pp.103-120.
Pearson, T., Barger, S.D., Lininger, M., Wayment, H., Hepp, C., Villa, F., Tucker-Morgan, K., Kyman, S., Cabrera, M., Hurtado, K. and Menard, A., 2019. Health Disparities in Staphylococcus aureus Transmission and Carriage in a Border Region of the United States Based on Cultural Differences in Social Relationships: Protocol for a Survey Study. JMIR research protocols, 8(9), p.e14853.
Saroglou, V., 2019. Religion and related morality across cultures.
Thompson, S., and Sandberg, R., 2019. Multicultural jurisdictions: the need for a feminist approach to law and religion.
Sarala, R.M., Vaara, E., and Junni, P., 2019. Beyond merger syndrome and cultural differences: New avenues for research on the “human side” of global mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Journal of World Business, 54(4), pp.307-321.
Smaldino, P.E., Lukaszewski, A., von Rueden, C., and Gurven, M., 2019. Niche diversity can explain cross-cultural differences in personality structure: Nature Human Behaviour, 3(12), pp.1276-1283.
Appendix
- Which city are you from?
- Tell me about your relatives.
- Who influences you in decision making?
- Tell me about what you like to do in leisure hours.
- How can you describe your culture and rituals?
Appendix1: Questionnaires for a personal interview
| Serial no | Answers to the questions |
| 1 | By birth, I am from Kolkata, India. But later, I shifted to Mumbai. |
| 2 | I live in a small family with my parents. I am the only youngster from my parents. |
| 3 | I get more influenced by my father since he is a retired police officer. |
| 4 | In free leisure time, I watch television and some time spends quality time with my friends. I love traveling. |
| 5 | I belong from an Indian culture that is mesmerized through rituals and bonding. I enjoy all the rituals with my family in an elegant way. |
Appendix2: My friend’s interview
| Serial no | Answers to the questions |
| 1 | By birth, I am from Tampines, Singapore, |
| 2 | I live in a small family with my parents. I have a young sister. |
| 3 | I get more influenced by my father since he is a businessman. He changes me a lot to learn about business ethics and people as a whole. |
| 4 | I love to spend my time in gardening since I have a small garden at my house. |
| 5 | I belong from a western culture that is not that much diversified like India. Still, we enjoy our rituals like New Year or Halloween with our parents. |
PERSONAGE REPORT ON CULTURAL DIFFERENCES
Table of Contents
Self-consciousness determination through conduction of personal interview.. 2
Cultural difference understanding through interviewing a colleague. 3
Comparison between these two cultures. 4
Appendix1: Questionnaires for a personal interview.. 8
Appendix2: My friend’s interview.. 9
Introduction
The report will discuss the concept of intercultural communication that has become a must for the society we currently live in. Since the people around the world are currently working and living together in different sectors of the country, hence it is quite evident that the values and ethics will differ. The concept of diversification is culture is something people often look to deal with. The culture pattern in different countries also varies differently. In this whole report, the emphasis has been provided to determine the cultural involvement and alignment in the form of autobiography, where two people will talk about their cultural difference and similarities. The report has been duly supported by applying Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory to establish the required factors. There are two autobiographies where one is about me, and another is about my Singaporeans colleague. A suitable conclusion at the end supports the study.
Discussion
The answers to be questions are addressed below-
Self-consciousness determination through conduction of personal interview
Since I am an Indian origin, the overall difference in culture has been high in my country compared to that of other countries. I owe to my parents, who have helped me a lot in improving my carrier and personal life. They have always given utmost importance and priority to the decisions I have made for my own experience and transport. Moreover, they have supported me in making a bright carrier in professional life. I have completed higher education and currently pursuing a job for which I owe to them for the sacrifice they have made for me overall. Unlike most of the Indian families, there belongs a sense of consciousness and chain of command in the family as well. However, since I currently live in Singapore, coming from such a ladder has made me face enormous challenges. Hence, understanding the similarities of Hofstede’s cultural diversities model can play an active role for me. Hofstede’s had mentioned six aspects like power distance, individualism, masculinity, long term orientation, avoidance, and indulgence. However, all my future goals and achievements are similar to those of my colleagues, which I have discussed below (Pearson et al. 2019).
On the other hand, in my autobiography, I have also told how I would approach my carrier. Many big and reputed companies in Singapore can provide me immense opportunity to shape my carrier in professional life. Hence I feel that if I get the chance to serve in any of these companies, I will able to fulfill my dream and ensure sustainability through my carrier. On the other hand the more I spend time with these people, I will get to know about their culture more precisely and abruptly. Furthermore, I have also found that my friend is also very concerned about giving his carrier perfect shape. Therefore I feel that both of our goals are the same in the long term.
Cultural difference understanding through interviewing a colleague
I have mentioned earlier that since I belong from different cultural backgrounds, and hence I have gone through a lot of challenges, and it took me some time to adjust to the culture maintained here. However, from the autobiography of Singaporean friend, I have found some sort of similarities and many dissimilarities which I would like to mention here. The significant similarity I have seen in both of our autobiographies is that both of us do not belong from joint families, and both of our parents have extended their supporting hands for shaping our carrier and personal life—however, the significant difference I have found between us the nature of mixing with people. While I am an extrovert person who can easily make friends and meet new people, my friend is a bit introverted in life, which I typically do not see in other countries (Sarala et al.2019).
On the other hand, we have much difference in hobbies as well. While I love movies, travel or party, my friend likes tom spend his quality time in gardening, which is also not many found in other cultures. Hence referring to Hofstede’s model, it can be said that despite differences, there are a lot of similarities between us among cultural standpoints, which had made a good bonding and understanding among us (Li and Li, 2019). However, through my friend’s interview, I learned about the aspect of coping with some uncertain situations. These aspects come along with uncertainty avoidance. It is related to all the people in every culture. However, while giving the interview, my friend was told how he coped up in different situations.
On the other hand, he had faced severe challenges when he had no money to meet both ends. Hence my colleague had faced specific stress on achieving the overall unconditional conditions as a whole. However, these are the particular change that has been based on the relating to biographies. Hence, in these cases, all these differences between the countries have been different based on the overall cultural dimensions. On the other hand, in India, people are very much concerned about global cultural activities and cultural aspects. Here I see that people welcome every type of people belonging from different races, origins, or even the visiting foreigners. Hence the sense of love and bonding can be found in the case of Indian people. However, coming to Singapore, I have faced differences in cultural aspects. The central element is that people in Singapore have not been as that much of welcoming and generally take care of their own business.
On the other hand, there are vast differences regarding rituals, celebrations, and other aspects. I have found that my friend has been very much connected to all these rituals. Hence he had not faced any issue regarding the cultural changes which I had faced immensely.
Figure 1: Hofstede’s analysis from India and Singapore
(Source: Hofstede Insights, 2020)
From this above analysis, it can be sent that in the case of individualism, the Indian dimension is 77 compared to that of Singapore. On the other hand, in the case of masculinity and individualism, India is far ahead than Singapore. However, based on indulgence and long term orientation. Hence it is seen that here Singapore and India have been diversified as well. Thus here, Singapore is way ahead than India (Smaldinoet al. 2019).
Comparison between these two cultures
| Similarities | Differences | |
| Race | Both autobiographies show that both of our parents are born from the base countries, and their origins are also the same as a whole. Therefore this is the reason both of us share good bonding (Peiffer-Smadja et al. 2019). | Since from the long term orientations and indulgence Singapore is way ahead than India, hence I can consider this as a significant difference In our cultural stability as a whole (Thompson and Sandberg, 2019). |
| Surroundings | The cultural environment and the family background are considered to be significant similarities between us. However, from these cultural changes, I have seen that the surroundings matter a lot in both of our cases. Hence, we need to stay in touch with relatives so that we can get the necessary support from them whenever possible. | Since I am from different culture, I have face issues in coping up with the surroundings and neighborhood that eventually was not an issue for my friend since he is used to this culture. However, due to the sudden change of lifestyle, it took a lot of time for me to be with people of their culture, and it was a vast learning experience for me being an Indian. However, my friend used to mix and talk to people easily. One more thing is that I had also faced an issue regarding communication, which my friend easily handled in his turn. |
| Mobility | In both of our cases, we have got family support for decision making regarding our life and carrier. Both of us have completed our education in our home country. | I have faced specific issues regarding my education since we had to move to Mumbai from Kolkata due to some personal issues. Hence I have started my schooling from Kolkata but done my higher study in Mumbai. On the other hand, my friend had completed his overall education in the city whereby birth he was living into. |
| Teaching | We both have completed our master’s degree courses. | The significant dissimilarity between us that I had not planned about coming to this country for starting my professional carrier while my friend had pre intentions. |
| relations structure | Both of us do not belong to much joint family (Litvin, 2019). | However, I have many relatives of mine nearby, which my friends do not have. Dissimilarity is that while I am the single child of my parents, my friend has a sister. |
| Relationship oriented celebrations. | Both of us try to value our culture and relationships. And put importance on our family first. | For my friend’s case, since he belongs from different culture, he has his independence of sharing his viewpoint with his family (Farooq et al. 2019). |
| Ritual and lifestyle | Both of us have big ambitions and live happily. Both of us love to engage in festivals and celebrate with our families. | The rituals are also different among us, while for my friend his is not accustomed to that much of ceremonies in this life as a whole. They also have specifically limited festivals like new year, Halloween that they celebrate in a bit elegant way while we the Indians loved to enjoy our rituals elaborately. |
Analysis of the results
From the results of Hofstede’s theory based on the cultural difference in India and Singapore, I can find that there are many areas where we Indians do not come close to foreign countries. For example, in the case of indulgence in jobs and other long term orientations, we are not even close to foreign countries. Since I belong from Indian culture, there are a lot of diversities and changes, and somehow there is a bit of strictness that I cannot find in Western culture. In countries like Singapore, the people welcome everything with gratitude and loves to live a peaceful life. There nobody is interested in others life and personal preference that is pretty much engaged in the Indian culture.
Furthermore, in our culture, we can see that our parents, especially our fathers, make decisions while in foreign countries, their family members can express their viewpoints regarding decision-making. On the other hand, in terms of engaging in cultures, it can be said that there are communisms that cannot be generally found in western cultures. Hence as per our autobiography, I can state that despite friendship and bonding, there are many areas where we lack adaptation, and most importantly, we rely on superstition, which the western culture does not follow (Saroglou, 2019).
Conclusion
Hence from this overall report, it can be concluded that India is rich by cultures where many people of different cultures can live. However, the people here are very welcoming; therefore, even a foreigner can adopt this effectively. On the other hand, stepping into a western culture has been tough for me. Hofstede’s model of cultural differentiation has stated that cultural and community issues have been a deep concern for us, which we lack the most. Vice versa, while interviewing my friend, I have found that how much adaptive they are with their culture and how do they make decisions.
References
Farooq, Q., Hao, Y. and Liu, X., 2019. Understanding corporate social responsibility with cross‐cultural differences: A more in-depth look at religiosity. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 26(4), pp.965-971.
Li, Y. and Li, Y., 2019. Cultural Differences in Everyday Conversation between the East and the West.
Litvin, S.W., 2019. Hofstede, cultural differences, and TripAdvisor hotel reviews. International Journal of Tourism Research, 21(5), pp.712-717.
Muthukrishna, M., and Schaller, M., 2020. Are collectivistic cultures more prone to rapid transformation? Computational models of cross-cultural differences, social network structure, powerful social influence, and cultural change. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 24(2), pp.103-120.
Pearson, T., Barger, S.D., Lininger, M., Wayment, H., Hepp, C., Villa, F., Tucker-Morgan, K., Kyman, S., Cabrera, M., Hurtado, K. and Menard, A., 2019. Health Disparities in Staphylococcus aureus Transmission and Carriage in a Border Region of the United States Based on Cultural Differences in Social Relationships: Protocol for a Survey Study. JMIR research protocols, 8(9), p.e14853.
Saroglou, V., 2019. Religion and related morality across cultures.
Thompson, S., and Sandberg, R., 2019. Multicultural jurisdictions: the need for a feminist approach to law and religion.
Sarala, R.M., Vaara, E., and Junni, P., 2019. Beyond merger syndrome and cultural differences: New avenues for research on the “human side” of global mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Journal of World Business, 54(4), pp.307-321.
Smaldino, P.E., Lukaszewski, A., von Rueden, C., and Gurven, M., 2019. Niche diversity can explain cross-cultural differences in personality structure: Nature Human Behaviour, 3(12), pp.1276-1283.
Appendix
- Which city are you from?
- Tell me about your relatives.
- Who influences you in decision making?
- Tell me about what you like to do in leisure hours.
- How can you describe your culture and rituals?
Appendix1: Questionnaires for a personal interview
| Serial no | Answers to the questions |
| 1 | By birth, I am from Kolkata, India. But later, I shifted to Mumbai. |
| 2 | I live in a small family with my parents. I am the only youngster from my parents. |
| 3 | I get more influenced by my father since he is a retired police officer. |
| 4 | In free leisure time, I watch television and some time spends quality time with my friends. I love traveling. |
| 5 | I belong from an Indian culture that is mesmerized through rituals and bonding. I enjoy all the rituals with my family in an elegant way. |
Appendix2: My friend’s interview
| Serial no | Answers to the questions |
| 1 | By birth, I am from Tampines, Singapore, |
| 2 | I live in a small family with my parents. I have a young sister. |
| 3 | I get more influenced by my father since he is a businessman. He changes me a lot to learn about business ethics and people as a whole. |
| 4 | I love to spend my time in gardening since I have a small garden at my house. |
| 5 | I belong from a western culture that is not that much diversified like India. Still, we enjoy our rituals like New Year or Halloween with our parents. |