The Global Diversity Desk Reference: Managing an International Workforce

1.7. DIMENSIONS OF CULTURE

To master all this information about a culture in which you are doing business is prohibitive. Learning about cultural difference is a complex task because we run the risk of turning learning about cultural differences into the institutionalization of stereotypes. In fact, many do err on the side of simplicity, memorizing cultural "rules" for doing business in a particular culture. But "The culture of the other," writes Folke Glastra, "is not just a grammar to be learned, but also a catalyst of emotions and an integrative framework for interests."^[] It's important to go beneath the "water line," as it were, to understand more fully the ways in which different cultures answer those fundamental questions of human life. ...