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Module 5: Cultural Awareness |
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assist GmbH, Simona Fabellini |
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Enhancing your consciousness about your own cultural values, norms, attitudes and forms of behaviour helps developing an awareness also for the differences between cultures. Starting from the question about what Culture is, you will discover the link between Culture and Open Innovation and then explore how certain elements of culture, called culture dimensions, can typically show when people are working together adapting Open Innovation processes. As people behave according to their own set of values, it is important to understand why the “ethnocentric” perspective may lead to intercultural misunderstandings leading to a negative influence on Open Innovation. Last but not least, you will receive some tips about strategies how to open up to cultural awareness so that in the end you will be better prepared for intercultural encounters by having grown in your intercultural competences. |
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Upon completing this module, you should be able to: |
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Why is Culture “fuzzy”?
Just give yourself a minute to reflect: Have you ever thought of how many cultures you belong to? Just reflect for a moment about your family origins, your relationships to other groups you belong to during your free time or your business networks. How homogeneous are they?
For a long time, people thought that cultures were limited to a certain territory and that they were quite homogeneous and static. In the last years there has been a tendency to perceive “culture” as changeable and as something that is interrelated and not distinct from other cultures. Some researchers think that one of the characteristics of these modern cultures is a strong orientation towards networking and processes (Bolten, 2013, p. 5).
“Culture” in this sense has become a network of relationships between people. People are members of more than only one group, i.e. people participate in more than one group-culture. They constantly bring in different elements from other group-cultures into each new group they are in contact with. The result of this process is an ever changing, heterogeneous structure as we can observe it in modern societies. It is difficult to say what is part of our own culture and what is not. This is why some say that cultures are “fuzzy” (Bolten, 2013, p. 6s.).
What has Fuzzy Culture to do with Open Innovation?
Just give yourself a minute to reflect: Do you see a similarity between the concept of “Fuzzy Culture” and Open Innovation?
Open Innovation creates fuzzy cultures within organizations and companies. The Open Innovation approach is based on opening up to and exchanging ideas, models, concepts and knowledge with others. Thereby, companies or organisations create a shared pool of knowledge either by integrating what is new coming from the outside or by providing own knowledge in the sense of “inside-out”. (https://www.gabler-banklexikon.de/definition/open-innovation-71002 ). Just like in fuzzy cultures, where people are interconnected and linked to various culturally different groups, also in Open Innovation approaches there are no strict company boundaries, but interactions crossing these and reaching out to new experiences, insights and new ways of knowledge acquisition.
When people in organizations and companies interact in bilateral or even multilateral ways during the process of Open Innovation they create something, the result of which – spoken in cultural terms – is a new organization and company culture.