VOIS - Area 2 - Module 5

  1. MODULE TITLE

Module 5: Cultural Awareness
  1. AUTHORS

assist GmbH, Simona Fabellini
  1. SHORT DESCRIPTION

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.
  1. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

    Upon completing this module, you should be able to:

  • have a deeper understanding of what culture is,
  • know where your culture may show in Open Innovation processes,
  • be able to tell why culture can be a challenge for Open Innovation,
  • will be able to approach other cultures with more awareness in Open Innovation collaborations.
  1. Training Content
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Culture Dimensions and Country Clusters

Just give yourself a minute to reflect: Would you say there are no differences, for example, in time management, understanding of hierarchies and approach to risk-taking between companies based in different countries?

There are different tools that help to observe, understand and compare elements of culture. They provide a basis for reflection concerning behaviour that may seem strange to us.

In the context of Open Innovation, the so-called cultural dimensions are a suitable basis for reflection when it comes to working with people from other cultures and/or in international contexts. Cultural dimensions are based on the hypothesis that there are universal categories of human behaviour common to all cultures, but different cultures show culture-specific manifestations when it comes to finding solutions for certain challenges (Layes, 2010, p. 53s.).

In general, the dimensions helpful in this context are based on the most important works about cultural dimensions by Geert Hofstede, Fons Trompenaars, Edward T. Hall and The Globe Study.

Interesting to observe is the fact that according to the dimensions analysed in the Globe Study there are country clusters that, when analysed in the working context, show a) similar behaviour and b) similar values, which means that those societies have similar ideal expectations of how culturally relevant behaviour should be.

These groupings may help you to get a feeling for cultural similarities and differences across countries. If you have some experience with countries like Germany and Austria or Italy and Spain, for sure you agree that there are some similarities, for example in the way people build up relationships or communicate. Countries of the same clusters are more similar in cultural values and behaviour than countries across clusters. Nonetheless, there may be significant cultural variance even between countries of the same cluster.

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