The Science and Art of Learning about Cultures: Descriptions, Explanations, and Reflections

Vol 26, No 2; Article by Ritu Tripathi; June 2014

In Conversation with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Founder, Art of Living

National cultural differences pose a major threat to global business expansion. Therefore, a sound knowledge of cultural differences is imperative in today's globalising economy. The scholarly sources that managers draw their learning from are important in the process. These sources are categorised as descriptions, explanations, and reflections in the paper. The descriptive scientific models are the ones most commonly used in managerial learning. In these models, culture is conceptualised along bipolar dimensions, such as individualism-collectivism, high versus low power distance, high versus low context, and many more. While this information is comprehensive, in that it simultaneously rank-orders a large number of country cultures, it has shortcomings such as unidimensionality, decontextualisation, and culture-level analysis. Explanatory frameworks borrowed from cultural psychology, currently under-utilised in management literature, can potentially overcome many of these problems. The explanatory frameworks throw light on the person-level processes and mechanisms that otherwise are glossed over in the descriptive frameworks. A fuller understanding of person-level cultural differences and the attendant empirical evidence is likely to draw a more empathetic response from the manager in cross-cultural business problems. Therefore, managers are urged to complement the conventional descriptive frameworks of cultural differences with explanations. At the experiential level, personal reflection and conversation with a cross-culturally fluent authority provides insights both to researchers and practitioners. I engaged in a reflective conversation with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on themes related to: 1) adaptability and authenticity in the global workplace, 2) universal and culture-specific work values: the Indian context, and 3) managing diversity and differences in the workplace. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's valuable insights, offered in plain, simple terms, were also useful in drawing specific directions for future research and practice.