By: Rachel

Rachel — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 12:28:29 +0000

Christine, I also really liked this article a lot. I agree that Bosley may not have offered enough in the way of solutions or suggestions for implementing change in our collaborative work in North America. But that lacking I seem to find so frequently in these scholarly articles may be what John and other instructors of ours at WVU may simply be due to the fact that the scholars and authors of these articles never set out to offer solutions. They’re simply bringing the issue to light. And that, more than anything, is what I so appreciated about Bosley’s article. Like you, I had never once, I don’t think, considered cultural differences within group-work settings! It seems so obvious now. But was not something I had ever considered previously. And I tend to take a bit of a stance with this kind of stuff, so I will say that I, too, really picked up on Bosley’s discussion of Euro-North Americans’ tendencies to be individually driven, goal-oriented, competitive, and ethno-centric, whereas those from other cultures tend to lean more toward community, group harmony, and the like. I am a competitive person, to be sure. But when it comes to group work, I feel like I tend to hedge more toward a non-Western nature in that I will succumb to group agreements before I ever challenge the group’s position or offer up my own unyielding position. It may unpatriotic of me, and equally as naive of me, but North Americans’ ethnocentricism just galls me. As you said, we are becoming more and more global with each passing year and each generation, and I think it is our—the collective, global “our”—responsibility to be globally aware and accepting as much as we can. I’ve always found North Americans’ inherent arrogance frustrating. Why is it that those in many other countries worldwide take the time to learn our language, and in fact often times speak several different languages, and the general American public (a majority I would venture to guess) speak only English? Communication and collaboration are the key to so many avenues of success, I think, and for a society that so often finds ourselves working collaboratively, we should take it upon ourselves, as a civic duty sort of thing, I think, to be able to work as global collaboratives.

Comments on: Cultural Communication Differences in Collaborative Group Efforts

By: Rachel