October 1, 2012

Cultural Communication Differences in Collaborative Group Efforts

I found Bosley’s article “Whose Culture Is It Anyway” about what makes an effective team member in collaborative groups fascinating. Throughout my education in elementary, middle, high school, and even some parts of college that we would score our team members depending upon the amount of effort they put into the project, their input, etc. Never before reading this article did I think about the cultural differences in the people that work in collaborative groups, problematic more so in the university setting where diversity is most prevalent. Using a Westernized standard for how people should work in groups is an ineffective pedagogical method, and the processes for evaluating an individual works needs to be altered.

My problem with Bosley’s article, however, was that I don’t know if she truly offered sound ideas on how to change the way we work together in groups. She discussed that we need to talk about communication methods across cultures so that everyone understands what is happening in a group – when someone is trying to become a leader, when people are being silent out of respect, etc. However, this method needs to be implemented from a young age or by the time collaborative projects come around in higher education, too much time will be spent on teaching each other how to interact before even beginning the projects.

Fascinating, though, was the discussion of how Euro-North Americans place emphasis on the individual and individual achievement or success whereas other cultures focus more on the group and the success of the group as a whole. Working together collectively towards one common-goal project, it seems that people of other cultures would be better at working together because of their desire to succeed as a group rather than individually. However, I do wonder whether or not that ever becomes problematic in deciding leadership roles, offering new ideas, etc. If an individual wants to be successful, it seems fair to say that he or she would always offer ideas to ensure that success, whereas if someone is supporting the success of the group and a project is already underway, he or she might hold their idea back as to be supportive of the other members and not cause conflict within that group.

As we become more globalized, I do think it is important to implement pedagogical strategies that allow us to learn more collaborative work strategies. Just reading through this article, I recognized situations that I had seen or experienced. Without realizing it, I have been pre-disposed to thinking that each individual should offer ideas and work towards a goal and that when someone is quiet that they are just being lazy and not trying to put in the effort, which in turn, would cause me to not rank them as high if we were to rate them on their collaborative group effort. I would be interested in reading how international students coming to Euro-North American countries are prepared for these types of situations, if at all. Especially in the field of Professional Writing, communication styles need to be cohesive in some manner, and without working on collaborative projects with all cultural communication styles in schools, it’s inhibiting growth in the work place.

One comment

October 2, 2012 - 8:28 am Rachel

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.

October 2, 2012 - 8:28 am Rachel

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.