Das τ der Kultur - Eine Physiologie des interkulturellen Managements

Inhalt/Contents

Teil 1
Das „ +-Modell“ des integralen interkulturellen Managements
1. Cross-Cultural Observations
2. The Enigma of the Cross: Cross, Tau and Tao of Culture
3. The Root of Civilisation and the Tree of Life
4. The Application of the Metaphor of Metaphors to the World’s Cultures and their Integration
5. The Quantum-Cultural Motive in Creation
6. CROSS – Cultural Management
7. Cosmic Love
8. The Civilisation of Love

Teil 2
Das „τ-Modell“ des integralen interkulturellen Managements
1. Cultural Awareness – Kulturelle Bewusstheit
Kulturdefinition
Die Entstehung des Kulturprofils
Bewusstseinsarchitektur und Kultur
Architektur der kulturellen Ebenen in verschiedenen Tiefen
Die Beziehung zwischen expliziter und impliziter Bewusstseinsarchitektur
2. Cultural Knowledge – Kulturelles Wissen
Kulturmodelle und interkultureller Paradigmenwechsel
Geert Hofstede (achtziger Jahre)
Trompenaars und Hampden-Turner (neunziger Jahre)
Edward T. Hall and Mildred R. Hall (neunziger Jahre)
Brannen und Salk (2000)
Der transkulturelle Ansatz (2000+)
Synopsis interkultureller Managementforschung
3. Cultural Skills – Kulturelle Kompetenzen
3.1 INTRAPSYCHISCHES PROZESS- UND INTERKULTURELLES KOMMUNIKATIONSMANAGEMENT
Das ORJI-Modell
Der MIS-Faktor Prozess
Die PIE-Metapher
Multimodellierung intrapsychischer Prozesse
3.2 VISUELLE SYSTEMATISIERUNG DER WELTKULTUREN
Das Balkendiagramm der Weltkulturen
Das bipolarisierte Kontinuum der Weltkulturen
Weltkulturenkartierung
Emergente Kulturprofile im globalen Management
Epochales Bewusstseinsorientiertes (ALG)-Clustering
Das Radardiagramm
3.3 INTERKULTURELLE ENTWICKLUNG UND DIAGNOSTIK
Geometrisierung und Numerisierung des interkulturellen Profiling und Matching
Die Diagnostik des interkulturellen Anpassungsverlaufs
Distanzdiagnostik
Globale Mindsetdiagnostik
Spezieller interkultureller Managementkompetenzerwerb
Transnationale Manager
Das Entwicklungsprofil unter globalem Blickwinkel
3.4 KULTUR UND BEWUSSTSEIN
Die Bedingtheit der interkulturellen Kompetenz durch die psychologische Entwicklung
Die Entwicklung transkultureller Intelligenz
Der transkulturelle Profiler als Entwicklungsspirale
3.5 GLOBALISIERUNGSMANAGEMENT
Revuepassierung der Globalisierungsstrategien im weltweiten Vergleich unter transkulturellem Blickwinkel:
Levitt Theodore
Ohmae Kenichi
Perlmutter Howard
Adler Nancy
Bartlett, Ghoshal and Birkinshaw
Transnationales Management
Vergleich der Globalisierungskonzepte unter transkulturellem Blickwinkel
3.6 GLOBALES BUSINESS TEAM MANAGEMENT
Das globale Hochleistungsteam
Teambildung
Teamcharter
Teamprozess
Diversität vs. Integration
Der Teamleiter
Vertrauen im Team
3.7 GLOBALES VERHANDLUNGSMANAGEMENT. EIN ÜBERBLICK
3.8 EINE SYNOPSIS INTERKULTURELLER KOMPETENZEN UND INSTRUMENTE
4. Cultural Practice and Intercultural Learning – Kulturelle Praxis und Interkulturelles Lernen
4.1 Die Interdependenz von kultureller Praxis und kulturellem Lernen
4.2 Praxologie: Simulation, Rollenspiel und Fallstudie im Kontext des interkulturellen Erfahrungslernens
4.3 Die effektiveren interkulturellen Management Praktiker
5. Die Ethik
6. Die Einheit
7. Der integrale interkulturelle Management Zyklus: Diversität-Synergie-Kreativität-Innovation-Prosperität-Integrität
7.1 Kulturelle Diversität
7.2 Kulturelle Synergie
7.3 Kulturelle Kreativität, kulturelle Innovation und kulturell basierte Prosperität
8. Kulturelle Integrität

Teil 3
Das „DOM-Modell“ des integralen interkulturellen Managements: Der inter-transkulturelle Profiler
A Review of the Intercultural Paradigm
1. The state of the intercultural art and science: On human relativity in intercultural research
2. Enhancing the intercultural art and science:
Sources, models and the achievement of supreme cultural intelligence

Teil 4
Die semiotische Systematisierung des integralen inter-transkulturellen Bewusstseinsraums
Bibliographie

Teil 1

Das „ + -Modell“ des integralen interkulturellen Managements

Vorgriechisches T-Symbol: +

Griechisch/hebr. T-Symbol: τ

1. Cross-Cultural Observations

When one crosses national cultural borders in the academic world one notices that at leading centers of education across Europe there is a strong explicit or implicit reference to the Christian tradition. The names of the Colleges of the University of Cambridge for example sound like a church litany. You can name them and add “pray for us” to compose a complete and wonderful prayer that invokes the spiritual help and guidance from many saints. It is a permanent All Saints’ experience. Maybe that was one of the reasons, in addition to the hope for world-leading academic excellence, why I was attracted to it in 2004, when I participated on an Intercultural Management Programme offered by Cambridge University.

A year or so after its end a one-day workshop was organized to update all the participants from diverse cultural backgrounds. Significantly it was held at Jesus College of the Distant Fen (Cambridge). Unfortunately I could not attend but now this more or less conscious move by the organizers could, apart from the availability of a suitable venue for the gathering of the culturally diverse flock, be interpreted in the light of the Christian metaphor – which of course is a fact to Christians – as a purposeful integrative stratagem by Western cultural standards that embraced the entire world: Truly a magnificent cherry on the cake for the alumni of an intercultural management programme.

Upon crossing the Channel and reaching the destination of another educational highlight in Europe one reaches a location many scholars have sought and whose lists of alumni reminds one of a “Who is Who” of the world: The Sorbonne in Paris which similarly to Cambridge has nearly a millennium of scholarly tradition. Through the revolution France has become a secular country as far as its institutions are concerned. But this is only the surface of French culture. The names of Parisian universities - contrary to the Cambridge Colleges - follow a numerical logic starting with Paris I - Panthéon Sorbonne, followed by II, III, IV etc. as far as the old Sorbonne is concerned. After the counter-cultural revolution of the sixties new universities have been created and added to further complete the numerical logic in line with official French secularism and Cartesianism which stands for rationalism. This may be a compromise by the academic and other institutional environments to accommodate the notion of freedom - la liberté - which in addition to égalité and fraternité is celebrated and highly valued by this culture. After all France offered the symbol of freedom of the Statue of Liberty to the United States and France has historically been a country of refuge for all those people across the world whose freedom was suppressed.

I personally have a physical experience of this: When I was a student in Paris I offered shelter to an Iranian student who had studied psychology in the UK. He could not stay in that country. France offered him refuge, although with some difficulties. My hospitality seemed to displease the director of the German Heinrich Heine Foundation, where I lived at that time. Of course Germany and this representative of the German culture cannot boast the unconditional adherence to this supreme value to the same extent as French culture. As for London, where the refugee came from, one does not seek religious references in vain in spite of the historical English separation from Roman tradition as is evident in names like St. Pancras or St. George - among others - who is the patron saint of the country. The latter, known as the Dragon Slayer seems to have been successfully protecting the Christian legacy. After 500 years of separation of the Anglican Church from Rome, there now is a sense of reintegration documented by the present Pope Benedict XVI’s pastoral visit to the UK in September 2010 and a large scale return of Anglican Bishops with their flocks to the universal Roman Catholic Mother Church.

But let us return to the Sorbonne for a moment. Although religion, one might say, has been moved extra muros of the university formally to underline institutional secularism at the surface to the extent that due to complete separation of church and state one can hardly study theology at this world leading university, although spiritual giants like Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order among countless other spiritual luminaries were teaching and learning at this place in its heyday centuries ago. But the present impression may be misleading for the streets of Paris - similar to the Cambridge Colleges - are an even more extensive universal litany that involves a multiple of names of saints compared to Cambridge. The prefix Saint (St.) is carried by hundreds of names of streets and plazas in which hundreds of churches, chapels and institutions in turn carry the names of saints. So, it was not possible to extirpate religious tradition form French society but revolutionary repression rather caused it to universalize across the urban landscape. The social religious undercurrent could not be tamed. Its high concentration at the Sorbonne being no longer possible it diffused across the entire metropolis with its extensive suburbs and beyond into the entire country which has been called the elder sister of the Catholic world due to its centuries and millennia of Christian tradition.

If one moves further South to Madrid one notices that the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the historically leading Spanish university and one of the oldest European universities has like the Sorbonne and Cambridge, entirely Christian, more specifically Catholic Christian roots. It has grown from diverse monastic roots such as Franciscan roots form Alcalá de Henares and Dominican roots from today’s city center of San Bernardo near the Plaza de España, known to many visitors of Madrid. 150 years ago the latter root institutions of the University of Madrid have become a twin college, i. e. Colegio Cardenal Cisneros and Colegio San Isidro. Among its illustrious alumni is the present King of Spain Juan Carlos II. And the dictum of the late General and former Head of State who united Spain and was in power for ca. 35 years, Francisco Franco: “I was born as a catholic, I wanted to live as a catholic and I want to die as a catholic.” aptly sums up the prevailing attitude of the country in spite of many diverse ideological currents in this nation that shook off 800 years of Muslim domination. Similar to Paris and to the Cambridge colleges, here again the historical religious tradition is evident in the names of Madrid’s institutions and countless streets. Still today the Madrilenian urban map highlights thousands of names of Saints and religious symbols.

The same obviously applies to Rome and the Vatican with their numerous churches, Roman Catholic universities and institutions and their prevailing millenary, in particular Catholic Christian tradition and heritage.

Over more than a decade I had the privilege of attending most of the mentioned places of learning, in particular those in Paris, Madrid and London, some of them, like Paris, over years, others like Cambridge, Zürich and Rome for the intensive post-graduate intercultural management programme referred to. In Castelgandolfo our workshop was hosted by a leading corporate university a few minutes from the Pope’s summer residence, a millennia old highlight of Roman Catholicism that also played a major role as a place of refuge from persecution for Jews during WWII.

From this brief review of European places of learning and scholarliness one can see that the Christian tradition is, more overtly or covertly, present in the actual DNA of these cultures and due to this it could not be neither be extirpated by revolutions, nor anarchism, nor tyrannies or dictatorships that wanted to reverse and reengineer this religious DNA towards worldly values in their interest. But rather than succeeding in this attempt the DNA or fundamental Christian value system universalized and increasingly dominated the entire environment to the extent that is has become a subconscious determinant of social and individual life in these cultures. Many a visitor might be unaware of it as urban landscapes are converging driven by technology and economy while the very deep undercurrent nonetheless still shapes and forms these cultures at a deeper level.

All these places of academic and worldly achievement have exclusively religious and more specifically Roman Catholic roots and these roots live on in the collective consciousness, so that they produce a rootedness in continuity over many hundreds and even thousands of years. This deep rootedness can provide a solid foundation in the face of waves upon waves of more superficial scientific, technical and industrial revolutions. In fact it provides an anchor for man that can neutralize the impact of change with regard to its environmental and human price. It therefore is a stabilizing factor that enables smooth evolution and change management.

When one turns one’s eyes to the country in which I am writing, to the city where the automobile was co-invented 125 years ago in 1886 one notices on the other hand that there is hardly any reference to a religious tradition comparable to the European metropoles referred to, neither at the universities nor in the city. There is virtually no religious reference whatsoever. The religious has been banned to the churches and the residues of Christianity in schools in the form of religious instruction, where its key symbols like the cross are about to be relativized and put aside or even forbidden, while Muslim symbols appear unmistakably in the urban skylines to fill the general spiritual void in spite of the architectural evidence to the contrary in the shape of domes, churches and cathedrals. A similar diagnostic may be applicable to the German capital of Berlin, in whose Western part I lived before I started my international experience. No wonder parts of the city seem to be submerged today in a dismaying socio-cultural deluge. How can the former socialist-communist part be inculturated and thereby reintegrated if, in Christian metaphor, the salt of the earth goes stale. But that does not necessarily mean that one has to throw the baby with the water, for if one can use the metaphor of civilizations – which you will learn more about during in this exposé – as navigation tool one can possibly navigate critical eras and environments. Ancient Babylonia was destroyed due to human presumptuousness that caused the language confusion and the diffusion of man across the face of the earth. The big Biblical town of Nineveh which one needed three days to walk through constitutes a unique historical precedent of a cultural environment that also deviated from its route to the extent that it was destined for destruction. It repented and God had compassion with it and saved it. But we neither want to be gloom and doom philosophers nor promote a cloud-cuckoo-land mindset but rather proceed with a diagnostic based on evidence as much as possible. The referred to navigation tool may sometimes indicate the need to return - to the roots - and to correct one’s course in order to proceed in the right direction.

One does not have to be surprised to experience a country that lacks cultural identity and has a high level of social stress due to this mental uprooting in the academic as well as in the public milieu. Major symbols of Christendom date back to the pre-reformation era. Starting with Reformation at the beginning of the 16th century – “inaugurated” in 1517 by the Augustinian monk and professor of theology Martin Luther in Wittenberg in the eastern part of the country - which became a good humus for post WWII communist ideology - subsequent ideologies in the shape of Marxism, Fascism and the counter cultural revolution of the 60ies of the past century were trying to change the meaning or axe away the symbol of the Cross, in diverse degrees, from German life and consciousness which resulted in the most dreadful disasters of human history that were probably more or less caused by these spiritual or rather unspiritual currents which tried to put cultural demons in its place that devoured their authors and their descendents in the course of time.

Today we seem to be in a fifth phase of despiritualization and secularization that runs the risk of repeating the cause effect-phenomenon induced by the axe of the human mind in order to pursue other paths of salvation than the one that is programmed in its roots, in line with the adage of Prussian King Frederic the Great, according to whom everybody should work out his salvation by his own standards and preferences.

The increasing absence of the Christian metaphor and symbol par excellence forebodes nothing good in the light of the reiterated German and other historical experiences. The urban landscapes referred to above contributes to providing a more or less conscious umbrella against the most extreme perversions of the roots of civilization through the constant reference to cultural core values that implicitly and explicitly shape the spirit of a culture of interpersonal humaneness based on the Christian core value of the dignity of the individual. In its absence mass consciousness phenomena like Nazism and communism and other collective phenomena can easily infest a society which lacks the implicit umbrella protection. When it is not there only materialism and a general spirit of “grab as much as you can” with its unhealthy impact on interpersonal relations remains. Certain migrants are attracted by such a culture for the wrong reasons and additionally aggravate problems.

And with the prevailing value system the host-country experiences additional difficulties in sustainably managing intracultural intercultural matters. The cultural humus of the host-country therefore requires a restoration and rehabilitation and strengthening of its cultural roots in a healthy way that can, comparable to an ocean, absorb waves of diverse inputs without major disturbance. The millennia old roots of civilization can provide this rock-solid condition. They can lead to a strong tree, in communion with the world community that shares this civilization’s core values, incarnated in its supreme symbol, which can grow strong branches for the nesting of birds from far and wide without breaking.

Finally, the psychological and the topographical landscapes seem to be correlated. The psychological cultural profile is engraved in its artifacts and conditions the cultural value system that forms the hidden determinant of attitudes, behaviours, assumptions and beliefs; a cultural conduct that is humanely based and civilized if the roots of its heritage are healthy. Otherwise anti-social dysfunctionalities infest the social organism that becomes increasingly inhumane, materialistic and self-centered individually and collectively resulting in an overall questionable climate with regard to its sustainability and quality of life. So, it is pertinent to create awareness of cultures’ roots in civilization that condition their overall viability and predictability internally and externally. Societies that appear as a strong tree with healthy roots and uncorrupted growth over time seem to be the most lasting ones in spite of deficits and setbacks. That can be seen from the older cultures which are emerging in our time. And if civilizations are grounded in a high quality value system as the Christian tradition is it should apply all the more in many ways if it is not undermined internally or externally.

2. The Enigma of the Cross

Contrary to some expectations and due to breaking news from Japan about the seaquake in the Pacific that caused a tsunami which flooded large parts of the country and created a critical nuclear situation I think of the late I. Tsuda and Sensei Morihei Ueshiba - who both stand for the Samurai tradition, the former by lineage, the latter by achievement - with regard to the symbol of the cross: Tsuda started his aikido exercises, I used to attend when I was a student in Paris, by bowing to the four orientations, while his own teacher and creator of Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba, had a crucifix in his personal sanctuary, although he was not a Christian formally. Yet his disciple Tsuda reported, that Ueshiba identified himself with the Creator. Tsuda literally: “il s’identifiait au Créateur”. He probably was a Shintoist as he wanted to be a “good Japanese” and a “good citizen of the world”. Upon reaching a more cosmic dimension Ueshiba also said that “neither space nor time existed”. As a budo champion who transmuted the antagonistic logic of fight in a synergistic logic of fusion which is the meaning of the term ai (harmony) – ki (energy) – do (path) and in the Samurai tradition he said he saw any attempted attack at him in advance in the shape of a white ball flying at him which he could therefore simply avoid. Upon reaching a time-space transcending dimension the equally cosmic dimension of the cross becomes more evident. And the cosmic optic leads to the Creator behind the creation per se. Although culturally a Japanese he had an awareness of the meaning of “the metaphor of creation”.

As for Itsuo Tsuda who integrated a number of traditional Japanese disciplines like Noh, Seitai and Aikido and acted as a bridge between East and West, he was aware of the cardinal cross that connected East and West, North and South and promoted intrapersonal and intercultural integration. In a way he reconciles spatiotemporal diversity physically and psychologically. His greeting of the four orientations, which is part of various paths, emphasized the need of harmony with the universe by the individual at the center. It positions man in the environment and the eternal present. It translates the core meaning of the anthropological concept of culture onto a cosmic plane in the sense that it relates man to himself, the physical and metaphysical environment and the metaphysical plane in and milieu. I do not know his position with regard to Christ but if his Master did not ignore Him he has probably not ignored Him either. And he settled in France and not elsewhere – in spite of or precisely because of the rationalist Cartesian and nearly two millennia of Catholic Christian tradition – where his “prerational-based philosophy of action” fell on a fertile ground and promised intercivilization synergies.

The notion of infinite interconnectedness of man symbolized in this aikido branch’s starting ritual of harmonization and synchronization with the universe in the quiet of the dawning day while most people are still asleep provides evidence of a cosmic awareness. Here man assumes his position as the quintessential convergence point of the cardinal directions that point to infinity: the cross centered (in Christ!) The Aikido founder’s aikido therefore was an “an exercise of gravitation through love”. And from India we also know what is known as the “turning of the elephant” which is, in culturally diverse terminology and metaphor, a similar ritual of saluting and paying homage to the four cardinal directions.

So, various cultures use the matrix of the cross as a way of relating to the universe and the whole of creation. It mediates and positions man in infinity between the infinitely big and the infinitely small as the French philosopher and mathematician Pascal might say. In the Christian world, Christ obviously is at the heart and core of the cross mediating between the visible and the invisible universe. Non-Christians have probably greater difficulties in realizing the unity and oneness and harmony of the world. Form classical China we therefore hear accordingly that the ideal man is a saint, whereas the west tends to assume that the hero is the accomplished man. The hero excels in one or a limited number of domains, whereas the saint is supposed to excel across domains.

In the 5000 millennia old Chinese tradition man is positioned at the interface between, symbolically speaking, involving heavenly yang forces and evolving earthly yin forces. It is another culture-cosmological perception of man’s existence which impacts classical Chinese worldview and medicine to this day. The enigma of the cross can integrate most diverse and for many people unbridgeable cultures and cosmologies which I have modeled in the following Sino-western culture and cosmology model. Here follows a description and the model from my book Transcultural Management – Transkulturelles Management:

“Phenomena and cultural phenomena more specifically can be represented as upward and downward spiralling continua from infinity to infinity, from eternity to eternity, from Alpha to Omega. There is a positive spiral of evolution and a negative spiral of involution, which represent the whole picture, which can be summed up in the Chinese pictogramme of a cross framed at the top by an upward pointing semi-arc and at the bottom by a downward pointing semi-arc, which I would like to call Chinese Culture and Cosmology Model and in which the total picture of life is captured; the picture that encompasses the widest frame and the nearest and most intimate centre of the “human heart”, the matrix of the highest existential synergy and harmony. Incidentally the picture allows a Western Christian Civilization reading and parallelly an East Asian reading, while it wonderfully illustrates the two aspects of the root meaning of culture, with the lower arc pointing to the plane of nature (tilling the soil) the source of evolution, while the top arc points to the plane of heaven (cult, the connection to the metaphysical), the source of involution. Both, heaven and earth are reconciled and converge in the three, in Man at the Centre (Ren in Chinese). The heaven-earth dichotomy, symbolized by the two semi-arcs, is reconciled and synergized in the triad 'Heaven-Earth-Man'. Here the forces of involution and evolution are synchronized by the involution and evolution spirals at the absolute centre C, the cosmic dimension of man, so to say, at the interface between the celestial yang forces and the terrestrial yin forces. The Christian reading of the East-West cross matrix is, that here, Jesus Christ or God in man is the mediating centre between heaven and earth. The ultimate act of balancing between the sum total of interfacing cosmic forces again is in the absolute centre C (XR for Christos in Greek). Both systems are endowed with a transpersonal dimension that does the ultimate reconciliation between the two worlds. The Western cultural and cosmological model is Christcentric and personal, the Eastern is both anthropocentric and more impersonal. This is plausible if one considers the Christcentric Western civilisation and the Eastern Taoist tradition that consecrates nature, so to say. Position and mission of man as the carrier of culture in the picture as a whole, is clearly assigned in both civilisations. And it becomes even more plausible when we consider the dual nature of God who took the garb of man to become the ultimate of God-Man. And if we connect the horizontal arms of the EAST-WEST Cross, we can think in terms of an EAST-WEST continuum, an EAST-WEST MATRIX to be reconciled.

The synergy is a middle Cross, the heart centre of man and the heart centre of the Mediator (the motive behind this transcendental mediation was pure love of man by his Creator). The heart of hearts. The heart of GOD-MAN. The ultimate reconciler and reconciliation. A sustainable perspective of the perennial East-West dichotomy at the highest and best of the players and a healthy premise for the 21st century integration of the old centre of the world (economically, historically) and an emerging new Eastern centre of the world: a supercentre that manages and integrates the millennium antagonism, peacefully leveraging the combined capabilities of the Eastern and Western World, the more inner Eastern and the more outer Western Hemispheres: a unified East-West inner-outer space continuum. A superpole which allies through its moral superiority the emerging southern hemisphere to become the third millennium planetary super system that can not only deal with the global environmental survival issues but can face responsibly the cosmic dimension, the destiny of the blue planet in its cosmic context.

TAU AND TAO OF CULTURE ©

The realization of the Indivisible One as a Supreme Integrator of all Diversity

In the following Sino-western cultures integrative visualization the encounter and merger of culturally diverse conceptualizations of cosmology and anthropology in the absolute One of the integrity and integrality of creation, which is their source and from whence they emerge. Being one at the primal source they are already one. And being one their integration is a matter of conscious realization rather than of mental pursuit to integrate. It is a quantum consciousness based realization of a higher order that perceives the totality from the, which has an integrative effect on the entire stream of the manifestations that issue from the one source that has been realized internally. This realization has a consciousness-based creative outer, similarly unifying corollary of the diversity of cultures, which appear as complementary perceptions of the totality and integratlity of the Grand One – the Fahter or Logos the Primal Source - depicted in the following integrative “Sino-western culture and cosmology” design as the transcendent vertical axes and the horizontal immanent axes of integral creation. Undegenerated Monotheisms and Vedantism… can be similarly conceptualized, which results in the supreme unfier of cosmologies, religions and cultures and all human diversity and in the enigma of the idivisible, unfathomable ONE of an all-encompassing Creator and the integrality of the integrity of Creation. The Cosmic quantic momentum of it is integrative of that diversity of creation. It integrates all diversity into its one source from whence it emerged to manifest as creation. Complementary cultural and cosomological vistas act jointly as sustainable integration of the world from the bottom and from the top.

Diagram Sino-western Culture and Cosmology - and their Integration

illustration not visible in this excerpt

A stream of existence that flows from its source through the diversity of the space-time into the sea to re-emerge from there as the source: Nothing but changes of appearances of the ONE; diverse images of the one which never ceases to be essentially One in the Christian reading, unless man refuses it. Only the refusal of this integrity of creation leads to diversity related challenges, which are therefore man-made. Its awareness can end it.

On the basis of this holistically-oriented integrative cultural reasoning there is

N o cultural diversity but rather a perceptual diversity:

THERE IS NO CULTURAL DIVERSITY

THERE IS, HOWEVER, A DIVERSITY OF THE DEPTH OF PERCEPTION OF EXISTENCE!

The experience of diversity arises as a consequence of a lopsided perception that ignores or refuses to perceive the wholeness of existence referred to metaphorically as the cultural complementarity principle of unity and diversity that has an inkling of the integrality and integrity of creation. The cultural spell under which the world presently is appears therefore as a consequence of perception that is a culture consciousness with limited awareness. Culture seen as such is an act of consciousness. And the type of culture consciousness a player has cocreates the cultural reality within and around him.

From there one may even infer that culture being an act of consciousness based on perception and awareness it cannot be conceived of apart from the human dimension of consciousness. The cultural discourse that fills libraries and the pockets of culture gurus and the lecture halls of universities alike is based on a culture paradigm that cannot have any permanence and sustainable impact on globalization. If it is not enhanced and complemented it can mislead the whole world as fascism and communism have misled the millions and the masses until they were put in their true context and understood more fully. If culture that some assume holds the place of these worldviews and errors of the past at present is not put in its true context likewise it may have the same impact and destiny as those cultural errors. Therefore the present cultural paradigm imperatively requires the correction and completion of its edifice, which is the purpose of the inquiry.

This epistemological perception of culture and cultural diversity does not altogether eclipse the practical value of cultural diversity. The first is helpful in cultural problem solving, the second for evolving. Its dialectics help the world to grow and develop based on the dialectics of diversity. When that causes problems the complementary epistemological perception of culture can be used as a cultural problem solver. So the epistemological and the pragmatic standpoint are the complementary aspects of a culture theory and management practice in accordance with man and his needs. And it does neither sacrifice uniqueness to a heresy of an irenology of misconstrued equality, nor unity to unbridgeable diversity.

It should be understood that Christ is the master model of mediation of all times. In him converge time and eternity, the Alpha and the Omega. As cultural problems arise and subsist only in time they can only be resolved in eternity. And this can only be accomplished by Him. Ultimately there is no other lasting mediation except that by the one who is the mediator incarnate. As soon as man resolves to refer to this mediator, cultural and other problems cease by the degree of the internalization of this ultimate time-transcendent mediation principle. It is man’s task to realize this principle for his sake and that of humanity.

If the culturally diverse worldviews of diverge civilization in east and west north and south have revealed or experiential and intuitive awareness of man’s cosmic dimension how more should we then have an awareness of the more limited planetary dimension of man in our technologically integrated global village. And what should be the consequence of such awareness with regard to Japan which on account of the referred to cosmological and planetary view of the world is our neighbour – not more not less. And among neighbours one has the moral duty of providing all possible assistance to the neighbour in need with the best of one’ abilities. The entire world is therefore Japans neighbour and its moral duty would be to proactively muster up the combined strength of the world community, in particular that of those who have expertise required in this highly critical moment and to provide the help the material and psychological assistance required rather than considering it a distant media event. Due to the world’s physical and spiritual interconnectedness that is even the world’s self-interest. Inspiring oneself by the worldview inherent in the cross it is but the fulfillment of the commandment of love of the neighbour.

The predominantly Christian West as well as Asia and the indigenous peoples of the southern and the northern hemispheres have, as one can see, an acute analytical or revealed, experiential or intuitive awareness of cosmic interconnectedness which they display in their cultural assumptions and rituals. Why has this not led to world wide solidary preventative measures before to encounter what is a high statistical probability and only a matter of when rather than if it occurs. The sense of interconnectedness also implies solidary accountability with regard to the environment. That however involves the ethical dimension with culturally diverse interpretations. The evolution towards global solidarity and commitment to the implications of universal accountability is charted in the Transcultural Profiler Levels D 4 Ethics and D 5 Evolution 1-12, pages 36 and 325. The Transcultural Profiler is a 12 D architectural metaphor of the psychological infrastructure of the transcultural manager in the transcultural management context, where the superior levels D 1 Cosmics and D 2 Noetics (transcultural) correspond to the mediation capability incarnated by Christ and symbolized by the cross metaphor. Its operationalization mediates and integrates the totality of the subjacent mental, socio-cultural edifice with its overall environmental connection based on solid physiological and psychological principles.

The preceding circumstantially determined topical reference was not intended to dilute the unique Christian notion of the cross whose mystery has many facets, for in the Christian tradition it clearly refers to the one and only unrepeatable cosmic fact of Christ and His sacrifice on behalf of the Father; an act of unfathomable love motivated by love of and compassion with mankind. See corresponding entries in the reference dictionary at the end. Christ’s passion is an act of compassion. That love has integrative power per se as it mediates the bond between Creator and creation. The interface of its horizontal and vertical axes provides a focal point that can explain the totality of creation with all is processes from its beginning to its end. It is not so much the archetypal geometry of its two beams and its millions of replications in culturally diverse shapes and forms that matter but rather what it symbolizes and what is underlined by the Son of God crucified. Thus it appears as a medium for the full realization of creation. It mediates between the old man and the new man. The new man, established in the Mediator, becomes a natural mediator by cosmic standards, who can access a time-transcendent mediation capability. And the Christian Cross symbolizes this potentiality. This is an extraordinary assumption based on the manifestation of man’s (potential) likeness of his Creator.

And even to a disbeliever it can function as a superordinate construct of his mind and consciousness that can help overcome barriers of culture, civilizations and ideologies etc. because it is integrative of time with all its mental artifacts that have emerged in time and which tend to cease if one transcends the temporal towards the time-transcending level of consciousness. So, it can also be understood as a less metaphysical device for problem resolution of cultures and civilizations. But it might lack the unique gift and charisma associated with the whole truth of Christ.

This two millennia old symbol of Western and Universal Christian Civilization, in other words, the figure of Christ, cannot be extirpated form our collective and individual DNA. If it is attempted, as we have seen in the preceding chapter, it is followed by catastrophes, which is testified by history. There seems to be evidence for a cause-effect relationship and one should be aware of it. It is an intelligible phenomenon. If one attempts to eliminate the roots of man he/she is uprooted and destabilized. In the attempt to provide the necessary restabilization one tries to use ersatz religions - interestingly a German word - that, however, cannot provide the same timeless security and stability.

Let us close the circle be connecting the aforesaid to the culture-comparative perspective introduced in the previous chapter: Again, not surprisingly, in Germany’s cultural profile the motive of certainty ranks pretty high, which may be due to the iteration of psychological destabilization processes that have left their marks. One seeks order and stability in worldly affairs without however achieving the deep harmony required for healthy and harmonious non-neurotic societies which results in a lower level of collective stress and leads to solidary societies with a higher quality of life and more satisfactory social communication patterns that do not sacrifice the relational to the task in the attempt to achieve reliability. The German cultural profile can be read as a large scale ersatz for an authentic religious tradition. In the absence of a constructive rootedness in timeless Christian values the cultural profile provides the sought for quality of life by cultural detours. This applies not only to this culture.

One is aware of it to the extent that the two major religions are highly organized and even constitute a political issue in the sense the church tax is collected by the state. The interpenetration of the secular and the religious environment is omnipresent. Parties clearly identify themselves as religious and use this motive as a strategic instrument for their power-driven interests. But the outer social spiritual order does not necessarily imply the deep-rooted connection to the spiritual roots of Christian Civilization. The centrifugal tendencies away from Rome and the allied jeopardy of the deeper roots are evident in the sequence of events that has started with the reformation and escalated over time to result in a major severing of the roots in the forms of communism and fascism with its universal collateral damages.

Can a German Pope remedy that form the other side by working from the roots of the Roman Catholic Civilization? It is a historical opportunity for the healing of the schism between the German and the Roman world that was a cause of the referred to series of historical social dysfunctionalities with intercultural implications. A reintegration could foster a new spirit on a new basis with a consolidated identity that is based on its roots and does not need to seek all sorts of ideological ersatz religions that cannot provide what man needs to flourish and to display harmonious and orderly conduct. The future is sometimes facilitated by a return to the true roots.

3. The Roots of Civilisation and the Tree of Life

The roots of man are in Creation, for which the cross is the transcendent-immanent symbol and therefore in God. That perception dawns when on follows the roots of any living organism, plant or man. If one follows life of organisms upstream one reaches their source which is their ultimate cause. It is the totality of creation from its beginning to its end and behind it the Creator - if you are fortunate enough to be graced with the gift of belief. So ultimately we are rooted in the primal cause. The awareness of this fundamental reality occurs at the top of the Transcultural Profiler visualized in the next chapter that integrates psychological culture and physical culture manifest as the stream of life from the cause manifests in the diversity of creation of nature whose characteristic it is to be diverse and interrelated; interrelated due to the common source and the common destination. The entire process is of teleological nature; its finality is contained in its source. The seed contains the complete tree of life. From a quantum metaphorical standpoint the seed and the tree are two complementary aspects of the same reality. When one is aware of the totality of evolution matters appear in their right perspective and order follows. The complete perception creates order in consciousness because consciousness carries the information of this creation and therefore its order. Truth in the sense of a congruence of the fact and its mirror image in consciousness occurs. Peace lights up, because the truth of life has been approached and additionally it is redeemed by Christ for Christians. It is fulfillment, fulfillment by the truth of life. And all this information on the totality of information on life from Alpha Omega can be said to be contained in the metaphor of the authentic Christian Cross, which has nothing to do with fetishism of any kind nor is it an overworking of the symbol. It is a matter of optic that sees it in its entirety.

When one inquires into the roots of civilization which are a milestone of the foundation of the tree of life one has to trace the phenomena of life to the source which are their cause. They are found to have assumed diverse and complementary aspects for the sake of their ennoblement of the whole which has been there potentially at the beginning and remains there “mystically” in the process of evolution right to its finality. It is a simple matter of optic of recognition of the game of the one with itself, its kaleidoscopes of reconfiguration for the sake of its steady higher evolution. Human consciousness can choose to look at different phases of the totality of the process of creation. This may be called a metaphorical quantum optical consciousness. If it is aware of its conscious choice and can connect it to the entire picture diversity issues, which are a phenomenon of passage inherent in the evolution of the one, are ordered in the light of the whole that is order per se, the order of life – which is the truth and the right way. And the metaphor of creation symbolizes it. It says “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6)”. The cross is a means of connection and communication with the source, the cause and therefore a compass for life, as the cause and the finality are diverse stages of creation enabled by the salvation process. Therefore the personality of Christ appears as the absolute center and cause of creation and all its processes.

There is no doubt that the roots of any organism determine its growth. That applies to biological phenomena in general. The growth of plants like that of a tree for example, its resistance to climatic variations, the growth of its shape and form will be determined by its genetic information and by its roots. Whatever the DNA, if the roots are not in good order the life of the tree may be impaired, because it cannot draw proper nourishment from the humus of the soil and generate a healthy interface with the environment that provides further nourishment like light. In the case of animals the interconnection with the entire ecosystem may be considered their roots along with their DNA. As man is part of nature similar principles apply. His DNA determines his potential and whether and to what extend it will be actualized is relativized by his roots as well which are not only of physical but additionally of spiritual nature. Man can starve in either domain. Many people are materially overfed while they starve spiritually. The right input is required to form a complete and harmonious man. Underfeeding or overfeeding and improper nourishment are equally noxious. Man is a complex organism and requires a delicate balancing and proper rootedness in his overall material-spiritual – for he partakes in both natures – foundation, as well as their harmonious interconnection. The severing of the roots means the end of the organism. The cutting of the roots of the tree and the animal’s deprivation of its ecosystem tend to terminate or seriously impair the life of the organisms. If man is severed from his physical, cultural and spiritual roots his life will be similarly affected. The overall environment and in particular the roots of organisms form an interdependent whole. They determine the shape and form as well as the biography of organisms.

Man has a twofold dual nature, material and immaterial, individual and social, which require proper balancing if the tree of life is to bear rich fruit rather than vegetating or even withering away.

To spiritual and social roots particular attention has to be paid. They impact his physical roots and vice versa. The complex interconnectedness of many variables has to be considered. While self-regulating ereismatic systems like the extrapyramidal system support the voluntary dimension of man with regard to the normalization of the physiologic terrain and neurophysiologic and biological laws govern its structural and functional coordination and integration, his spiritual nature requires additional attendance in view of the overall health and integration of his being.

Biological man has stored the phylogenetic information of millions of years of evolution and optimized biological life processes and thereby adaptation and survival. That is the premise and condition for life. So biological information stored in connection to the roots of life govern biological life that supports life as a whole. Complementary more immaterial information of man’s root and nature (which is a cultural assumption) complement this information to provide its complete map or DNA in modern metaphorical language. It is of cultural and spiritual nature. So, two types of interconnected information form the roots of man’s tree of life, while that which forms the deeper basis of both, the enigma of life itself, remains a cryptic reality inaccessible to analytical description of sciences which set in at a later point of the stream or force of life as its manifests downstream from its source.

The German mystic Hildegard von Bingen has called this force "viriditas" or greening power. Asian specialists assume that one can coordinate and put man in a condition so as to enhance the conditions for life to best do its work. But even to them the mystery as such is ultimately inaccessible. So it is to science and all sorts of approaches form alchemy to bioengineering. Man remains faced with an insoluble mystery and takes it for granted. When he enquires into it he encounters the mystery of creation and the Creator. That is awe-inspiring. But He will reveal His secret only to those he deems fit to receive such charisma of knowing first and last things.

The one life that underpins all living phenomena seems to bifurcate in the case of man as biological and spiritual information. The impairment of either type of the fundamental information impairs his holistic psychosomatic organism. The two are integrated in a third dimension for which there are different words and which are but aspects of a whole governed by one life. Nature likes to diversify and to integrate at a higher level of enhancement of itself. That seems to be the case with the seeming material-immaterial dichotomy of man that serves the end of developing and advancing the whole. But if the complementary part of the dichotomy is not active or incomplete that process cannot take place in the best possible way. Therefore man requires special attendance to his spiritual information for evolution to take place. It is the complementary part of his physical nature.

Maybe we can use our supposed master metaphor to illustrate the interactivity that ensures the viability of the complete human DNA, physical and spiritual and its integration – the complete informational mapping of man – in the sign of the cross. Here the horizontal dimension represents the physical information of the DNA, metaphorically speaking, while the vertical dimension represents its spiritual counterpart. Their integration at the center where the horizontal and the vertical dimension’s information converge, life, creativity and growth can manifest as a consequence of the diversification integration principle. In that sense the symbol of the cross is a metaphor for evolution from one phylogenetic stage to the next.

The vertical dimension - concomitantly with the physical dimension - also needs founding and grounding in its roots in order to provide its specific and complete information for the evolution process to take place. And the nature of this information is the totality of the ultimate message of the cross, about man’s origin, life and destination as a spiritual and physical being. So the foot of the cross also needs – in human terms – similar to the root of the tree a proper rooting, so that it can bear fruit for man to harvest as growth and evolution with its rich, diverse creative output.

A secular world runs the risk of severing the spiritual roots. The lack of a complementary set of information in the genetic map being unavailable evolution cannot take place. The integration is not a mechanical juxtaposition of information of physical and metaphysical nature. They have to be viewed form a third perspective, that of life manifesting as love – the message of the cross – which is the aspect of life experientially, physically, emotionally and spiritually accessible to man. Jesus on the Cross means redemption form spiritual and irreversible physical death through dying, the integration and transcendence of life and death in as single act of Salvation. That salvation is an act of love. And therefore love is the key to life for without it transcendence of death and real life are impossible. Therefore love and life are two aspects of the same.

The information contained in the cross is the complete DNA of man with complete roots. The complete information brings us closer to the mystery of life as a whole. Without that wholeness life cannot flourish and the tree of life remains limited in its growth as in heathen days. The introduction of the complementary spiritual information 2000 year ago provided unlimited growth potential on the basis of the interactivity and creativity of the integration of the complete information on man. By adding the additional roots the tree of life experienced a boost for unlimited growth made possible by additional information on the nature of the human being

It is up to man to always refer to the interface of the two axes of the cross and to remind himself of its vital relevance for all his affairs. To draw on sustainable life he will have to find that integrative and creative focal point in which life and death the temporal and the atemporal as well as all his seeming dilemmas are integrated and transcended.

This focal point lifts him onto a plane where the conditioning of the horizontal dimension cannot constrain him. He transcends it and therefore things are possible that seem impossible in the horizontal dimension. The better he can integrate the two forms of logic with their information and their complementary value systems the more he will approach the mystery of creative life per se, whose source can be captured form the mystery of life which is the message of the “metaphor” of the cross enabled through love.

So love and life form the two complementary aspects of the metaphor’s message that points to the ultimate truth behind creation: Christ, the incarnation of the Logos through which everything has been made. He is that life and therefore holds all keys to it. He expresses Himself through that symbol which is life in its totality. It is therefore a compass of life and for life. The entire truth can hardly be captured by man. The mediation through the suffering and sacrifice on a cross and the child in Bethlehem are the language of the Absolute that man understands.

The metaphor epitomizes God. Without it creation remains as sealed book. On reopening that book of life vital phenomena become intelligible and thereby the law of love and life can unfold and heal the world. The cross is the key to life in all its manifestations from Alpha to Omega. Therefore it is the master metaphor based on rock-solid fact for everything created.

Rootedness in the cross means rootedness in God and therefore in life. - The true love and life it symbolizes constitute the vital humus, where man can find a home on earth and flourish as a unique branch on the tree of life: a good condition for the sustainable management of an increasingly diverse global third millennium. - May that be the case for the destiny of the world’s civilizations. Their take-off as well as their rise and fall go hand in hand with it. Christian civilization has been in the forefront of development in many spheres of life and - in spite of its human deficits - it can ignite other cultures’ and civilizations’ development as we have seen in the emergent shift of the world’s overall economic and political equilibria. Whether they are sustainable will be determined by their adherence to values in line with the master model of civilizations, separate from which they might not flourish in the same way. There seems to be some evidence of it.

4. The Application of the Metaphor of Metaphors to World Cultures and their Integration

The archetypal metaphor of metaphors is a master model of creation, for its understanding as well as for the solution of its problems:

There are profound reasons why Christ on behalf of God Father had to do His work of redemption of Creation bay passing through the matrix of the cross. The order provided by the interfacing axes symbolizes the very act of creation in the sense of the Creator’s dividing of the chaos that reigned at the beginning into night and day, land and sea etc. and their integration in an ordered way.

The Holy Cross is the mediation principle between the visible, tangible and the invisible intangible world mediated by Christ. It can be read as symbolizing the overall dualistic structure of man integrated by a superordinate integrative spiritual dimension which is the Holy Spirit or the Lord himself manifested as Christ. It’s ho

It is the integrative spirit of all, as all comes from this creative source and everything can be resolved in it again, whether it be the dualistic structure of man himself or his dualistic mental artifacts. Among these artifacts are the values themselves that require not only horizontal integration but additionally an integration with and through the vertical dimension to become sustainable. The value systems and cultures can be similarity reconciled as the values continua by this archetypal metaphor of metaphor which is a model of life in all its forms from beginning to end. The very beginning and the end of life, cultures and creation is subsumed in this alpha and omega of creation. He represents both as well as their integration and transcendence; the sum total of the spatiotemporal universe from beginning to end with all its transformations.

Whatever perspective we may adopt of whatever aspect of life it becomes sustainably manageable only through the recourse to the principle of principles symbolized in the cross which is the diversification – integration axiomatic through the mediation of the spirit of the cross written in the Holy Blood of Christ for all times to come. That Holy Spirit is the spirit of the Creator of everything and in whom therefore all phenomena created ultimately find their natural integration. The spatiotemporal diversification is temporal appearance. Beyond the sequentiality of time at the atemporal level diversification remains integrated into the one single creation. Its diversification-based reconfiguration for the sake of its ennoblement is the phenomenal appearance whose perception is privileged by man’s spatiotemporal relative perception. By adjusting the view with the aid of the cross metaphor all diversity remains one in the hands of the One.

The issue of diversity is due to human astigmatism from the vantage point of the cross metaphor. Through the lens of the logic of the cross cultural diversity is an incomplete perception. When the lens of the cross is adopted their complementary aspects of diversity and integrity appears through the intervention of the Holy Spirit that provided the dynamism for their diversification and reintegration for God’s Glory and the ennoblement of His own work.

If one adopts the model of the Cross, which represents the order of creation, one looks at phenomena with the eyes of the rationale of creation and there everything is order whatever transformations it may undergo. The time transcendent view reveals their true nature beyond the present moment which may appear unintelligible to a one-dimensional reading through the lens of the horizontal axis only. By adopting the lens of the cross one takes the Creator and Mediator of all Creation aboard the ship of the human mind to navigate the rocks and cliffs of the dialectics of limited human insight. It is the first and the last step in any process. Nothing needs to be abstracted nor added. All is all and cannot be improved on or tampered with from any angle and for any purpose: The wholeness of the holy. It is that which millennia old cultures have been seeking in holy forests, caves and mountains and their own unfathomable and inscrutable and ultimately unintelligible abysses. It has been given free out of love by God in the symbol of the divine model of creation that represents the most profound enigma of creation which defies and shatters horizontally-based human intelligence alone. All phenomena including all cultural or values or seemingly irreconcilable phenomena of life as well as life transcendent ones can be illumined and resolved through the insightful use of the divine master model or metaphor of creation because it incarnates the creative force itself which is beyond dychotomistic appearances of energy in physics and cosmologies which are only manifestations thereof revealing functional aspects of diversification. But the Creator in whom all phenomena originate and converge is, however, a different category.

The topic of culture has appeared historically only as a consequence of a perceptual shortcoming of man that has occurred with the secularization and the allied disassociations of the vertical and the horizontal axes of the cross’s perception; a holistic perception through the Holy Cross as a metaphor of creation as a whole. The adjustment of perception by means of the all-integrative master metaphor reveals that the cultural diversity discourse is resolved in an optic or perception that integrates the two axes of the mediation principle. The solution therefore seems to mainly reside in the adjustment of the vision to a form of a quantum optically-based or CROSS-based metaphorical perception. The “quantum-optical metaphor” refers to complementary perceptual capabilities that provide a more complete understanding based on Bohr’s complementarity principle which has been discovered 100 years ago.

Science and religion in turn permit complementary readings of the same reality. And if any dilemmas should remain on the basis of that religious-scientific reading of diversity issues they can be successfully reconciled and integrated by the use of the superordinate wisdom of the allied quantum-spiritual consciousness that perceives the wholeness through the holistic matrix of the Holy Cross which creation offers as a window of perception of its own enigma. The grace glory order and beauty of the Creator’s work is such that it reveals itself to the one who really desires to know it and makes the required effort scientifically and spiritually as well as to the humble and meek and virtuous who does not bar his view by the constructs of his one-dimensional horizontally-based dialectical understanding.

I have designed 3 models which incorporate the vertical and the horizontal complementary approaches to enhance horizontally-based one-dimensional perception of cultural diversity matters so as to also incorporate the vertical axis of perception and their integration in a 360° Transcultural Synergy Model. It is clear that the vertical axis cannot be completely conceptualized which due to the ultimate human limitation in knowing first and last things which has in turn an impact on the horizontal dimension’s conceptualizations. Nonetheless the models represent an enhanced approach in which the concomitant diversely-integrated nature of cultural and other phenomena appears as a result of the perceptual angle of the observer. The two axes and their integration have been modeled by me in diverse forms for diverse prioritizations:

1. The Transcultural Profiler for the structural-functional integration of the transcultural managerial psychological architecture in the global management context
2. A Holistic Human Intelligence Model for the quest of transcultural intelligence
3. 360° Transcultural Synergy for the quest of transcultural synergy

These models integrate and upgrade the intercultural through the transcultural approach and are integratable in turn by the master metaphor of the Holy Cross in the reading which I have detailed in the present writing: as CROSS-CULUTRAL MANAGEMENT enabled by the OPERATIONALIZATION of the TRANSCULTRAL/NOETIC and COSMIC Levels of the following Transcultural Profiler.

THE TRANSCULTURAL PROFILER

OR

DOME 12 D TRANSCULTURAL MANAGEMENT MODEL

OR

12 OCTAVES TRANSCULTURAL MANAGEMENT MODEL

illustration not visible in this excerpt

LEGEND OF THE TRANSCULTRAL PROFILER

D1

Cosmics: The Cosmic environment interconnection. The biological and mental roots of life.

D2

Noetics: The highest psychological control, subordination and integration function.

D3

Operationalization: (Potentialization) – Actualization process

D4

Ethics: Altruistic-allocentric, sustainable approach that thinks and acts in terms of each players long-term interests.

D5

Evolution: Phylogenetic development stages 1-6/Intercultural Development stages 7-12

1 sensory level: human developmental stage of perception
2 active level: human developmental stage of action
3 affective level: human developmental stage of affection
4 analytic intellectual level: human developmental stage of the intellect
5 synthetic intellectual level: human developmental stage of the Ego and the social group
6 universal level: human developmental stage that goes beyond Ego and synthesis
7 stage 1 denial: unable to identify cultural differences
8 stage 2 defence: recognition of cultural differences but tendency to evaluate other cultures negatively to one’s own
9 stage 3 minimization: recognition of superficial differences (objective culture) such as customs and habits, while holding the view that all cultures are essentially the same
10 stage 4 acceptance: Recognition and appreciation of cultural differences in behavior and values; considering them as logical and coherent solutions in different contexts.
11 stage 5 adaptation: development of communication skills that facilitate intercultural communication; cybernetic thinking
12 stage 6 integration: internalization of a bicultural or multicultural perspective; intercultural facilitator. (section based on Milton Bennett and Dr. Thérèse Brosse).

D6

ICP The Individual culture profile: Individualization of one's mental software by these variables

1 family
2 religion
3 education
4 language
5 profession
6 class
7 gender
8 race
9 generation
10 neighbours
11 friends
12 region.

D7

NCP National Culture Profile: Acquired through primary, secondary and tertiary socialization

1 Power distance: indicates the extent to which a society accepts the unequal distribution of power in institutions and organization
2 Uncertainty avoidance: refers to a society's discomfort with uncertainty, preferring predictability and stability
3 Individualism/collectivism: reflects the extent to which people prefer to take care of themselves and their immediate families, remaining emotionally independent from groups, organizations and other collectives.
4 Masculinity/femininity: reveals the bias towards either masculine values of assertiveness, competitiveness, and materialism, or towards feminine values of nurturing and the quality of life and relationships
5 Long-term orientation: refers to the extent to which past, present or future oriented attitudes, thought patterns, bahaviours and values are preferred' (Hofstede 5D-model, source: Bartlett, Ghoshal and Birkinshaw, Transnational Management 2003)
6 Universalism-particularism: seeks to discover one's prime allegiance to rules and rule-bound classifications or to the exceptional, unique circumstances and relationships
7 Individualism-communitarianism: measures the extent to which managers see the individual employee and shareholder as paramount, their development, enrichment, and fulfillment; or to what extent the corporation, customers and the wider community should be the beneficiaries of all personal allegiances
8 Specific-diffuse: measures the tendency to analyze, reduce and break down the field of experience or to synthesize, augment, and construct patterns of experience
9 Neutral versus affective: this concern the legitimacy to show emotions while at work
10 Inner-directed - outer-directed: concerns the 'locus of control.' Is it inside each of us, or outside in our environments to which we must adapt?
11 Achieved-ascribed status: refers to whether status is conferred to people on the basis of what they have achieved or because of what they are
12 Sequential-synchronous time: has to do with whether one sees time as passing in a sequence or coming round again and again' (THT 7D-model, source: Trompenaars, Hampden-Turner, Managing People Across Cultures 2005).

D8

Communication styles profile

1 High context-low context: is information in the explicit code or is it implicit in the person?
2 Controlled-free information flow: must be informed versus are already informed
3 Monochronic-polychronic: one thing at a time versus many things at a time
4 Private space-public space: privacy and territoriality versus open space, supportive of networking
5 Concise-elaborate: not talkative versus loquacious
6 Context-centered – person-centered: relevance of speaker and role relations between the parties versus relevance of speaker and the bridging of the communication gap
7 Direct-indirect: cooperativeness. Say briefly and clearly what is true, relevant and needed versus indirectness and circumlocutions
8 Affective-neutral: appropriateness versus inappropriateness of expressing emotions in a professional context
9 Abstract-concrete: refers to how concrete one can be in communicating one's ideas
10 Private-public information space: how healthy is it to give access to personal information in building business contacts?
11 Linear-circular: how linear can you be in conveying your point?
12 Intellectual-relational: the intellectual style can confront ideas but deals with relationships delicately, whereas the relational style deals with relational issues directly, and ideas more indirectly. (Based on Hall and Hall and N. Ewington, TCO London and Univ. of Cambridge).

D9

Corporate Management Profile: further conditions the national and individual culture profile

1 Specialist job: different functional environments condition different perceptions and attitudes
2 Level of hierarchy: attitudes and bahaviours differ on the board compared to the shop floor
3 Training: the professional ethos of an engineer and a business manager differ
4 Organizational culture: either Hofstede's UAI-PDI matrix based classification of implicit organization models as tribe/family, pyramid, machine and market: Alternatively THT's classification as Guided Missile, Eiffel Tower, Family and Incubator organizational patterns based on the dimensions equality-hierarchy and person-task
5 Operating field: depending on the availability of resources and supplies companies may be more or less centralized and controlled
6 Scale of operations: big companies tend to be more formalized than smaller ones
7 Institutional environment: In different societies ownership is either personal or by impersonal, shifting shareholders (1-7 are based on Hickson and Pugh, International Management 2001)
8 Leadership style: exploitative autocratic, benevolent autocratic, participative, democratic (Hodgetts and Luthan, International Management) alternatively, situational-contingent leadership: directing, influencing, collaborating, delegating based on the task-relationship orientation matrix (Hersey, Blanchard, Situational Leadership)
9 Management style: factual, intuitive, analytic, and normative
10 Motivation: based on Hofstede's UAI-MAS matrix this typology exists: Achievement of self or group and esteem, achievement and belongingness, security and esteem, and security and belongingness
11 Stages of corporate development: N. Adler's multinational, global, international, transnational stages, alt. Ethnocentric, polycentric, regiocentric and geocentric
12 Cultural distance: CAGE analysis: cultural, administrative, geographic, economic distance.

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