What does intercultural awareness do?

From a study that we have done on the impact of intercultural awareness the following are some of the key findings-
We realized that building awareness is a very powerful way to bridge the cultural differences. Many forms of awareness building was done, the most effective one seems to be the exchange program. It has helped to understand cultural differences at the individual and team level. It has helped in generating knowledge on different cultures and how they operate. It has lead to looking for cultural clues and providing explanation for misunderstandings, reduced judgemental behaviours from either party.
We have seen that cultural awareness has lead to open mind among the teams. By nature there are far more interactions and the quality of interactions are improved. There is a shift in the interactions from formal and business like to the informal-collaborative with a focus on the end gaols to be met.

Seeing the world through different lens

• Cultural diversity is not something that goes away tomorrow: it makes doing business more complex but enriches global business as long as the best of both worlds are recognised
• Basic concepts (like agreements) have different meaning to cultures involved in the team
• Learn to foresee and calculate how others will act / react
• To minimise unpleasant surprises and enable the team to interact successfully. E.g. business dilemma: Americans are interested mainly in profit and the Japanese in market share: how to proceed?

Key cross-cultural competence to be considered

• Space orientation
• Time: past, present, future orientation
• Communication patterns for meetings
• Listening habits for aspects of sales, marketing & advertising
• Body language as 80% of our message

Time perception and gathering information in various countries

· Linear-actives: Germans, Swiss, American
· Multi-actives: Latin Americans, Arabs
· Re-actives: Chinese, Japanese, Finns

What are the traits in creative individuals and what influences these traits?

We find creative people to possess great amount of curiosity and openness on the one hand, and an almost obsessive perseverance on the other. Biological inheritance is a possibility, however what clearly come out is that early background has a significant effect on individuals. Interest and curiosity tend to be simulated by positive experiences with family, by a supportive emotional environment, by a rich cultural heritage, by exposure to many opportunities, and by high expectations.

In contrast, perseverance seems to be developing as a response to a precarious emotional environment, a dysfunctional family, solitude, a feeling of rejection and marginality. Most people experience either one or the other of these early environments, but not both of them. (Excerpts from Creativity, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)

Is there cultural differences in companies doing global distributed work?

There exist cultural differences across national borders, so we need to be aware of the problems due to cultural differences, which can bring about communication problems and thus can affect knowledge sharing and also create misunderstanding. Hence, it seems logical that one needs to study and be sensitive of the cultures at national level.
Like to know if this is true also in the context of companies involved in global distributed work having people from different cultures and companies working together on projects?

Can cultural issue be resolved completely?

In my opinion cultural issues can be resolved only to a certain level and never completely. One can put an effort in this direction by making sure that people are well aware of the culture of their geographically distributed development teams. It is important that people should be able to communicate the contextual information.
Any other thoughts on this?