Assignment:
Task - Culture Interview and Personal Profile
Conduct a culture interview with a person who has a different nationality from yours. Based on the interview, you then create a personal profile for your interviewee. The final product should be in the essay format. That is, you should use full sentences and paragraphs in writing; avoid using bullet points.
A potential outline of the report is listed as below.
• A very brief introduction of how you meet the interviewee and the interviewee's demographic information, such as age, education, family, or occupation (pseudo name can be used to protect the interviewee's privacy).
• Your presentation of the personal profile may include: where the interviewee's country is located, how many and what type of people exist in the country, things that this person value most and least, his or her mannerisms in doing things distinct from other people (in this case other cultures or countries). You may also focus on his or her distinct and unique attributes, identifying his or her likes and dislikes.
• When developing a personal profile, focusing your descriptions on these areas based on theoretical models of cultural differences:
o Roles: including individual members' roles within the culture group, the family, and the society.
o Relationship to authority.
o Perception of time.
o Risk propensity- uncertainty avoidance.
o Perception of space.
o Communication pattern.
o Religion-rituals and superstitions.
• Regarding theoretical models of cultural differences, you may reference Steers & appendix (p.378-391), Meyer Introduction, and/or Molinsky.
• Examples of personal profile will be given on Moodle.
Note that the main purpose of this task is to enhance your intercultural sensitivity by using the theoretical models to understand national cultural differences and cultural complexities and contradictions (see Steers et al. 2016, p.63). Therefore, your descriptions of the interviewee's personal profile should still be related to the cross-cultural management literature. Your analyses of cultural differences, complexities and contradictions should be embedded in the story of your interviewee, not be separated from it. Finally, you may include your interview protocol (i.e., a list of interview questions).