I grew up in a town that’s focal point was to embrace diversity, it seemed like every year, twice a year there would be a cultural fair. For a chunk of the day the auditorium would be filled with children ready to bring together their own cultures and upbringings and shared them with their peers. These cultural fairs would encompass all sorts of concepts of culture; from food, to clothes, holidays, and books, we would share stories of how our families came to live in our town, and would share tales of celebrating diversity within our community. One of my favorite classes taught us the idea that The United States is not a melting pot, but a salad bowl. The Melting Pot has the connotation that once people leave their home countries, they all melt together into one Americanized culture. The Salad Bowl embraces the idea that everyone brings their individual cultures to the country, where they can all coexist and work together.
Cultural Synergy works very closely with that idea. Cultural Synergy, put very simply, is the union of what each member of a group has to offer. This stresses the idea of the combination of backgrounds within a group is greater than the individual. This means that that each individual brings their thoughts to the organization, and synthesize their thoughts together, to allow the group to come to conclusions that they may not reach individually. This occurs because they can combine each of their perspectives on the matter to ensure various viewpoints are being addressed within decision making.
Cultural Synergy: The Management of Cross-Cultural Organizations, by Nancy Adler, the woman who coined the term “cultural synergy”, addresses the implications of ethnocentrism and assimilation in cross-cultural organizations (Adler, 1980). These two topics are most commonly what prevents North Americans from creating cultural synergy within their organization. The view that North Americans are the best in our practices, and that everyone will benefit from the same practices creates a disconnect from reality, and prevents cultural synergy from thriving.
The idea that American practices are the best, and should therefore be shared and exported to the rest of the world creates the feeling of ethnocentrism. This prevents organizations from seeing the benefits of operating in ways that may be culturally different from their own. Being ethnocentric creates a disconnect and ignorance when interacting with people from different backgrounds. Ethnocentric Americans believe that everyone else is inferior, and that leads them to making cultural gaffes and ignoring the influence of culture on managerial models (Adler, 1980). This is dangerous, and can very negatively impact the relationship between the US and other countries, as well as within the country.
The other major issue is the idea of assimilation. This ties back to my discussion of the Melting Pot versus the Salad Bowl. Being in America does not mean that a person identifies with most of American culture. The idea of assimilation, in this context, means that we are all the same. This is based on the assumption that Americans will all respond well to a similar style of management, because they are all similar enough in that they live in America (Adler, 1980). This does not account for being an immigrant, or being raised by immigrants, or being an active member of a culture that varies in opinions from those of an “average American”. This is a piggyback off of ethnocentrism because it blocks the ability to view culture as an important factor in organization.
As it is very apparent, culture creates a variety that makes organizations impossible to run as a one size fits all operation. The different views being discussed and taken into consideration only has the opportunity to create cultural synergy. Cultural Synergy will spark conversations and creativity that may have been lacked otherwise which allows the organization to grow, and fit the needs of more communities .
REFERENCES
Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing Cultural Differences (9th ed.).
Adler, N. J. (1980). Cultural synergy: The management of cross-cultural organizations (pp. 163-184). McGill University, Faculty of Management.
Naomi – thank you for your interesting post. How fortunate you were, in my opinion, to grow up in a town that was culturally diverse and that celebrated that diversity. For the past twenty-four years, I have lived in an area that has very little cultural diversity; 95% of our county’s population is white, and only 1% are foreign born persons (U.S. Census Bureau, n.d.). One of the ways we tried to expose our children, who are now both grown, to a broader cultural perspective was through travel and by hosting several exchange students.
I recall a trip to New York City when my daughter was a high school sophomore. She was so excited to hear people on the subway talking French, which she recognized from her two years’ of studying French in high school, that she went up to them and struck up a conversation. I’m thankful that these two adults humored a giddy 15-year-old as she showed off her limited knowledge of the French language! She made two new friends that day! It was such a novelty for her.
This past week, I spent an evening with a group of my husband’s colleagues who were gathered at a retreat center in central Pennsylvania from the mid-Atlantic region and the Midwest. One gentleman was native to Guyana, had lived in New York City for nine years, and now lives in New Jersey. Having ethnic foods from all over the world available in NYC – not only in restaurants but also finding ingredients in grocery stores and local shops – is something that he lifted up as we talked about the differences among our various locales.
That got me thinking about the “Ethnic Festivals” in my area. Johnstown, PA has an annual ethnic festival where German, Italian, Polish, Hungarian, and Irish foods are among the many choices. We celebrate these ethnic differences now, which points to the synergism of these small towns. However, when the immigrants came from these various European countries in the 19th and 20th centuries and began to work in the steel mills in Johnstown, there was no synergy. The Italian church was built a block down the street from the Polish church; communities remained divided, and prejudices were rampant. It took decades for the synergy to emerge. I suppose, in a way, the annual festivals celebrate not only the wonderful foods and music of the various cultures, but also the unity of the community, where there was once division.
Thank you again for your insights!
U.S. Census Bureau (n.d.) QuickFacts: Blair County, Pennsylvania. Retrieved October 1, 2017 from https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/blaircountypennsylvania/PST045216
James, thank you so much for your response, and I really appreciate your feedback. I would like to address and further clarify what makes a Salad Bowl more comparable to the United States. In your everyday salad you will have let’s say, lettuce, tomato, onions, croutons, cucumber, and so on. A variety of flavors and styles that are separate, but come together to form a whole. This relates back to the idea that organizations that utilize cultural synergy come up with solutions and ideas that are greater than the sum of its parts. They work together to form a dish, but are able to exist independently outside of the salad bowl they have joined. In this case, all of the different flavors or ingredients within the salad would therefore be different cultures. They all exist independently of the salad that they have created, yet when they work together they are able to create something else. I never meant to suggest that outside of the United States was one big “shared culture”, I hope this clarifies what was lost along the way about there being hundreds of thousands of different cultures outside of the United States. I did not mean to sound ignorant or as if I was representing all other cultures as having a shared culture, for that is the exact opposite of what I was trying to convey. I agree very much with your response, and am hoping to have offered some clarity in my own post as well!
Naomi, I enjoyed reading your post- thank you for sharing. I do want to comment on an aspect that you touched on about America being a “salad bowl” not a “melting pot”. If someone comes to America and doesn’t blend into the American culture, they miss out on what being American is all about and are just “living” in America. The American culture is a culmination of all the people who have immigrated and lived here for centuries and therefore it should be celebrated. You make it sound as if all other countries in the world have a shared culture, yet America is a disparate group of many different cultures with no national identity that should not be admired for fear of ethnocentrism. Cultural synergy should not occur at the expense of your own culture; it should be a working combination of all cultures to allow for the greatest mutually beneficial solutions.