TH2010

Cross Culture
Cross culture refers to a company's efforts to ensure that its people interact effectively with professionals
from backgrounds different from their own. Like the adjective cross-cultural, it implies a recognition of
national, regional, and ethnic differences in manners and methods and a desire to bridge them.
The concept of cross culture is becoming critically important with the globalization of businesses. Many
companies that seek to expand the markets for their products devote substantial resources to training
employees on how to communicate and interact effectively with those from other cultures. Learning the basics
about the culture and the language of communication in different countries is important in the tourism and
hospitality industry. This is necessary even for the basic level of understanding required to engage in
appropriate greetings and physical contact, which can be a tricky area inter-culturally. Below are a few
examples of cross-cultural interactions (Kopp, 2019):
• Accepting a business card from a Japanese businessperson is not a casual action. The person presenting
the card will bow and present it with both hands. The recipient takes it with both hands, indicating respect.
• In China, giving a direct "yes" or "no" answer, or demanding one from anyone else, is considered very
rude. Meetings are for talking things over, not announcing decisions.
• In Mexico, business is done primarily among friends and family. Visiting business people often seek an
introduction through an intermediary with local connections.
Failing to observe any of the above social customs or etiquettes would be a serious cross culture mistake.
Cultural Orientations Framework
In the context of organizations, coaching is used to refer to a helping relationship between a client and a
consultant who uses a variety of behavioral techniques and methods to assist the coachee (a person who
receives training from a coach, especially in business or corporate practice) achieve a mutually identified set
of goals to improve his or her professional performance and personal satisfaction. It is an experiential,
individualized development process through one-on-one interactions. It is a more flexible and responsive
approach to individuals’ diversity development needs rather than the “one size fits all” training approach.
Although the terms coaching and mentoring are often used interchangeably, mentoring refers to a more long-
term, informally developed relationship between a more experienced and less experienced employee within
an organization.
The cultural differences between individuals increase the complexity of the leadership role and add to the
individual differences between members of the organization, which leaders need to consider. To unpack such
complexity, it is therefore important for international leaders to formulate a cross-cultural model as part of
their coaching framework, as well as consider issues of gender and generational differences. Traditional
coaching and training models are no longer effective if they do not consider diversity as a theme. Thus, there
is a growing requirement for coach-leaders in an international business arena to integrate cross-cultural
awareness into their practice effectively.
Rosinski (2006) highlighted this point about cross-cultural awareness: ‘By integrating the cultural dimension,
coaching will unleash more human potential to achieve meaningful objectives’ and thus ‘enriched with
coaching, intercultural professionals will be better equipped to fulfill their commitment to extend people’s
world views, bridge cultural gaps, and enable successful work across cultures’.
The following steps are proposed by Rosinski in dealing with cultural differences:
1. Recognize and accept differences – acknowledge, appreciate, and understand that acceptance does
not mean agreement or surrender.

09 Handout 1 *Property of STI

 student.feedback@sti.edu Page 1 of 5
 TH2010

2. Adapt to differences – move outside one’s comfort zone, empathize (temporary shift in perspective)
and understand that adaptation does not mean adoption or assimilation.
3. Integrate differences – hold different frames of reference in mind, analyze and evaluate situations
from various cultural perspectives, and remain grounded in reality; it is essential to avoid becoming
dazzled by too many responsibilities.
4. Leverage differences – make the most of differences, strive for energy, proactively look for gems in
different cultures, and achieve unity through diversity.
From the above steps, Rosinski further developed a Cultural Orientations Framework, which consists of the
following categories:
• Sense of Power and Responsibility
o Control – people have a determinant power and responsibility to forge the life they want
o Harmony – strive for balance and harmony with nature
o Humility – accept inevitable natural limitations
• Time Management Approaches
o Scarce – time is a scarce resource that should be managed carefully
o Plentiful – time is abundant
o Monochronic – concentrate on one activity and or relationship at a time
o Polychronic – concentrate simultaneously on multiple tasks and/or relationships
o Past – learn from previous events and people
o Present – focus on the ‘here and now’ and short-term benefits
o Future – have a bias towards long-term benefits; promote a far-reaching vision
• Definitions of Identity and Purpose
o Being – stress living itself and the development of talents and relationships
o Doing – focus on accomplishments and visible achievements
o Individualistic – emphasize individual attributes and projects
o Collectivistic – emphasize affiliation with a group
• Organizational Arrangements
o Hierarchy – society and organizations must be socially stratified to function properly
o Equality – people are equals who often happen to play different roles
o Universalist – all cases should be treated in the same universal manner
o Particularist – emphasize specific circumstances; favor decentralization and tailored solutions
o Stability – value a static and orderly environment
o Change – value a dynamic and flexible environment
o Competitive – promote success and progress through mutual support, sharing of best
practices, and solidarity
• Notions of Territory and Boundaries
o Protective – protect one’s self by keeping personal life and feelings private: mental
boundaries; and by minimizing intrusions into one’s physical space: physical boundaries
o Sharing – build closer relationships by sharing one’s psychological and physical domains
• Communication Patterns
o High Context – rely on implicit communication

09 Handout 1 *Property of STI

 student.feedback@sti.edu Page 2 of 5
 TH2010

o Low Context – rely on explicit communication

o Direct – get one’s point across clearly at the risk of offending or hurting; deliver a tough
message even in a conflict
o Indirect – favor maintaining a cordial relationship at the risk of misunderstanding during a
conflict or confrontation
o Affective – display emotions and warmth when communicating
o Neutral – stress conciseness, precision, and detachment when communicating
o Formal – observe strict protocols and rituals
o Informal – favor familiarity and spontaneity
• Modes of Thinking
o Deductive – emphasize concepts, theories and general principles, logical reasoning, derive
practical applications and solutions
o Inductive – start with experiences, concrete situations and cases, use intuition, formulate
general models and theories
Although Rosinski’s framework on cultural orientation provides fairly comprehensive indicators to address
cultural differences, an alternative framework, like the universal integrated framework, may also be utilized.
Universal Integrated Framework
From a critical review of a wide range of coaching models, a cross-cultural coaching model known as the
Universal Integrated Framework (UIF) was developed by Law, Ireland, and Hussain (2007). The framework
emerged from their coaching practice in Health and Social Care in the United Kingdom (UK) and multinational
programs involving African, Asian, and European businesses. As the coachees may come from diverse
nationalities and are required to deal in an international context, they focused on the cross-cultural
competence that applies to their business organizations. Thus, the UIF is a pragmatic (practical approach to
problems and affairs) implementation model.
It embeds the following aspects: continuous professional development (CPD), including learning and
supervision; appreciation of a cultural environment; coach-coachee fluidity; cross-cultural emotional
intelligence; and communication methods and feedback mechanisms (Passmore, 2009).
Continuous Professional Development (CPD)
CPD and supervision offer the chance for coachees to review the coaching process and optimize their learning.
Integrating CPD and supervision enables practitioners to achieve excellence, develop talent and ensure the
quality of performance, moving from “I-learning” (as in self-reflection) to “we-learning” (as in peer review).
Although the coach could be either an external consultant or an internal manager of the organization, in cross-
cultural coaching, there are benefits in using a coach who comes from another culture to offer varying cross-
cultural perspectives. This is particularly beneficial for international organization leaders who are in
challenging and demanding positions. In the situation where the international coaches supervise the local
coaches, it also offers an opportunity to reflect on personal practice.
Appreciation of Cultural Environment
One of the key themes of the UIF is that it aims to address the significance of culture. Understanding culture
is a general problem in understanding the life experience of others. The issue of learning, relationships, and
ritualistic behaviors is misleading because they are located on the boundary between the internal life of an
individual and the external world of relationships, customs, and organizations.
The UIF accepts that culture is multi-layered and is a feature of all coaching and training relationships. As a
result, one solution does not fit all situations or relationships, and the person who knows the most about their

09 Handout 1 *Property of STI

 student.feedback@sti.edu Page 3 of 5
 TH2010

environment is the person who experiences it. The role of the coach is to support, and most of all, to challenge
the coachee to bring these beliefs, values, and cultural elements to the forefront, recognizing their potential
as both a lever for change and a barrier, when the coachee seeks to work against these ways of doing things.
A common diversity coaching journey may contain the following four (4) stages:
1. Assimilation. At this stage, the coach assimilates the coachee’s personal experiences and validates
these which helps to establish the coaching partnership.
2. Consolidation. This involves the coach and coachee consolidating their relationship on trust and
mutual respect.
3. Exploration. During this stage, the coach seeks to open up new insights from the coachee’s assimilated
experience, bringing hidden aspects into conscious awareness.
4. Maturation. The coach uses multiple methods and media to work with these challenges and help the
coachee to find culturally appropriate solutions or courses of action.
Coach-Coachee Fluidity
In the UIF, the coachees are also trained as coaches and mentors so that they are more able to drive the whole
process from having the knowledge and the elements that need to be optimized if the benefits are to be
realized. Individuals are encouraged to be both coaches and coachees to recognize the learning opportunities
in both roles and identify as transitory roles to aid learning rather than set and “boxed-in” positions. It is key
to learning that leaders experience both roles.
The framework presents coaching and mentoring as an integrative continuum. There is a link between
coaching and mentoring underpinned by the same skill set to aid learning. This skill set includes the common
features of using questions, active listening, summarizing and paraphrasing, as well as using emotional
intelligence and appropriate leadership, and business models or frameworks.
Cross-Cultural Emotional Intelligence
The UIF presents two (2) dimensions of emotional intelligence: cultural competence and coaching professional
competence with 360-degree feedback. This was built into an online system called cultural social intelligence
(CSI) that consists of the following four (4) dimensions:
• Personal Competence. This includes competencies that reflect how people manage themselves.
o Self-awareness – measures whether one accepts and values himself or herself. This pertains
to the awareness of one’s internal feelings, cognition, preferences, resources, and intuitions.
o Self-management – the ability to manage one’s emotion and motivation, and to control it
productively. It measures whether one invites the trust of others by being principled, reliable,
and consistent (trustworthiness).
• Social Competence. This includes competencies that reflect how people manage relationships. Social
competence is a learning process as individuals gain insight through social interactions and awareness
of others. This social process simply could not exist individually.
o Empathy – awareness of others’ feelings, needs, and concerns. It measures whether one
empathizes with others.
o Social skills – ability to influence others, collaborate, cooperate with others by identifying
common ground and shared objectives, taking a leadership role, managing team spirit,
resolving any conflicts, and communicating clearly with a display of interpersonal sensitivity.

09 Handout 1 *Property of STI

 student.feedback@sti.edu Page 4 of 5
 TH2010

• Cultural Competence. This pertains to competencies that reflect how people manage organizational
change. It measures the extent to which coaches inquire into or respond openly to others’ cultures,
ideas and values, and their willingness to challenge and question their own assumptions and those of
others.
o Enlightenment – awareness of other cultures
o Champion – management of organizational cultures
Coaches ought to have the ability to mediate boundaries between cultures and connect to their own
and others’ cultures. In doing so, they experience themselves as part of a larger, collective
consciousness, culturally and spiritually. One recognizes that collective awareness and morality
transform the organization and society as a whole.
• Professional Competence. This requires the coach to adopt professional approaches, giving and
seeking authentic feedback to and from others. This dimension reviews some coach knowledge and
approaches, which have an impact on coaching outcomes of the organization.
Communication Methods and Feedback Mechanism
The UIF also has a 360-degree feedback mechanism that provides performance data on individuals or groups
derived from a number of stakeholders in their performance. It tests the perspectives of participants in a
coaching program against those of their peers and other managers or organization leaders. This provides
coaches or coachees with opportunities to gain further insight and self-awareness of their competence.
The UIF provides both coaches and coachees with a handy tool to quantify their level of competence. It enables
them to understand themselves and the complex relationship between personal, social, cultural, and
professional competencies.

References:
Commisceo Global (2020). A little bit about us. Retrieved 04 November 2020 from https://www.commisceo-
global.com/about-us
Kopp, C. (2019). Cross Culture. In Investopedia. Retrieved 04 November 2020 from
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cross-
culture.asp#:~:text=Cross%20culture%20is%20a%20concept,become%20critically%20important%20to%20business
es.
Law, H., Ireland, S., and Hussain, Z. (2007). Psychology of coaching, mentoring & learning. Wiley.
Passmore, J. (Ed.). (2009). Diversity in Coaching: Working with gender, culture, race and age. Association for Coaching.
Robbins, S.P., & Judge, T.A. (2018). Essentials of organizational behavior (14th ed.). Pearson Education Limited.
Rosinski, P. (2006). Excellence in coaching. Kogan Page.
van Woerkom, M. (2010). The relationship between coach and coachee: A crucial factor for coaching effectiveness.
Springer.

09 Handout 1 *Property of STI

 student.feedback@sti.edu Page 5 of 5