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        Beachy culture

      Chapter 1: Beachy Culture

      Cultures can be well thought of as sand dunes! Why sand dunes? There are fundamental behavioral rules in cultures that are formalized for example through laws, natural environments and traditionalized rules over (sometimes) centuries and therefore indeed minor subject to change and often nonnegotiable by a large amount of agents of one culture. Yet, there are less structurally consolidated aspects of cultures that are therefore relative and rather subject to change. In other words, the further towards the peak of the sand dune one gets, the stronger individually negotiable are the values. At the same time, metaphorically speaking, the sand (aka values, norms, rules, etc.) can blow away from the top or move downwards and become more firm and less negotiable. Culture, at the end of the day, is a subject to change and a perspective-dependent conception.

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      Reference: Graph: Sand Dune Model

      Let me ask you:
      A greeting (e.g. a handshake): where would you locate it in the sand dune model? A have to, a should or a can rule?

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      Exercise:
      How to use this in practise?

      How to use this in practice?

      With knowing about the cultural levels, how should you go about meeting and working with people from different cultural backgrounds:

      1. Build knowledge about general national cultural traits of the background of the person you will meet/will or have work(ed) with.  (Bottom and middle level of sand dune)
      2. Meeting the individual: Weigh your knowledge/image against the evidence acquired through your interaction with the person from that country. Take the context into account!
      3. According to that, coordinate your actions and behaviors. (Top level of sand dune)

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      Chapter 1
      1. Beachy Culture
      2. Beachy Culture
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      Table of contents

      2 Pages
      Key takeaways
      • All cultures have values, norms and rules that individuals of that cultural group act upon. Yet, all of those values, norms and rules are subject to change, some more and others less.
      • Culture is human-made, changing dynamically over time and context dependent.

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