Cultural Intelligence: Trompenaar's Onion Model and its Application

Cultural intelligence
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Trompenaar meaning with the “Onion model” of the seven dimensions of culture
Culture has often been regarded as a people’s way of life. Different people across the
globe have totally different ways of life. Cross-culture management is, therefore, a scenario
where a certain manager from an organization is tasked with overseeing employees and staff
from totally different backgrounds. From the term ‘Onion model’ Trompenaar meant that culture
itself is just like an onion. It is made up of quite a number of different and distinct layers. These
layers are so diverse and some of the layers that Trompenaar mentions are expression and norms.
He argued that people from this diverse culture are so different in terms of their way of
life and the way they look at things. Each and every one of them look at things in quite a
different way. Trompennar, however, believes that this difference and diversity among these
people from different cultures are unique and special and it can be predicted in some kind of
way. He also goes ahead into mentioning that it is this diversity and difference among these
people that actually make them have different preferences over certain things against others
(Quoniam, 2013).
Application of Onion model to my own culture
a). Universalism and particularism-A universalism type of culture is one that strictly believes in
following the set rules in regard to certain things. In relation to the Onion mode, it is often
characterized by some set standards that need to be adhered to. A particularism kind of culture,
on the other hand, cares less about the rules, although they exist. Much often, you would find an
individual going around the set rules to do something totally different. My culture is a
universalism kind of culture; we do follow and adhere strictly to the set rules
b). Individualism and Communitarianism-As the name suggest, individualism kind of culture is
one that believes in personal achievements and accomplishment, they are considered to be a
strength. Communitarianism, on the other hand, focuses on group achievements. As it is
illustrated in the Onion mode, the success of a group of people with common interests is
considered to be very important. My culture is that of individualism kind. People are careless
about the well-being of a group and more about themselves.

c). Specific and diffuse-In a specific kind of culture, it is a normal thing for people to separate
between work and other personal relationships. It is believed that personal relationships can
negatively affect work. In regard to the Onion model, diffuse kind of culture, however, there is
no line of difference between work and personal relationships, it’s just one and the same thing.
Well, my culture is more of specific since you’d rarely find people mixing work and personal
relationships (Lewis, 2011).
d). Neutral and Emotional-For neutral kinds of culture, individuals try as much as possible not to
let their temporary emotions and feelings influence their actions and decisions they make. For an
emotional kind of culture, on the other hand, individuals are driven by their feelings and
emotions. In my culture, people’s action and decision are strictly driven and made by considering
facts and logistics (Butrime & Zuzeviciute, 2013).
e). Achievement and Ascription-For achievement type of culture, people do believe that a person
is defined by what they accomplish in life while an ascription type of culture is one that people
are defined and are valued by who they really are. My culture is more of an achievement one
than it is on ascription; people are defined by titles such as Captain, Bishop among others.
f). Sequential time and Synchronous time- From the word sequential, this is a type of culture that
puts more emphasis on things happening in order and in the right manner as they should.
Synchronous, on the other hand, the order of happenings is not mandatory, different projects can
happen at the same time. Onion model is more sequential; we do believe that the border should
be followed when doing something (Bartlett & Beamish, 2018).
g). Internal direction and outer direction-This dimension bring the environment into play. In
application of the Onion model, internal direction kind of culture is believed that individuals can
manipulate the environment and nature to their advantage while for outer direction, people
believe that environment and nature has total control over them.
Statistics and other data on population demographics, such as the ABS Population clock,
CIA World Factbook and others, assist International managers in their decision making
International managers always have the task of overseeing a number of employees from
totally distinct/different cultures and backgrounds. These people put preference totally different