Cultural Stereotypes in Cross Cultural Communication

The article discusses the impact of cultural stereotypes on cross cultural communication and establishing business relations. It highlights the merits and demerits of relying on cultural stereotypes and concludes that it is better to rely on stereotypes than to enter into a relationship with someone from another culture without any idea of what they believe in.

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The spread of globalisation has changed the world of business to a great extent. Globalisation
has enabled people and organisations from all corners of the world to interact with each other,
form business relations and expand their market reach, which can help them in achieving a
competitive edge in the market. The spread of globalisation has also made it difficult for
business organisations to survive in the market because of the exponential increase in
competition. As a result, business organisations are looking forward to expand their
businesses overseas in order to achieve market competencies and ensure a long term survival
in the market. Overseas expansion involves interacting with individuals that belong to
different cultural backgrounds and have their own morals, ethics, values, language, etc.,
which governs their behaviour during business interactions (Kreuz & Roberts, 2017).
Therefore, understanding the culture of an overseas partner is considered to be crucial for
those organisations that are looking forward to expand their business overseas.
Culture is defined as the set of morals, ethics, values, language, cuisines, etc. that governs the
social conduct of an individual or a group of people (Heine, 2015). Cultural stereotyping is
referred to the condition when one person forms an opinion about another person on the basis
of who that person is, where is the person from, which language does that person speaks, etc.,
without actually getting to know the person, etc. (Schnurr, et al., 2017). There are a number
of cultural stereotypes that exist till date, such as all people with a Jewish background are
greedy, Mexican people are lazy and migrate into America illegally, all black people outside
of the United States are poor, etc. There are a countless number of stereotypes associated
with different cultures in the world, out of which, some are valid while some are completely
invalid and have originated as a result of false perceptions of people.
“It is better to rely on stereotypes than to enter into a relationship with someone from
another culture without any idea of what they believe in.”
To conclude whether the statement is correct or not, it is important to discuss the merits as
well as the demerits of the statement. Let us start by discussing the merits of cultural
stereotypes in cross cultural communication:
First of all, relying upon stereotypes while entering into a relationship with someone from a
different culture can be beneficial for a person that has negligible knowledge about the
cultural preferences of the other person. There can be certain situations where a person might
not have the time to study the culture of another person in depth. In such cases, relying on

cultural stereotypes can shape the way for communication to a certain extent. Further, relying
upon cultural stereotypes can sometimes be helpful in making quick judgements and fast
decisions (Peng, 2010). Secondly, cultural stereotypes can help in identifying people into
groups and predicting their reactions and decisions. It can help a person in forming
expectations and making communication more predictable and easier to understand. Thirdly,
stereotypes in cultural communication is sometimes considered to be an equalizer because
people belonging to a particular group definitely have something in common. Stereotypes can
thus be used to face issues related to intercultural communication rather than running away
from them. Cultural stereotypes can definitely have certain truth attached to them and by
addressing these issues, stereotypes can be used to eliminate barriers to communication
Fourthly, cultural stereotypes can sometimes be used by individuals to explain social events
as stereotypes can help in identifying certain typical characteristics of a cluster.
On the other hand, most of the people believe that cultural stereotypes can cause more harm
in cross cultural communication than their potential benefits. Some of the negative aspects of
cultural stereotypes are discussed below:
First of all, cultural stereotypes can have a great impact on the organisational behaviour of the
employees. In cross-cultural communication or in multinational organisations, it is often
observed that certain employees have a tendency to shape their behaviour with other
employees on the basis of stereotypes that they have regarding a particular group of people.
This can make them bully others if they perceive their culture as recessive or less assertive.
According to the socio-technical approach and the situational approach under the
administrative theory of organisational behaviour, an organisation is composed of a social
system, technical system and an environment and for the success of an organisation, it is
crucial that there is a strong relation between all these systems (Bin, n.d.). Stereotypes can
instil a feeling of inferiority or superiority in the system and it can become difficult to
establish a strong relation between these systems. Relying upon cultural stereotypes while
entering into a relationship with a person belonging to a different culture can prove to be a
failure because the judgement about his or her culture can be completely misguided and
incorrect. In such cases, there are greater chances that one might end up offending the other
person, which makes it difficult to establish a strong and long lasting relation with the person.
Further, stereotypes can also result in employees mistreating or abusing those whom they
perceive to be inferior to them, based on stereotypes (Lyons & Kashima, 2001). Secondly,

according to most of the cultural stereotypes, people belonging to a particular culture have a
similar dressing sense, values, beliefs, preferences, social conduct, etc. This belief can act as
a barrier in cross cultural communication because people having the same dressing sense can
feel differently towards different situations and actions (Lyons & Kashima, 2001). As a
result, relying upon stereotypes can decrease the effectiveness of cross cultural
communication. Furthermore, a popular notion saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover”
stresses on the face that appearance cannot be enough to completely understand who a person
really is. Thirdly, cultural stereotypes can sometimes act as the biggest barriers to
communication and might prevent two people belonging to different cultures from interacting
at all. A person might not want to interact with another person because of his or her
assumption about the other person, which is obviously based upon cultural stereotypes that
she or he might have read or heard about. Fourthly, cultural stereotypes can sometimes result
in prejudice. Cultural stereotypes can sometimes make people protect their self-esteem by
making them feel that they are a part of a superior group of people (Bin, n.d.). As a result,
such people, in order to satisfy their feeling of superiority, can apply negative stereotypes
while communication with others. For example, American managers believe that their Asian
colleagues do not possess leadership skills and are not assertive while at work while the
Israelis think that businessmen from India are not trustworthy and do not provide the correct
information during business dealings. Basing one’s behaviour or social conduct on such
negative stereotypes can offend the other person, who might be trustworthy and is sharing all
the information in a business deal.
Coming to the statement, having no knowledge about a person’s culture or belief and still
entering into a relationship with that person is a tricky situation because establishing a
relation without having knowledge about each other’s cultural values is not possible in the
first place. Even if somehow it does become possible, the foundation of relation established
between the two parties will not be solid enough to make it a long lasting one as they would
definitely end up offending each other because of the lack of understanding. On the other
hand, relying upon stereotypes while entering into cross cultural communication can
definitely help a person in identifying certain do’s and don’ts, which would ultimately reduce
the chances of offending the other person as a result of the lack of cultural knowledge (Ting-
Toomey, 2012). Further, the foundation of the relation can be stronger in this case and as the
relation becomes stronger, each of the party will have opportunities to learn more about each
other and their beliefs, which would further reinforce their relation.

Cultural stereotypes receive different reviews from different people and their reliability in
cross cultural communication and establishing business relations is highly debatable. Where
some people are of the belief that cultural stereotypes can act as a barrier to cross cultural
communication and are trying their best to discover methods that can help in eliminating
cultural stereotypes, others believe that cultural stereotypes have been formed over a period
of time by closely observing the social conduct of a group of people and can be reliable in
cross cultural communication as they help in making quick judgements and decisions
(Spencer-Rodgersa & McGovern, n.d.). To conclude, it is actually beneficial to rely on
stereotypes rather than entering into a relationship with a person from another culture with no
knowledge about his or her beliefs or preferences because stereotypes cannot just help in
making a judgement about the other person, but can also help in shaping one’s own behaviour
and communication style while interacting with others. Having some knowledge about the
culture of another person, even if it is based on cultural stereotypes, can actually help a
person in gaining confidence and actually initiating a conversation. On the other hand,
entering into a relationship with another person without having any knowledge about his or
her beliefs cannot help a person in taking a conversation much far. Therefore, it is definitely
better to rely upon certain stereotypes during cross cultural communication rather than
entering into a relation with someone without actually having any knowledge about his or her
culture and beliefs.

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