Ein kurzer Abriss der interkulturellen Forschung

Inhalt

Bewusstseinsarchitektur und interkulturelle Forschung

Kulturmodelle
Geert Hofstede (1980)
Fons Trompenaars und Charles Hampden-Turner (1997)

The dawn of an intercultural metascience. An epistemological blueprint for 360° transcultural synergy
Synergy
360° transcultural synergy

Kulturmodelle (Folge)
E. T. Hall und Mildred Reed Hall (1990)
Mary Yoko Brannen und Jane E. Salk (2000)
Der transkulturelle Ansatz (2005)

A synopsis of modern intercultural studies

Die transkulturelle Sichtweise und die Integration der inter- und der transkulturellen Perspektive
DOME 12D or 12 octaves transcultural profiler(©) or transcultural management model: Visualization, legend and explanation
Correlation of transcultural profiler levels to culture consciousness levels and to cultural intelligence levels

Conclusio

A synopsis of inter- and transcultural management instruments
Inter- and transcultural reference terminology
Inter- and transcultural references

Interkulturelles- u. Transkulturelles Management (German)

Intercultural &Transcultural Management (English)

Gestion Interculturelle et Gestion Transculturelle (French)

Gerencia Intercultural y Gerencia Transcultural (Spanish)

Gerência Intercultural e Gerência Transcultural (Portuguese)

跨文化的智慧精髓 - kua wen hua de zhi hui jing sui (Chinese)

транскультурная компетенция - transkulturnaja

kompetencija (Russian)

toransukaruchā 　・ manējimento (Japanese)

トランスカルチャー　・　マネジメント

Vishua Chaytana (Sanskrit)

ZAKAA AL-TA'ALOF AL-THAQAFEE (Arabic)

Ein kurzer Abriss der interkulturellen Forschung

BEWUSSTSEINSARCHITEKTUR UND INTERKULTURELLE FORSCHUNG

Kulturmodelle

1. Determinismus (achtziger Jahre)
2. Indeterminismus (neunziger Jahre…)
3. Probabilismus (drittes Jahrtausend)

Dieses bilinguale Kapitel, das eine Integration des kulturell-sprachlichen Perspektivenwechsels erfordert, wird einerseits die wesentlichen Kulturmodelle kurz darstellen, die der Interkulturalist und insbesondere der globale Manager bereits kennen sollte, den Bezug der Modelle untereinander herstellen, sowie diese interkulturelle Logik in die umfassendere Logik einer ganzheitlichen Bewusstseinsarchitektur in der Gestalt des transkulturellen Profilers (siehe S. 48), mit anderen Worten, den interkulturellen Managementansatz in einen emergenten transkulturellen integrieren. Dieser erweiterte theoretische und praktisch wirksame Bezugsrahmen ist wissenschaftlich fundiert und effektiv.

Das Ziel dieser Erörterung besteht weniger in der Darstellung, Deutung und Anwendung des Bekannten, sondern vielmehr in deren Integration in einem zukunftsorientierten leistungsfähigeren, den kulturellen Herausforderungen des dritten Jahrtausends angemessen optimierten interkulturellen Paradigmas, das hier als noetisch, transkulturell oder quantisch bezeichnet wird. Doch jeder interkulturelle Forscher, so meine ich, schuldet den Pionieren der interkulturellen Forschung den wissenschaftlichen und menschlichen Respekt, ihre Arbeit angemessen zu repräsentieren. Andere haben das Recht und sogar die Pflicht deren Werk im Lichte wissenschaftlicher Paradigmenwechsel im Sinne einer Verpflichtung der Menschheit insgesamt gegenüber fortzusetzen, denn das globale Management bezieht sich nicht nur auf die globale Wirtschaft und deren Erfordernisse, sondern auf alle Bereiche des Lebens auf der Erde, die nun allesamt eine globale Dimension haben, nicht zuletzt auch die Überlebensfrage des Menschen schlechthin. Deshalb ist nicht nur eine interkulturelle Standortbestimmung der Akteure, sondern auch eine Standortbestimmung der interkulturellen Forschung vonnöten um sie im Lichte der globalen Erfordernisse voranzutreiben.

Ich möchte aber gleich darauf hinweisen, dass die drei Generationen der interkulturellen Forschung keine fixen Kategorien, sondern dass die Übergänge fließend sind.

Geert Hofstede (1980)

Kultur wird hier als mentale Software oder als kollektive mentale Programmierung definiert, die Kulturgruppen voneinander unterscheidet. Diese Forschung ist in sofern deterministisch, als dass jeder erforschten nationale Gruppe statistisch basierte fixe landeskulturelle Werte zugeordnet werden. Doch Hofstede räumt ein, dass unser Denken und Verhalten desweitern über die determinierende nationalkulturelle Ebene hinaus von weiteren kulturellen Ebenen, vergleichbar mit dem Individualkultur Profil der Ebene D6 des transkulturellen Profilers, bestimmt wird und er fügt auch hinzu, dass es sich bei der mentalen Programmierung um eine Vorprogrammierung handle, wobei das Individuum noch eine Marge der Mit- und Ausgestaltungsfreiheit besäße. Die fixen landeskulturellen Positionen geben dem Modell dennoch eine statische Prägung; daher dessen deterministische Orientierung.

Die vier (und schließlich fünf) Kulturdimensionen Hofstedes wurden am konzisesten von den britischen Managementwissenschaftlern Hickson and Pugh definiert:

1. Machtdistanz als die Art und Weise, wie die Menschen einer Kultur Autorität managen.
2. Individualismus-Kollektivismus als die Art, in der Menschen Beziehungen managen.
3. Unsicherheitsvermeidung als die Art, in der Menschen ihr Sicherheitsbedürfnis managen.
4. Maskulinität als die Art, in der Menschen sich selbst managen.
5. Langzeitorientierung vs. Kurzzeitorientierung als die Art, in der Menschen die Zeit managen.

Nun haben wir das Aggregat-Kulturmodell Hofstedes in wenigen Zeilen resümiert. Es ist im Transkulturellen Profiler Modell auf der Ebene des Nationalkulturprofils D7, 1-5, S. 48, angesiedelt. - Diese geistig-kulturelle Landkarte sollte man von nun an immer als Wegbegleitung, bildlich gesprochen, einsichtsbereit zur Ortung verfügbar haben. - Nun harrt nur noch seine Übersetzung in die diversen Sphären des gesellschaftlichen und organisationalen Lebens anhand der dafür nachfolgend ebenso prägnant subsumierten landeskulturellen Indices.

Weiterhin hat Hofstede die Unterscheidung von Werten und Praktiken und deren Zuordnung zu National- und Organisationskulturen im Zwiebelmodell veranschaulicht, deren Grad der Reversibilität, sowie deren Erwerbszeitraum erforscht, sowie die von ihm erforschten Kulturen inbezug auf managementrelevante Charakteristika kartiert.

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Quelle: G. Hofstede, Cultures and Organizations, Software of the Mind and Bartlett, Ghoshal, Birkinshaw, The Transnational, 2003

Fons Trompenaars und Charles Hampden-Turner (1997)

Das Kulturmodell des britisch-niederländischen interkulturellen Forscherduos, das auch als Dilemmadoktoren bezeichnet wird, weil sie eine Dilemmatheorie entwickelt haben, die für die Lösung globaler kultureller Dilemmalösung angewandt werden kann und die später noch im Lichte der Transkulturalität erörtert werden wird.

Die auf Kluckhohn und Strodtbeck zurückgehende Kulturdefinition von THT (kurz für Trompenaars und Hampden-Turner) bezieht sich auf „die Art und Weise, wie eine Gruppe von Menschen Probleme bewältigt und Dilemmata löst.“

Das siebendimensionale Modell, siehe Transcultural Profiler, Ebene D7, 5-12, Seite 48, besteht aus folgenden Dimensionen, die ich im Wortlaut der Autoren, zusammen mit der anschließenden Landeskulturenklassifizierung inbezug auf diese sieben Parameter der Kulturanalyse, wiedergeben möchte:

1. Universalism-particularism: seeks to discover one's prime allegiance to rules and und classifications or to the exceptional, unique circumstances and relationships
2. Individualism-communitarianism: measures the extent to which managers see the individual employee and shareholder as paramount, their development, enrichment, and fulfillment; or to what extent the corporation, customers and the wider community should be the beneficiaries of all personal allegiances
3. Specific-diffuse: measures the tendency to analyze, reduce and break down the field of experience or to synthesize, augment, and construct patterns of experience
4. Neutral versus affective: this concern the legitimacy to show emotions while at work
5. Inner-directed - outer-directed: concerns the 'locus of control.' Is it inside each of us, or outside in our environments to which we must adapt?
6. Achieved-ascribed status: refers to whether status is conferred to people on the basis of what they have achieved or because of what they are
7. Sequential-synchronous time: has to do with whether one sees time as passing in a sequence or coming round again and again' (THT 7D-model, source: Trompenaars, Hampden-Turner, Managing People Across Cultures 2005).

Trompenaars – Hampden-Turner Classification of Cultures

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Universalist Particularist Neutral Emotional

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Achieved Status Ascribed Status

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Dieses Modell ist ebenso wie das vorhergehende Hofstedesche Modell ein statistisch basiertes Modell zur Unterscheidung von Kulturen, jedoch etwas weniger statisch als das vorausgehende, denn Kulturen können auf den Wertekontinua in beiden Richtungen "entlangtanzen". Während dieselbe Nationalkultur in einem Bereich eine Position auf einem und demselben Kontinuum einnehmen kann, kann sie in einem anderen Bereich eine andere einnehmen. Während man in beiden Modellen von der Annahme ausgeht, dass eine mentale Programmierung vorhanden ist, ist sie im statischeren Hofstedeschen irreversibler, im letzteren THTs ist sie dagegen reversibler und veränderlicher. Daher kann man von einer Progression von einer eher deterministischen zu einer emergenten indeterministischeren Kulturkonzeption sprechen und das fünfdimensionale Kulturmodell Hofstedes dem Determinismus, das siebendimensionale Kulturmodell Trompenaars und Hampden-Turners hingegen dem Übergang vom Determinismus zum Indeterminismus zuordnen. Der Indeterminismus im eigentlichen Sinne zeichnet sich erst in der nächsten Kulturauffassung ab.

Zusammen vollenden die beiden Modelle die Ebene D7, 1-12 des transkulturellen Profilers, Seite 48 und verkörpern das aus 12 maßgeblichen Parametern für die Differenzierung von Kulturen und die Kulturanalyse bestehende Nationalkulturprofil in Ergänzung des gleichermaßen aus 12 Parametern bestehende Individualkulturprofils der Transkulturellen Profilerebene D6, 1-12. Beide zusammen ermöglichen ein differenzierteres kulturelles Profiling, das durch die Einbettung in die Gesamtarchitektur des Bewusstseins des globalen Managers im globalen Managementkontext vermittels der Integrations- und Steuerungsfunktion der Ebenen D1 bis D5, insbesondere der transkulturellen/noetischen Ebene vorteilhaft kontextualisiert werden kann.

Die virtuose Beherrschung des gesamten Wertekontinuums, bzw. des Wertekontinua Clusters, und dessen Integration ist die Voraussetzung für die Generierung von interkulturellen Synergien und unterstreicht desweiteren, dass Werte keine statische, fixe und unveränderliche Positionen verkörpern, sondern vielmehr Prozesse im Bereich der Mediation von Unterschieden sind.

Unter dem Begriff Dilemma Doktoren ist das britisch-niederländische Kulturgelehrten-Gespann bekannt für die Dilemma Theorie. Nachfolgend möchte ich zeigen, wie auch in diesem Bereich das interkulturelle Paradigma durch das emergente transkulturelle nutzbringend im Hinblick auf umfassende und nachhaltige „360° Synergien“ durch Einbeziehung und Operationalisierung (Ebene D3) der im Transkulturellen Management Modell oder Profiler enthaltenen und die kulturelle Dialektik des Mentalbereichs transzendierenden umfassenderen Logik der diesen Bereich transzendierenden Bewusstseinsdimensionen D1 und D2 mit ihrem strukturell-funktionell integrativen und optimierenden Charakter, erweitert werden kann.

Nun das von mir zu der Veranschaulichung dieser Progression von einem 90° Synergiemodell hin zu einem 360° Synergie entwickelte Modell, das dem ganzheitlichen Menschen mit seinen in der Phylogenese angelegten Potentialen gerecht wird, inklusive Legende. Es sei mir gestattet, das diesbezügliche Kapitel aus meiner Publikation Transcultural Management – Transkulturelles Management, GRIN Verlag München, in Englisch einzufügen:

The Dawn of an Intercultural Metascience An Epistemological Blue Print for 360° Transcultural Synergy

The dawn of a global civilization presupposes the waning of the dark clouds of the culture wars of the 20th century and the mindsets that have been thinking from the background of this century. A more global civilisation needs a radically new approach. Optimizing old approaches still amounts to old approaches, however improved, with consequences that can only be different in degrees with regard to their capacity of generating cultural problems. We are prolonging the past indefinitely in myriad variations. We haven’t been able to identify and successfully implement a kind of master control software that allows us to successfully manage our mental software. This is the master dilemma of which intercultural dilemmas are but mirror reflections at lower levels. Like Don Quijote, we create and fight our dilemmas ourselves heroically, ‘with unbearable sorrow, going where the brave dare not go, dream the impossible dream, this is my quest’ (Cervantes, Don Quijote). The moment we realize that there is a master dilemma, which creates myriads of sub-dilemmas, we see a new possibility, one of realizing our seemingly impossible dream. The dilemma is that we are conditioned in myriad ways and that this conditioning, which has taken place in our lifetime and probably beyond, determines our actions, attitudes and behaviours. So, conditioning and time are elements of concern here. Instead of liberating us from this conditioning, cultural categorizations have cemented us into straitjackets of mental programming, which we act out mindlessly. So, the programming of the mind has become utter mindlessness, while freedom is rationalized by the automation of our being. The programming goes on in ever more sophisticated ways. Does this have a future? It has brought us some awareness and models. So far, so good. The entire intercultural approach pertains to a time and a mind, which is the product of that time, which flow in to the future, reproducing the same mind-product-of-time. Part of the master dilemma is that this conditioning is perpetuated, however sophisticated. It applies to the researcher as well as to the researched. They partake in the same mechanism, ever recreating the dilemma. Yet, what we need more of is not recreation but creation. This is our cre-do. The new (creation) presupposes the dream, the perception of the possibility, the belief in it, the hope of its attainment, then the daring heroism of a quixotic mindset. If we master the master dilemma, dilemma doctors will be rationalized by this new epistemological ‘technology’. Presently they need the conditioning, which creates the dilemmas, in order to solve them, to make a living of it. The moment you master this root problem, there is less need for masters nor slaves nor dilemmas nor dilemma doctors.

Is this awareness feasible and operational? Self-interest and celebration of that self (academically and monetarily) are their value preference rather than helping mankind ahead on the road of evolution. No wonder, most of them are from high IDV cultures. They are creating new dimensions of difference, more divisive factors, competing for new, smarter ones among them. But what about the master dimension, that which manifests the sub-dimensions? Is there one and is it possible to manage it in a way that puts the dimensions of cultural difference in a radically new light, transcending them at will, enabling us to put them on and off, inclusive of their reconciliations and synergies? The present approach is largely horizontal: thinking in cultures, their empirically identified value preferences and the optimum interfacing thereof. These fairly fixed categories are comparable to Newtonian physics categories. The vertical dimension approach to be added is the level of conscious evolution. At the intersection of the horizontal and the vertical there, at this centre lies the quintessentially new approach. Simply a shift of focus to incorporate the observer or conscious entity behind the mind, as the quantum physicists since Heisenberg and Schrödinger have been envisaging in the first part of the previous century. Can we afford to exclude what the hard scientists have been envisaging over hundred years ago and which enabled space age? Can an analogous process in our area of concern enable the space age consciousness corollary, the global transcultural civilisation? The new coexists with, encompasses and simply transcends the old. No destruction, just tapping into a new resource, a higher order of things. The master dilemma is that of conditioning, the mind as a storehouse of it and time versus deconditioning or transcending conditioning to leverage consciousness as a whole instead of the myriad fragments of the sum total of our learning and socialization. Conditioning versus deconditioning, psychological consciousness versus pure consciousness. Time versus freedom of time and therefore mental programming versus mental deprogramming are road sign dimensions which point to a substantial reality that escapes conceptual terminology, for the mind with its mental programming, the time, memory, language storehouse is one horn of the master dilemma to be integrated at a new level. Integrating the observer, the observation and the observed, this is the challenge. Whether this is possible and what its potentialities are will be looked at cross-culturally, in order to see how various civilisations across the ages have approached this question. We are postulating a reality that, transcending words and concepts, governs the dimensions - like a master key unlocking all doors of our mental edifice - we are trying to reconcile as well as the potential synergies. We are not projecting an illusory magic quid, a miraculous compensation of our dire human condition of intercultural strive - a fairy tale cloud cuckoo land -, but we are investigating a biological reality of the mind which has been investigated by select adepts and elites of East and West, science and philosophy of all civilisations across the ages. Finding out whether such a master key exists and how it can fit intercultural research will be the prime quest here and now. In order to investigate this question we want to undertake a journey across cultures, ages and civilisations, in order to find out whether across the millennia there are supporting elements of our hypothesis. The new intercultural edifice we envisage must rest on an incorruptible foundation, with as many supporting pillars as possible, which mutually validate and consolidate each other to provide a rock solid base for further research. It must reflect the truth, have universal validity, appeal and operationality. Each reader must decide whether he has the solidity to travel a road of the mind of another culture or whether he prefers to wait until the new insight is translated in the categories of his native culture by the quixotic heroes, for we must, though it may sound contradictory, have a sound foundation in the best of our own culture, before we can add on what we envisage, before we can transcend cultural programming.

Let us first turn our eyes towards the cradle of Western Civilisation, which is Greece. Non-Aristotelian thinking has become much en vogue. On the one hand Aristotelian thinking seems to be considered too static (‘opposites in the same space mutually excluding each other’) to allow higher frequency dynamics of successful reconciliation. On the other hand, however, it provides the notion of a trinitary hierarchical structure of man, the noetic-psycho-somatic triad. The second level, the psychological level is the repository of our mental software, or collective mental programming. The psychological structure contains the mind, time, the sum total of our conditioning. The third level of the triad the noetic, from the Greek NOUS, beyond the repository of learning, socialization and conditioning as a whole, seems to be of pristine, unalloyed, universal nature, and, as we will see in the neurophysiologic approach, it has the power of control over the subjacent level, the psychological which in turn governs the somatic level. We are in the presence of a hierarchical top-bottom control system. Yet, if we ignore or are unable to activate the noetic level of the integrated hierarchical triad, which has the power of control of the psychological level, the latter cannot be adequately managed, which means, it runs wild. As it is the repository of our mental software we needn’t be surprised if it is dysfunctional. So, over 2000 years ago, Ancient Greece knew a holistic, threefold noetic-psycho-somatic structural concept of man, which in our days has gone out of fashion, so to speak. Is it connected to its unique cultural performance of laying the foundation of Western Civilisation? By returning to the roots and the cradle of our Western Civilisation we can resource us and see whether we can leverage this superordinate level to the psychological, mental level, which is assumed to have the prerogative of the power of control over the subjacent levels and therefore of the entire repository of our cultural conditioning.

If we turn our eyes further East and deeper in the past, to the Ancient Indian Civilisation, we notice, that it considers the mind as material as opposed to the immateriality assumption of Western psychology and that it has a few thousand years of exploration of the inner cosmos of man with results that fill libraries and cannot be dealt with in our specific inquiry into an enhanced culture management principle. However, in our search for another structural element of our new edifice of an intercultural metascience we encounter a concept, which is that of the ‘consciousness witness’ and which is considered one of the greatest contributions of India to Human Civilisation. Consciousness-witness, similar to the ‘Nous’ or noetic level of Ancient Greece, refers to a level of consciousness beyond the mental structure and functions we are conversant with, which is pure consciousness, choiceless awareness, perception, unalloyed by the mental and emotional ups and downs, the incessant movements of the mind. Various systems of yoga are trying to access and leverage this level of our holistic biological consciousness-mind-body structure to enhance mental and physical structure and functioning.

Turning our attention now to Ancient China, we are aware, that, here again, intercultural research frequently refers to Confucianism as the explanatory variable of Chinese culture and management. In addition to Confucian dynamism, there is less reference to Lao Tzu’s ‘hyperdynamism’, if one may use this term, the underlying dynamism of the entire world. Lao Tzu, in his Tao Te Ching advocates a mindset, which translates into Western languages as ‘Not Doing’ which is the very opposite of doing nothing, because, according to Taoism, ‘not doing does everything’. It refers to a mindset, which witnesses life in a non-interfering way. Tapping this higher level of the biology of the psychophysical structure of man supposedly creates order of the highest possible kind. What comes here to one’s mind is the assumption of intercultural management research, that the descriptive international managerial mindsets are more effective than the judgmental ones.

Further East, even in the Land of the Rising Sun culture we can trace this hypermental dimension of consciousness, which underlies Budo and Zen. It has been expounded by Takuan in ‘Fudochi Dhinmyo Roku’, which translates as ‘The Secret of Unmoved Wisdom’. Poetry describes this mindset as the image of the moon on the water, the mirror image of the moon does not move. According to this practical philosophy, the nature of our spirit, of our self is like the mirror image of the moon on the water the moving flow of our thoughts. If one doesn’t cling to the thoughts, letting them go, the nature of the spirit becomes ‘fudo’, that is without movement: ‘Hishiryo’. This secure anchor transcends mental programming, unburdened by conditioning.

Whether the ‘Nous’, the ‘Consciousness Witness’, ‘Non-doing’ or ‘Hishiryo’, they all are levels of awareness above our habitual awareness, governing the levels below. Culture, mental conditioning being contained in the subordinate mental level, cultural phenomena are also governed by the superordiante level identified by different cultures and framed and derived differently according to the cultural background. Thus we have found a key to culture, to cultural conditioning, a central hub, on which the philosophies and psychologies of major civilisations converge unanimously. The central hub, that on which all mental programming hinges, this door of a new perception of culture, we are unlocking now.

The millennia old cradles of civilisations from where such notions originate, which correspond to a more inner-oriented science of man, have to be tested by the criteria of more outer-oriented Western sciences: Neurophysiology and microphysics will be considered here, before we reconcile East and West by the philosophy of a sage who bridges East and West:

As soon as in the early twentieth century neurophysiologists like Mme and Louis Lapique, (Ramon y Cajal, Sherrington) have formulated the law of functional subordination, meaning essentially, that higher centres of the hierarchical structure of the human nervous system control lower ones. The French cardiologist Dr. Thérèse Brosse has conducted 50 years of related research in East and West. Psychosomatic research tells us that the state of mind has the power to influence cardiac, respiratory and other rates that are usually measured in diagnostic medicine. However, if the psychological level controls the somatic, what entity subordinates, controls, integrates and normalizes the psychological level. Here, Western psychology ends, as it reasons in a dualistic psychosomatic mode only, although a healthy psychological functioning would imply a superordinate function, capable of subordinating and integrating the psychological level, the highest in the Western dualistic conception of man. Neurophysiology points to the presence of and a need for a third level, an extension of the dualist psychosomatic structure of man to an enhanced trinitary structure, which we could trace in the major civilisations of the world spanning nearly ten millennia. It is this level of our human constitution which is termed in different ways by different cultures. Factually a type of pure consciousness as opposed to a conditioned personal consciousness is the nature of that entity which we have been tracing successfully in Eastern cultures, confirmed and validated by the law of functional subordination, which has the normalizing, integrating function in the constitution of man. The hiatus between physiology and psychology can be bridged as in the Japanese assumption, where physiological and mental immobility are necessarily concomitant.

Turning to microphysics, since Heisenberg and Schrödinger, maybe not surprisingly also in the early 20th century, there appears a kind of interconnectedness between the subject and the object observed; a shift to also encompass the consciousness of the subject in the observation of the object. Consciousness redirects its gaze back at itself in quest of understanding maybe a consciousness-time-space continuum. Is it new? The Sanskrit notion of Chit-kala-dik (Consciousness-time-space continuum) seems to be present in Ancient Vedic texts already.

Over the larger part of the past century the intellectual giant J. Krishnamurti, who pertains to East and West alike, has been discussing issues like conditioning and deconditioning with outstanding physicists like David Bohm, psychologists and scholars from East and West. He equates the observer with the observed, a cryptic notion to the unaware. His psychology transcends all psychologies and philosophies because it seems to be able to liberate us from all conditioning by leveraging a level of choiceless awareness, a mode of ‘seeing’ which is non-fragmentary, beyond psychological time and conditioning, beyond the mind, of which culture is a component. This art of perceiving is an act of liberation that, and here is the revolution, can take place instantaneously, while the other techniques, which have been outlined, require long and arduous training and as such are unlikely to really transcend time and the mind, as they are efforts in time and thus products of the mind. That which transcends the mind and conditioning is something unknown, radically new, originating in the awareness of the impossibility of the mind to transcend itself. Seeing this can effect the alchemy.

Does that square with Western ethics? Is it blasphemous? Where is God in this equation? The answer is provided by Jacques Maisonrouge (1988), who as sole European became President of IBM World Trade Corporation, a transcultural manager par excellence. He clearly states that we should stick to the highest principle of Judeo-Christian Civilisation, that of ‘love thy neighbour’. It is the guarantee for private and professional success and that the companies, which, based on this principle have the best human relations are also the most profitable ones. Love definitely liberates us from the clutches and shackles of the ego, a purely personal consciousness, to liberate the higher level of an impersonal consciousness, which transcends conditioned responses of the mind, of which culture is a fragment.

In sum, each culture has a specific path - based on its specific traditions - to access and leverage this seemingly missing third level (in Western approaches) of unconditioned non-fragmentary higher consciousness – also suggested by hard science. Although the term may convey a threat to material consciousness, it may turn out to be the royal path of managing and controlling and foregoing culture clash: an ultimate ejection seat before culture crash, the scenario depicted by gloom and doom culture clash harbingers.

How does that fit with the intercultural management paradigm, state-of-the-art models of multiculturalism? For the uninitiated reader into the scientific underpinning and the application of dilemma theory I would like to present two approaches to dilemma resolution and synergy, that of the Cambridge Professor Charles Hampden-Turner and the intercultural management consultant Fons Trompenaars as well as the approach to reconciliation and synergy taken by N. Adler. Details can be read in the publications by these three authors (see bibliography). I would like to represent it as I understand it in order to show where it can possibly be enhanced by my approach.

S Y N E R G Y

Science Intercultural Research Philosophy

According to THT (Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner) the Double Helix of the DNA is the template of life and the master metaphor of inter-cultural synergy. Culture is alive because it responds to the consciousness of the researcher as do the subatomic particles which are so small that they appear as waves to a wave detector and as particles to a particle detector. It is the wave assumption of energy and matter opposed to a corpuscular assumption which creates a dynamic field of waves and frequencies that enables non-Aristotelian (contrary to the Aristotelian assumption that two opposite ideas in the same space are mutually exclusive) dynamic processes and the understanding that values interact in circles, as well as the assumption that culture is a living thing which underpin the values integration, reconciliation and synergy model. Epistemologically this approach is built on Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, Bohr's Complementarity Principle, Non-Aristotelian Thinking and Crick's Discovery of the DNA, Cybernetics, Systems Sciences, Chaos Theory and other ancient and modern systems of science and philosophy. So much about the scientific underpinning. In more general terms: It can be likened to a 'waltz' which involves a circular movement of synchronisation (synchronous time) and a linear progression from A to B (linear time). This is the dance metaphor of reconciliation and synergy. The dance of the values on the continua is the integrator of values, the fine-tuning of the polarized values, the quest for the middle ground in complex modern systems environments that need to go beyond polarized opposition of values and vicious cycles, in order to generate virtuous cycles spiralling ever higher. Awareness/knowledge of and skill in this technique of dilemma resolution can trigger the cycle:

DIVERSITY - CREATIVITY - INNOVATION - WEALTH

Technically, the method of dilemma resolution requires knowledge (cognition) of the target area domain of reconciliation, methodological skill (steps towards dilemma resolution) and creativity.

The steps towards dilemma resolution are as follows:

MODEL I (Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner) MODEL II (N. Adler)

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Entirely based on Hampden-Turner, Trompenaars and Nancy Adler.

The biological science paradigm suggests that dilemmas, the two horns of an intercultural dilemma can be reconciled and even synergized in a third dimension of time and in a fourth dimension of cultural space. It results in a new dimension, if it is a true 2+2=5 synergy, the mathematical synergy formula. Win-win, utilitarian, technical, pragmatic in nature. First and foremost we could add an ethical dimension, a sixth dimension, whose potentiality it is to consciously expand the narrow-minded model, however sophisticated, the ethereally synchronized waves of the double helix. Narrow-minded, because a non-zero-sum outcome of technical high-level synergy can still be enhanced by a dimension transcending the narrow bounds of self-interest and utilitarianism. This is an add-on benefit, creating more added value in the long-term.

To all those who do not like intellectual complications let me add a botanical metaphor to practically illustrate the concept of 90 ° synergy and 90°+ synergy. The medlar (fruit) which comes to Northern Europe from Mediterranean Europe around early May can have a variable number of kernels. A two kernel medlar, where two kernels are enveloped by the refreshing flesh of the fruit could be likened to simple synergy. The integrity of the two values (two kernels) is maintained and additionally yields a third dimension of delicious fruit flesh. Analogously, a three kernel more gorgeous medlar adds even an additional fourth dimension to the simple reconciliation of values which is even more creative than simple synergy. In the full circle 360° Synergy Model represented below it can be taken to plastically represent ethical or even transcultural synergy, that is 180° and 360° synergy.

Now, can one suggest an enhanced biological notion of the human constitution, which through a higher level not of cultural awareness but of awareness of culture can – as I have been trying to show in a manifold cross-cultural and transdisciplinary approach – transcend the cultural edifice completely and which allows effective deconditioning of mental programming and transcendence of it or use of culture at will, where it is appropriate. In other words, the next dimension, the seventh dimension has the capacity, through leveraging and accessing the third level of the enhanced biological constitution of man, which science and philosophy of East and West suggest, to effectively manage cultural manifestations, because it allows the control of the entire mental repository, of which culture is but a conditioned component, relative. This dimension is culture free, as it goes beyond the Self with its entire educational and social programming, that is, beyond the mind which is a product of these variables. The mind is a component of the psychological infrastructure. Can we, through this dimension, access the whole, which goes beyond the mind, and is therefore a supramental dimension, which contains and transcends this mind? Conditioning is the cause, programming its effect. They take place in time. They are interconnected. Transcending one means transcending the entire cluster.

This third level of the trinity, the whole, subordinates and manages the part. The part must not be mistaken for the whole. The whole contains the part. The whole was before the part. Redirecting our gaze at the consciousness behind the conditioned mind, accessing this resource, re-establishes the structural and functional integrity, the natural culture management principle. The following diagramme illustrates - through the addition of the ethical and noetic dimensions the strategies, synergies and potentialities of a '7D 360° Transcultural Management Model', as opposed to a 90° conventional synergy model. It has the power to not only manage dimensional dilemmas, but cultural programming as such.

36 0° Transcultural Synergy Legend

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

360° Transcultural Synergy

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

E.T. Hall und Mildred Reed Hall (1990)

E. T. Hall definiert Kultur als Kommunikation. Sein vierdimensionales Modell besteht aus folgenden Dimensionen, die ich in einem ersten Schritt, wie gewöhnlich tabellarisch erfassen und dann in einem nächsten Schritt modellartig korrelieren möchte. Darauf folgen drei weitere praxisrelevante Modelle, nämlich das High-Low Kontext Kontinuum, dann eine Klassifizierung der Kommunikationsmedien nach dem Kriterium ihrer Zugehörigkeit zum kontextarmen oder kontextreichen Kommunikationsstil und schließlich Soziale Beziehungen und Verhaltensregeln in Gesellschaften verschiedener Kontextierung. Die Dimensionen dieses Modells sind im Transkulturellen Management Modell oder Profiler auf der Ebene D 8, 1-4, Kommunikationsprofil angesiedelt.

1. Kommunikationsstil: kontextarm vs. kontextreich; alternativ text- vs. kontextfokussiert

2. Zeitauffassung: monochron vs. polychron

3. Raumauffassung: offen vs. geschlossen

4. Informationsfluss: freier Fluss vs. kontrollierter

E.T. Hall’s 4-D Model

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Das High Context – Low Context Continuum

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

LOW CONTEXT CULTURES

Kommunikationsmedien Klassifizierung von low = 1 bis high = 8

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Q uelle: Hodgetts and Luthan, International Management; N. Ewington, WorldWork Ltd. London.

Soziale Beziehungen und Verhaltensregeln in Gesellschaften verschiedener Kontextierung

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

(Quelle: E.T. Hall „How Cultures Collide“, Psychology Today, Juli 1976, S. 67-74)

Das Kommunikationsprofil ergänzt die kulturellen Profile des Individualkulturellen und des Nationalkulturellen Profils. In der Bewusstseinsarchitektur des global Agierenden befinden sich alle drei im Bereich des dialektischen Mentalbereichs, was schon an ihrer binären, zweipoligen Gestalt erkenntlich ist. Allein der nichtdualistische Bewusstseinsbereich der Ebenen D1 Cosmics (Kosmik), D2 Noetics (Noetik/Transkulturalität) und D3 Operationalization (Operationalisierung) können die Dialektik der Wertekontinua, sowie die Dualität des Mentalbereichs insgesamt, dem diese drei zuzuordnen sind, nachhaltig integrieren und managen. Auf dem Kontinuum der interkulturellen Paradigmenprogression dürfte es wohl der deterministisch/indeterministischen Stufe angehören, da einerseits intrakulturelle Unterschiede einräumt werden und da Kommunikationsstile durch Übung und Lernen leichter veränderlich sind als Werte.

Mary Yoko Brannen und Jane E. Salk (2000)

Brannen und Salks Modell der ausgehandelten Kultur

In der Synopsis moderner interkultureller Forschung ist dieser Ansatz der auf den deterministischen folgende indeterministische. Dieser Ansatz betrachtet die Werte der interkulturellen Aggregatmodelle lediglich als konzeptuelle Anker, geht aber im übrigen davon aus, dass die Entstehung neuer Kulturen - wie anlässlich eines interkulturellen Jointventure - aufgrund dieser Daten nicht prognostizierbar ist und dass die Entstehung einer neuen Kultur in komplexen organisationalen Umgebungen ein Gegenstand der Verhandlung sei. Brannen und Salk führen in ihrer deutsch-japanischen Jointventure Studie von 2000 folgende Methoden zur Herbeiführung einer neuen Organisationskultur an:

4 Methoden zur Erzielung interkultureller Verhandlungsergebnisse:

1. Kompromiss einer Gruppe
2. Begegnung in der Mitte
3. Eine Innovation für beide Gruppen
4. Arbeitsteilung um die Erfordernis weiterer Verhandlungen zu minimisieren

Stereotypen versus Prototypen

Sie spezifizieren das tendenziell deterministischere stereotype Kulturverständnis, demzufolge die Mitglieder einer Kulturgruppe die kulturellen Wertepräferenzen im Bereich der Annahmen, Einstellungen und Verhaltensweisen gleichermaßen zum Ausdruck bringen durch das Konzept der kulturellen Prototypen, das besagt, dass die Wertepräferenzen innerhalb einer Kulturgruppe nicht gleichförmig, sondern vielmehr eine Verteilung um einen statistischen Mittelwert sind. Das führt zu einer Dreiteilung der kulturellen Stereotypen je nach Grad und Ausprägung der kulturellen Tendenzen innerhalb einer Kulturgruppe und gestattet eine differenziertere Unterteilung in

1. Kulturell Normale (durchschnittliche Manifestierung der gruppenkulturellen Tendenzen)
2. Kulturell Hypernormale (überdurchschnittliche Manifestierung…)
3. Kulturell Marginale (unterdurchschnittliche Äußerung derselben)

Hiermit kann man z.B. die Ausprägung der kulturkontingenten Managementstil- Präferenzen der leitenden Spitzenführungskräfte (Direktoren) der beiden am Jointventure beteiligten Kulturen vergleichend und tabellarisch erfassen.

Emergente Bereiche in verschiedenen Entwicklungsphasen der Produktion (Auszug)

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Die Autoren empfehlen auch die Diagnostik der Relevanz der verschiedenen organisationalen Themenbereiche und den Prozentsatz der dadurch Betroffenen.

E mergente Themen in verschiedenen Entwicklungsphasen der Produktion (Ausz. aus Auflistung)

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Ebenso empfiehlt es sich überhaupt ein generelles „zwei Billard Kugeln“ Szenario der unternehmenskulturellen Management Präferenzen der Jointventure Partner in folgender Form zu erstellen, auf dem man aufbauen kann.

Organisationales Billard-Ball Szenario (Auszug aus einer Auflistung relevanter Themen)

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Der transkulturelle Ansatz (2005)

Der transkulturelle Ansatz, der sich über die Jahre als eine Optimierung und umfassendere Kontextualisierung interkultureller Managementmodelle und Ansätze in der Bewusstseinsarchitektur des globalen Managers im konkreten globalen Managementkontext kristallisiert hat, soll nachfolgend beschrieben werden:

Global management enhancing authentic global consciousness involves in addition to the awareness of the outer landscapes from horizon to horizon also an awareness of the mental landscapes with their cultural diversity as well as awareness of the psychological consciousness which underpins physical and mental consciousness. The three are represented and logically integrated in the transcultural profiler above, based on a transculturally/multidimensionally derived transcultural or noetic dimension located at level 2 and operationalized at levels three of the 12 times 12 D Profiler Model. The physical and mental planes of consciousness are covered by conventional international management theory. They, however, do not transcend but rather tend to remain within the confines of the psychosomatic duality with its mental dialectics on which Western thought tends to be based and which precludes the embedding of the psychological architecture in an encompassing structural and functional unity. Based on the neurophysiologic principle of anatomic unity and structural subordination, which can be used as an analogy, the complexity of the physical and mental consciousness levels require a superordinate third level to integrate the dualistic hierarchy by a third level of consciousness. This level of consciousness has been sought by all major civilizations, identified and conceptualized in various shapes and forms. I would like to briefly review the cross-cultural history of this dimension and to show how a quantum type of consciousness - metaphorically speaking - can integrate the three levels of global consciousness under review and thus simplify the challenge of the management of global complexity. Based on an analogy of the wave-particle duality of the Niels Bohr’s complementarity principle, a quantum cultural approach allows us to view the edifice more statically as cultural particulars of the diversity of cultures or more dynamically as the work of underlying consciousness materializing as waves in twelve times twelve octaves translating as value preferences with associated attitudinal patterns and it can additionally be viewed vertically as a consciousness evolution-involution spiral.

May I assume the reader to be more than monolingual and his/her ability to read the following German text which establishes the integrative dimension of consciousness?

Das Primat der Erkenntnis: Diese Erfordernis erstreckt sich über alle Hochkulturen vom alten Indien über das klassische Griechenland bis hin zur Leadership-Ausbildung an der renommierten Management Schmiede der Harvard Business School in der modernen westlichen Welt.

In der Jahrtausende alten vedisch-indischen Tradition fasst der Begriff Vidya (wörtl. Wissen im Gegensatz zu Avidya, Unwissenheit) diesen Sachverhalt zusammen und hat entsprechend des Kardinalwertes der Weisheitssuche dieser Kultur auch eine alles umfassende Bedeutung in dem Sinne des Kennens Jenes, vermittels dessen man alles andere kennen kann. Und aus der Buddhistischen Tradition kennen wir ein Verfahren der absoluten Erkenntnisgewinnung in der Gestalt des Diamant Sutra, einem Dialog zwischen Buddha und seinem Schüler Subuti, in dem die Welt der Erscheinungsformen systematisch negiert wird, um die Wahrheit jenseits der Form zu erkennen. Krishnamurti, ein moderner Repräsentant der Weisheitssuche dieses Kulturbereichs negiert die gesamte Struktur des menschlichen Geistes, um frei von jedweder Konditionierung die Welt und die Dinge so zu erfahren, wie sie wirklich sind.

Aus den hebräischen Schriften, dem Talmud kennen wir sinngemäß diese Formulierung: „Wir sehen die Welt nicht so, wie sie ist, sondern wir sehen sie, wie wir sind.“ Dies deutet auf das Gewicht der Konditionierung hinsichtlich der menschlichen Wahrnehmung hin.

Im alten China, in der Ära des Konfuzius und des Laotse hat der chinesische General und Vater der Strategie Sun Tzu folgende Formel der Selbst- und Fremdkenntnis in eine gegenwärtig an Management- und Militärakademien geschätzte, häufig zitierte konzise Form gegossen, die sinngemäß so lautet:

„Kennt man sich selbst nicht, so verliert man immer, kennt man sich selbst, so verliert man manchmal und gewinnt manchmal, kennt man sich selbst und seinen Gegner, so bleibt man in tausend Schlachten unbesiegt.“

Aus dem Alten Griechenland kennen wir die delphische, heute noch dort in Stein gegossene Formel „Gnothi Seauton…, Mensch, erkenne dich selbst und du wirst das Universum und die Götter erkennen.“

Auch die alten Römer haben dasselbe Prinzip der Menschenerkenntnis in der Gestalt der Formel „Nosce te ipsum, erkenne dich selbst“ in Ehren gehalten.

Und nachdem wir den Weg der Zivilisation, gleich dem Weg der Sonne und der Religionen vom Orient zum Okzident beschrieben haben, dürfte es uns nicht überraschen, dem Prinzip der Selbsterkenntnis abermals in Form der Self-Awareness in den Leadership Programmen der Harvard University begegnen.

Der Sonne folgend begegnen wir diesem Primat der Hochkulturen überall dort, wo außergewöhnliche Kulturen und Zivilisationen entstanden sind. Es weist auf eine Realität jenseits des instrumentellen und technokratischen Bewusstseins hin, das davon ausgeht, dass man nur diese und jene Parameter manipulieren muss, um mechanistisch diese oder jene gewünschten Resultate zu erhalten. Von der Prämisse der Selbstbewusstheit geht man mehr und mehr im bewussten interkulturellen Management aus, dessen Grundausbildung stets über die Sequenz Awareness (Bewusstheit) - Knowledge (Wissen) und Skills (Kompetenz) Entwicklung und praktische Erfahrung verläuft. Doch die Selbstbewusstheit kann auf verschiedenen Stufen der Erkenntnis vorhanden sein und somit die Qualität des interkulturellen Entwicklungszyklus bedingen.

Schließlich sind auch die namhaften internationalen Management Forscher Bartlett C. A. und Ghoshal S. der Ansicht, dass transnationales Management „keine Struktur, sondern ein geistige Verfassung ist (Transnational Management is not a structure. It is a frame of mind“), wodurch das dargestellte Leitmotiv des Bewusstseins und der Bewusstheit von berufenem Munde erneut bestätigt wird.

The DOME TRANSCULTURAL PROFILER covers in a contextualizable, customizable way the material cultural environment of the global manager, the mental cultural environment as well as that which I have called the transcultural environment. Three types of horizons, of cultures or of consciousness make up the integrated inner-outer space of holistic global management in a bottom to top evolution and a top bottom involution and integration cycle: a superordinate global governance principle which leads to a structural unity and a functional integration of the complexity of the totality of the global field of management.

And in the following I would like to use an extract of a previous paper to illustrate how the concept of a quantum cultural optic or consciousness can integrate and synergize the totality of the 12 times 12 dimensional global management edifice with its twelve octaves, the totality of managerial registers available:

As in the case of the two neurophysiologic laws of anatomic integration and functional subordination I would like to briefly refer to the two major laws of microphysics on which the quantum approach is based: According to Charles Hampden-Turner in his publication Building Cross-Cultural Competence (2000) Werner Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle states “that because the investigator looms so large when measuring subatomic realities, we can be sure of a particle’s position or its momentum, but not both. If we concentrate on measuring its momentum, its position becomes uncertain. If we concentrate on measuring its momentum, its position becomes uncertain”. And from the same source I would like to quote the Cambridge Professor’s description of Niels Bohr’s Principle of Complementarity as follows: “Energy was found to have complementary forms, that of particles and that of diffuse wave forms. Moreover, the discovery of these dual forms depended upon the instruments of investigation. If a wave detector was used, waves were found. If a particle detector was used, particles were found. So small were the phenomena being investigated that our instruments affected the phenomena being studied...”

I have used the quantum paradigm as a metaphor in transcultural management, in particular in order to highlight the interdependence between the perceiver and the perceived and the creative probabilistic quality that goes with such a presumed quantum cultural consciousness and the connected quantum cultural optic, which provides radically different but complementary perceptions of culture, such as an atomistic perception of the world of culture or a holistic perception of culture. In analogy to the quantum paradigm, in particular to Niels Bohr’s complementarity principle, I can view the cultural universe as consisting of n particles of specific cultures or I can look at it as a continuous ocean of waves. I can look at a specific culture or at the oneness of the field of culture and then contextualize the specific culture within this unified field of human civilization. So, I can emphasize the static, specific or the dynamic in its totality.

[...]