Intercultural Milestones Towards Transcultural Horizons

INDEX

Introduction

PART I
MILESTONES

1. Transnational Management

2. A logic of integration of Intercultural Milestones By An Emergent Transcultural Horizon

3. Global Negotiations

4. Overcoming the Intercultural Faultline Gap Through Evolutionary Interculturalism

5. Decoding Cryptic Icons Culturally

6. Culture and Ethics. Absolute versus Contingency Approach

7. The Dawn of an Intercultural Metascience. 360° Transcultural Synergy

8. 3 Intercultural Research Management Cases
8.1 Anglo-German Business Communication
8.2 Chinefarge: Managing an East-West Joint-Venture
8.3 Managing a Global Business Team

9. Finding the Space Age Intercultural Formula. Managing the Human Matrix in the Intercultural Interfacing Process

10. Identity and Relationship as the Basis of Culture and Civilisation

11. The Identity War: Diversity, Reciprocity and the Ethics of Peaceful Coexistence

12. The Cosmic Dimension

13. Child of the Universe. Oneness

14. A Glance at German Lands

15. Cultural Healing of Germany

16. Identity, Culture and Freedom

17. The Relationship between Culture Area and Geopolitical Space

18. The Subquantic - Supercosmic Continuum

19. Orient and Occident. East-West Synergy

20. The Ultimate Game. Quantum Culture

21. Cosmics

22. The Conquest & Ownership of and Leadership from the Innermost Center

23. The Topography of a Universal Eco-Culture

24. The Metamorphosis of the Islamist Labyrinth

25. Metropolism, Cosmopolitanism, Cosmism

26. Global Culture Systems Analysis: Sustainability and Accountability

27. The Ultimate Panacea for Culture Clash. Managing the Clash of Civilizations

28. A Changing Optic. UT UNUM SINT

29. Transcultural Intelligence – TCQ

30. Third Millennium: Managing Fundamentalism, Liberalism and Reason

31. Divine Cybernetics

32. Cultural Engineering. Beyond Relativism

33. The Creative Culture Circle

34. Black Forest Cherry Cake

35. Cosmic Man

36. Transcultural Policy

37. Cultural Fundamentalism

38. Third Millennium Axiology

PART II
HORIZONS

1. The Completion Of The Intercultural Edifice

2. Design Of A Scientifically-Based International Diversity-Integrative Transcultural Profiler

2.1 The State Of The Intercultural Art And Science:

On human relativity in intercultural research

2.2 On Enhancing The Intercultural Art And Science:

Sources, models and the achievement of supreme cultural intelligence

Part III
THE COMPASS

1. Intercultural And Transcultural Management Instruments

PART IV
THE LANGUAGE

1. Comprehensive Inter-/Transcultural Management Terminology

Literature

INTRODUCTION

AN INSPIRING GLOBAL CULTURE MANAGEMENT FORMULA FOR THE THIRD MILLENNIUM

The author develops an innovative five-P-global diversity management formula (based on physics, physiology, psychology, philosophy and metaphysics), culturally empowering expert and layman alike. Science and philosophy across time and space unanimously point to such a capability which evolution has intended from the beginning and which can now be liberated in order to viabilize peaceful change towards a global civilization.

This formula is practical and effective because it goes beyond the manifestations of culture to its very roots in consciousness. Thus the cultural is naturally integrated in a superordinate command and control level of human consciousness. The intercultural is thereby redeemed by the transcultural, which constitutes a third millennium universal cultura franca for all members of the human family irrespective of culture and background. An amazing gift of grace, bestowed on man, indeed!

The headings “Milestones, Horizons, Language and Compass” represent the roadmap and the travellers’-managers’ toolkit from the present-day intercultural to an emergent transculturally integrated world. The intercultural part of the journey is contributed by the universally known intercultural scholars, while my contribution shows how the diversity of scholarly contributions can be integrated by what I call the emergent transcultural paradigm. Hoping that I have duly referenced the myriads of contributors and intercultural scholars I would like to express them my thanks, for due to their work I can show, how the integration of the heterogeneous intercultural research can be achieved epistemologically and psychologically alike.

PART I
MILESTONES

If some schools of thought argue that we learn from history that we learn nothing from it and keep repeating its patterns, it may be due to the impact of man’s „mental software“ that causes him to repeat the patterns of the past. Thus, any sustainable change management has to begin with the examination of what is called mental software. Today’s global scale potentialization of processes is a threat to human survival.

1
Transnational Management

From a strategic standpoint there are different responses to the changing global market environment. Earlier authors (Levitt 1980) argue in terms of convergence and standardisation in the sense that as the needs have been converging there has been a global standardisation of products. This approach, which assumes identical needs and desires calls for identical products worldwide, but it does not account for cultural or any other differences. Here, the response resides in global scale economies. This approach assumes universalism and ethnocentrism: one size fits all in production, distribution and consumption.

From an attitudinal standpoint one can also differentiate approaches to global markets by the attitudinal stance taken towards globalization by managers. Thus Ohmae recommends a reverse approach by thinking from the start, not in globalizing local approaches but in thinking from the very start from a global perspective, thus leading to a balanced vision and values. A company's global approach can be measured by its strength of insiderization that is its capacity to respond to regional demands.

H. Perlmutter further differentiates the approach taken by global corporations towards the subsidiaries and not toward the customers in various countries. Thus he differentiates an E thnocentric approach by senior executives at headquarters that tries to run a global corporation from its headquarters, a P olycentric approach, which is the reverse approach and as such, due to the cultural distance and complexity of local market environments, cannot manage it from a distance, but instead empowers locals to do so. Both are culture avoidance strategies. Polycentric and ethnocentric managerial mindsets are bridged by a third balanced global approach, which transcends and encompasses the home-host culture dialectic. It is the G eocentric approach (the three approaches are known as EPG). As a cooperative approach between the former two, it thinks in terms of what is best, irrespective of origin, culture and so forth and in terms of a network, characterized by equidistance.

The need for and evolution towards a world-oriented approach is paralleled by Adler’s (2005) four historical stages of development towards a global or transnational company:

1. Phase I assumes that there is only one way to satisfy domestic needs and that there is therefore no need to question cultural assumptions: Culture is ‘marginally important’.
2. Phase II however requires a high level of cultural sensitivity, as production workforce and markets have to be managed by taking in account local standards: Culture is ‘very important’.
3. Phase III sees a decline in the need for cultural sensitivity, as competitiveness, due to identical products by different companies, moves from product in the first phase, to market in the second, to prize in the third phase: Culture is ‘somewhat important’.
4. Phase IV. In the global or transnational stage, the culture factor becomes critically important again, as this phase requires simultaneously a global level approach as well as the ability to respond to local markets, a global responsiveness. Reconciling the universalist global with the particularist local as well as the local particularisms among each other creates myriads of cultural interfaces that have to be managed successfully: Culture is ‘critically important’.

Research on European American and Japanese companies could identify different approaches to globalisation by culture areas. The lower power-distance European and US-based firms built a strong local presence with sensitivity to cultural diversity issues at the expense of global coordination, while the higher power-distance Japanese firms built on global scale operations, while they were less adaptive to local markets.

In order to go beyond a unidimensional approach to managing international activities, Bartlett, Ghoshal and Birkinshaw (2005) introduce the notion of the TRANSNATIONAL, which combines three capabilities within a multi-dimensional approach

1. Efficiency as a means to greater competitiveness
2. Responsiveness as a means of flexibility
3. Organisational learning involving all members of company

They further advocate the model of a matrix of the mind, defined as follows: “diverse roles and dispersed operations must be held together by a management mindset that understands the need for multiple strategic capabilities, views, problems and opportunities from both local and global perspectives and is willing to interact with others freely and openly.”

The change management process towards the Transnational can take a more traditional American form or an emergent European or Japanese form. The former starts by installing new structures. According to Bartlett, Ghoshal and Birkinshaw “The management involved seems to assume that changes in formal roles and reporting relationships would force changes in organisational relationships and decision processes, which in turn would reshape the way individual managers think and act“. European and Japanese approaches to change management display a reverse process that starts by

1. Change in individual attitudes and mentalities followed by
2. Change in interpersonal relationships and processes and finally by
3. Changes in formal structures and responsibilities.

This is the emergent change management process, while both approaches, the traditional and the emergent, are objects of reciprocal learning and reconciliation.

Any work on global management must faithfully account for Hofstede's research and its practical impact on international management. Geert Hofstede himself has summarized the relativity of American management thinking in his paper “Motivation, Leadership, and Organization: Do American Theories Apply Abroad?” Based on his culture maps he relativizes existing assumptions about leadership, organisation and management. He specifies the approach to these three aspects of management based on the crossing of two dimensions of cultural difference for each of them. The position of a national culture in the four quadrants of the two-dimensional matrix determines the national cultural tendency to approach these managerial issues. Each quadrant is associated with a specific preferred management and leadership style, motivation and organisation patterns. Motivation patterns across cultures are determined by the masculinity-uncertainty avoidance map, the power distance-uncertainty avoidance map describes the implicit organisational models, which sum up a wider range of organisational preferences. Leadership across cultures (autocratic to various degrees of participative management) results mainly from the power distance index value. This work has been refined subsequently by a number of research projects, particularly by a bicultural Anglo-German research project under the auspices of Rosemary Stuart from Oxford and Walgenbach et alia from Heilbronn University of Applied Sciences in South Germany:

This research has been represented concisely as “emergent cultural profiles” by the outstanding team of global management scholars referred to above in their publication Transnational Management. The same authors also provide a synthesis of concrete managerial implications of Hofstede's dimensions of cultural difference. According to them the dimension power distance, referred to as the management of authority by Hickson and Pugh impacts management in the following way: “more levels of hierarchy/higher proportion of supervisory personnel/more centralised decision making/status and power serve as motivators/leaders are revered and obeyed as authorities.” According to the authors of Transnational Management the dimension uncertainty avoidance, referred to as „managing uncertainty“ by Hickson and Pugh impacts management in the following way: „more formalization evident in a greater amount of written rules and procedures/greater specialization evident in the importance attached to jobs and functions/managers are risk averse/managers are motivated by stability and security/leadership role: planning, organizing, coordinating controlling.“ According to the authors of Transnational Management the dimension individualism-collectivism, referred to as „managing relationships“ by Hickson and Pugh impacts management in the following way: „high preference for group as opposed to individual decision making/consensus and cooperation are more valued than individual initiative and effort/motivation derives from a sense of belonging/rewards are based on being part of a group/role of leadership: facilitate team effort and integration, supportive atmosphere and group culture.“ According to the authors of Transnational Management the dimension masculinity-femininity, referred to by Hickson and Pugh as „managing oneself“ impacts management as follows: „management in MAS societies is more concerned with task accomplishment than nurturing social relationships/motivation based on money & things rather than quality of life/role of leadership is to ensure bottom line profits in order to satisfy shareholders and to set demanding targets/in more feminine countries the role of the leader would be to safeguard employee well-being and to demonstrate concern for social responsibility.“ - For more details of this research the reader may refer to Hofstede's „Cultures and Organisations“ and Bartlett's, Goshal's and Birkinshaw's „Transnational Management“. References are in the literature section.

The transcultural or noetic approach I advocate for enhancing global management practice builds on this research, which I present in order to integrate it under a higher level vantage point. The rationale is to transcend the management of the diverse value preferences and to show how, through the noetic function, cultural programming as such can be enabled and disenabled. Both approaches are complementary. The relationship between the two approaches can be likened to the difference between specific, symptomatic and non-specific, panacea-like medication that looks the cultural syndrome and programming in its totality: symptomatic versus holistic „culture therapy“.

2
A Logic Of Integration Of The Intercultural Milestones By Emergent Transcultural Horizons.

In the following I would like to present two models, i.e. a synopsis of the brief history of intercultural research from a paradigmatic view point and a transcultural profiler as an integrative instrument for global management purposes:

The first, a synopsis of modern intercultural studies integrates the successive generations of intercultural research that increasingly play back the ball of culture consciousness from the outer and a more mechanistic, instrumental understanding of culture into the inner space of the intercultural researcher and manager, who are thus endowed with a potentiality for the management of culture that can be actualized according to the level of culture consciousness of the cultural player and entails an increased cultural accountability as a corollary of increased cultural empowerment.

In the awareness of the causal interconnectedness of complementary inner spaces of awareness and consciousness and corollary outer spaces and of the governing principle in the totality of this field I have designed, on the basis of existing intercultural research, a Transcultural Profiler on page 21ff that maps the psychological infrastructure of the transnational manager in the totality of the inner and outer management context. My contribution merely consists in showing how the diverse scholars’ contributions can be integrated effectively in the interest of the management of the cultural imperatives of our global age. The 12 octaves architectural dome metaphor that highlights its anatomic-physiologic axiomatic (structural and functional governing principles) is a holistic instrument for intercultural research and management and a useful working hypothesis for any interculturalist, educator, researcher or practitioner who wants to go beyond intercultural minimalism. It structures the intercultural acquis (research achievement) purposefully by means of a scientifically derived transcultural add-on. It is composed - and indeed encompasses, with its 12 octaves all registers of the human cultural/inter-/transcultural psychology with their variations - of the following three hierarchized clusters of dimensions that highlight the ultimately all-integrative command, control and integration axiomatic of all that is cultural in man’s existence and provides the transcultural strategist with a useful synoptic, analytic, diagnostic, reference and management instrument:

1. Dimensional cluster C1: The domain of the transcultural space of consciousness: D 1 - D3
2. Dimensional cluster C 2: The transitional domain from intercultural to higher level transcultural awareness: D4 - D5
3. Dimensional cluster C3: The domain of the intercultural space of consciousness: D6 - D12

This 3-level structure can be visualized by the architectural dome metaphor that highlights the hierarchical integration of the complementary inter- and transcultural spaces of consciousness. More specifically, the subordinate intercultural space of consciousness is integrated by the more comprehensive hierarchically superordinate transcultural space of consciousness to the extent that the subject of intercultural management evolves from C3 via the interface cluster C2 towards the pinnacle of C1. Pointing to an intercultural evolution circle and spiral the dome metaphor can also be interpreted and applied as a template and roadmap for intercultural growth and evolution and therefore for assessment and training. The more one evolves towards C1 the more intercultural management potential can be actualized. The convergence of the diversity of the architectural metaphor’s arcs and the unity of the cupola and lantern symbolize the integration of diversity and unity.

In a way it is a physiological model for the management of culture that can usefully complement constructs like Bartlett's, Ghoshal's and Birkinshaw’s physiological model for change management in a global, transcultural context. And R. D. Laing specifies what they have in common, namely the primacy of the awareness rationale. Thus, the understanding of the anatomy of the psychological managerial infrastructure needs to be complemented by an insight into the axiomatic of its physiology. And once the active principles of inter-/transcultural consciousness are established a wider notion of cultural awareness and consciousness with their assumed creative dynamic can be translated into actual management practice by the global manager according to his level of culture consciousness. His level of integrity and evolution will provide a logic of checks and balances of the impact of the assumed quantum cultural effect.

And if the present hypothesis can be validated by intercultural research and practice, one has not only an instrument for the management of cultures but also of culture per se. Inner cultural integration can be followed by outer cultural integration.

Here follow the two models which have been announced:

1. “A synopsis of modern intercultural studies”, page 19, is a systematization of the paradigm shifts of the late twentieth century history of intercultural research that replicates the hard science paradigm shifts.
2 „The Transcultural Profiler“, page 20ff, is an architectural metaphor of the anatomy and physiology of the integrated global manager’s space of consciousness in the global management context. The dynamic of consciousness active in the anatomy of the architecture of consciousness of the global manager is derived from neurophysiologic research. More specifically it consists in the assumption of a physiological-psychological analogy in the sense that the twofold structural and functional integration in human neurophysiology is translated psychologically as a hierarchized logic of integration of the intercultural (C3) by the transcultural (C1). It means that, in analogy to neurophysiology, the superordinate structures of consciousness permit the integration of the hierarchically subordinate structures of consciousness. In that sense the transcultural domain (C1) subordinates the intercultural domain (C3) and C1 has therefore and integrative function for C3. This physiologically derived and quantum physically supported dynamic provides the key for the integration of any form of diversity in its underlying unity. Both are concomitant and represent functions of complementary levels of consciousness in general and culture awareness and consciousness in particular. Changing from one level of consciousness to another integrates diversity – a change from C3 to C1 -, or manifests diversity – a change from C1 to C3. Both appear to be actualizable potentialities of culture consciousness and therefore require an awareness of human consciousness and its dynamics or transcultural intelligence. Conscious awareness of complementary inter- and transcultural capabilities of human consciousness and its potential creativity are assumed to trigger a presumed metaphorical quantum effect that tends to codetermine the cultural context in accordance with the status of consciousness evolution of the cultural subject. That holistic understanding of man’s cultural universe with its two complementary aspects of diversity and its dialectics on the one hand and essential unity on the other hand provides a resource and the natural master key for a management of culture that meets the needs of global culture management of our increasingly global multicultural era. (The reiterated principle of an enhanced threefold holistic noetic-psychosomatic structure of man and its neurophysiologically derived axiomatic have been inspired by the late French cardiologist and consciousness researcher Dr. Thérèse Brosse whose publication “„La Conscience-Énergie: Structure de l’homme et de l’univers...“, Éditions Présence, Sisteron, France 1984 has been translated into German by the writer of this inquiry.

On the sea of life with its as yet unforeseeable cultural waves the compass of comprehensive cultural intelligence is of vital importance. It has the meaning and the function of a solid rock and anchoring. And with the derived quantum cultural formula based on the primacy of consciousness the solution of cultural questions seems to culminate in the nature and structure of the individual and its consciousness as the author of sociocultural conditions and processes. Due to the fundamentality of this assumption it applies to the diverse intercultural managerial activities of cultural players, negotiators and strategists among others.

1. A synopsis of modern intercultural studies

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Finally, I would like to sum up the totality of intercultural research at a paradigmatic level:

illustration not visible in this excerpt

(All these authors have undertaken their research many decades after the appearance of the quantum paradigm; Hofstede, THT and Brannen’s and Salk’s cultural assumptions are increasingly characterized by indeterminism.)

Towards an integration of the intercultural paradigm and a supremely integrative formula for the management of culture in myriads of contexts

A postscript to the “ synopsis of modern intercultural studies”

This view of the assumed intercultural paradigm shifts or evolving perceptions of culture seems to replicate natural science paradigm shifts, however, within a shorter time. And it highlights a progressive shift of cultural awareness from a mechanistic perception of it, where the cultural subject-object continuum is interrupted, towards a more integrated continuum and a progressive centering on the culture perceiving subject and creative interculturalist. It seemingly corresponds to an evolution of cultural awareness form the intercultural dimensional cluster C3 to the complementary transcultural dimensional cluster C1 of the Transcultural Profiler with increased potentialities that can be actualized by the intercultural negotiator or player in line with his/her inter-/transcultural evolution via C2.

A centripetal, complementary integrative momentum can be added to seemingly centrifugal and divisive diverse cultural profiles and forces! Seeming antagonism can be navigated effectively by the integrative transcultural dimension of cultural awareness once the integrated inter-transcultural continuum can be accessed: Cryptic culture consciousness with its creative and integrative dynamic that can bridge chasms of seeming irreconcilability in negotiation and other global age imperatives. The key is in the transculturally aware, ethical, evolved and accountable integrated space of culture managers’ consciousness. The degree of its realization seems to provide a mechanism of checks and balances. A working hypothesis to be tested and an intercultural development impulse! Not more.

2. DOME 12 D or 12 Octaves Transcultural Profiler or Transcultural Management Model

& Legend

(following page)

illustration not visible in this excerpt

LEGEND OF THE TRANSCULTRAL PROFILER

D1

Cosmics: The Cosmic environment interconnection. The biological and mental roots of life.

D2

Noetics: The highest psychological control, subordination and integration function.

D3

Operationalization: (Potentialization) – Actualization process

D4

Ethics: Altruistic-allocentric, sustainable approach that thinks and acts in terms of each players long-term interests.

D5

Evolution: Phylogenetic development stages 1-6/Intercultural Development stages 7-12

1 sensory level: human developmental stage of perception
2 active level: human developmental stage of action
3 affective level: human developmental stage of affection
4 analytic intellectual level: human developmental stage of the intellect
5 synthetic intellectual level: human developmental stage of the Ego and the social group
6 universal level: human developmental stage that goes beyond Ego and synthesis
7 stage 1 denial: unable to identify cultural differences
8 stage 2 defence: recognition of cultural differences but tendency to evaluate other cultures negatively to one’s own
9 stage 3 minimization: recognition of superficial differences (objective culture) such as customs and habits, while holding the view that all cultures are essentially the same
10 stage 4 acceptance: Recognition and appreciation of cultural differences in behavior and values; considering them as logical and coherent solutions in different contexts.
11 stage 5 adaptation: development of communicationskills that facilitate intercultural communication; cybernetic thinking
12 stage 6 integration: internalization of abicultural or multicultural perspective; intercultural facilitator. (section based on Milton Bennett and Dr. Thérèse Brosse).

D6

ICP The Individual culture profile: Individualization of one's mental software by these variables

1 family
2 religion
3 education
4 language
5 profession
6 class
7 gender
8 race
9 generation
10 neighbours
11 friends
12 region.

D7

NCP National Culture Profile: Acquired through primary, secondary and tertiary socialization

1 Power distance: indicates the extent to which a society accepts the unequal distribution of power in institutions and organization
2 Uncertainty avoidance: refers to a society's discomfort with uncertainty, preferring predictability and stability
3 Individualism/collectivism: reflects the extent to which people prefer to take care of themselves and their immediate families, remaining emotionally independent from groups, organizations and other collectives.
4 Masculinity/femininity: reveals the bias towards either masculine values of assertiveness, competitiveness, and materialism, or towards feminine values of nurturing and the quality of life and relationships
5 Long-term orientation: refers to the extent to which past, present or future oriented attitudes, thought patterns, bahaviours and values are preferred' (Hofstede 5D-model, source: Bartlett, Ghoshal and Birkinshaw, Transnational Management 2003)
6 Universalism-particularism: seeks to discover one's prime allegiance to rules and rule-bound classifications or to the exceptional, unique circumstances and relationships
7 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
8 Specific-diffuse: measures the tendency to analyze, reduce and break down the field of experience or to synthesize, augment, and construct patterns of experience
9 Neutral versus affective: this concern the legitimacy to show emotions while at work
10 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?
11 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
12 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).

D8

Communication styles profile

1 High context-low context: is information in the explicit code or is it implicit in the person?
2 Controlled-free information flow: must be informed versus are already informed
3 Monochronic-polychronic: one thing at a time versus many things at a time
4 Private space-public space: privacy and territoriality versus open space, supportive of networking
5 Concise-elaborate: not talkative versus loquacious
6 Context-centered – person-centered: relevance of speaker and role relations between the parties versus relevance of speaker and the bridging of the communication gap
7 Direct-indirect: cooperativeness. say briefly and clearly what is true, relevant and needed versus indirectness and circumlocutions
8 Affective-neutral: appropriateness versus inappropriateness of expressing emotions in a professional context
9 Abstract-concrete: refers to how concrete one can be in communicating one's ideas?
10 Private-public information space: how healthy is it to give access to personal information in building business contacts?
11 Linear-circular: how linear can you be in conveying your point?
12 Intellectual-relational: the intellectual style can confront ideas but deals with relationships delicately, whereas the relational style deals with relational issues directly, and ideas more indirectly. (Based on Hall and Hall and N. Ewington, TCO London and Univ. of Cambridge).

D9

Corporate Management Profile: further conditions the national and individual culture profile

1 Specialist job: different functional environments condition different perceptions and attitudes
2 Level of hierarchy: attitudes and bahaviours differ on the board compared to the shop floor
3 Training: the professional ethos of an engineer and a business manager differ
4 Organizational culture: either Hofstede's UAI-PDI matrix based classification of implicit organization models as tribe/family, pyramid, machine and market: Alternatively THT's classification as Guided Missile, Eiffel Tower, Family and Incubator organizational patterns based on the dimensions equality-hierarchy and person-task
5 Operating field: depending on the availability of resources and supplies companies may be more or less centralized and controlled
6 Scale of operations: big companies tend to be more formalized than smaller ones
7 Institutional environment: In different societies ownership is either personal or by impersonal, shifting shareholders (1-7 are based on Hickson and Pugh, International Management 2001)
8 Leadership style: exploitative autocratic, benevolent autocratic, participative, democratic (Hodgetts and Luthans, International Management) alternatively, situational-contingent leadership: directing, influencing, collaborating, delegating based on the task-relationship orientation matrix (Hersey, Blanchard, Situational Leadership)
9 Management style: factual, intuitive, analytic, and normative
10 Motivation: based on Hofstede's UAI-MAS matrix this typology exists: Achievement of self or group and esteem, achievement and belongingness, security and esteem, and security and belongingness
11 Stages of corporate development: N. Adler's multinational, global, international, transnational stages, alt. Ethnocentric, polycentric, regiocentric and geocentric
12 Cultural distance: CAGE analysis: cultural, administrative, geographic, economic distance.

D10

Intercultural management competencies (3-12 based entirely on International Profiler, WorldWork LTD, London 2001)

1 Altruism: altruistic behaviour as a source of creativity and integration of dilemma
2 Transcultural mindset: holistic perspective of culture and the mind
3 Openness: new thinking, welcoming strangers, acceptance
4 Flexibility: flexible behaviour, flexible judgement, learning languages
5 Personal autonomy: Inner purpose, focus on goals
6 Emotional strength: resilience, coping, spirit of adventure
7 Perceptiveness: attuned, reflected awareness
8 Listening orientation: active listening
9 Transparency: clarity of communication, exposing intentions
10 Cultural knowledge: information gathering, valuing difference
11 Influencing: rapport, range of style, sensitivity to context
12 Synergy: creating new alternatives.

D11

Trust: is the foundation of relationships in general and across cultures in particular, particularly in GBTs (Based on WorldWork Ltd, London and Univ. of Cambridge course materials)

1 Competence: trust based on the perception that team members are competent
2 Compatibility: based on common background, values, approaches, interests and objectives
3 Benevolence: based on the belief that other team members are concerned about one's welfare
4 Integrity: based on keeping promises and a moral behaviour code
5 Predictability: based on consistency over time of team members' behaviour
6 Security: absence of fear
7 Inclusion: partners are team-oriented and integrative
8 Open with information: willingness to share relevant information
9 Accessible: communication at a personal level
10 Reciprocal: mutual trust and cooperation
11 Moral responsibility: assuming responsibility for one's behaviours
12 Good intentions: ethical motivations

D12

Globalism. Planetary environment interconnection diagnostic: global compatibility check.

1 International Law
2 Biodiversity
3 Sustainability
4 Climate change impact
5 International political equilibrium
6 International economic equilibrium
7 International cultural equilibrium
8 Strategic balance
9 Genetic heritage integrity
10 Cultural ethics. Intercultural ethics. Global code of ethics.
11 Environmental compatibility
12 Resources impact

GENERAL EXPLANATION OF THE TRANSCULTURAL PROFILER LEGEND

On the whole the Profiler is a holistic diagnostic, analytical and profiling instrument for working across cultures.

It represents the totality of the field of consciousness of the interconnected inner-outer culture consciousness space of the global player in his management context.

Due to the interconnected continuum of the field of culture consciousness the inner stance of the culture observing consciousness can contribute to shaping outer culture. Culture management tends to become consciousness management. Vertically the following levels of consciousness are present in the structure of the Profiler which functionally integrates it hierarchically:

1 The superquantic consciousness level which presides over the quantic consciousness level (technical terms are used as metaphors!)
2 The quantic consciousness level which presides over the
2a transcultural consciousness and the
2b intercultural consciousness
3 physical culture consciousness

The totality of the profiler structure is subordinated and integrated by the top three dimensions. The quantum cultural effect allows to adopt the integrative transcultural or an intercultural stance alternatively or a combination of both. Quantum cultural consciousness is integrated by superquantic (culture) consciousness.

The entire edifice can be viewed metaphorically, in quantum cultural terms, as waves or as particles: The wave concept is supported by the fact that the profiler consists of twelve octaves which in turn translate as value preferences along with associated behavioural patterns. The more registers a cultural player can "instrumentalize" (the twelve octaves cover the totality of the human culture and consciousness "music") the better his cultural performance will be, the ability to resonate and to enable resonance. The complementary particle concept also allows a reading as cultural particulars of players. That is what traditional aggregate models of cultures provide.

The twelve times twelve-dimensional edifice suggest completeness², the space-time of culture consciousness grounded in the HIC et NUNC (here and now). The vertical axis is an evolution-involution cybernetic circuit towards higher forms of culture consciousness and managerial cultural effectiveness. As one evolves within and towards the higher dimensions one can increasingly manifest the higher dimensional potentialities.

The cosmic, noetic and the various cultural levels of the profiler form a hierarchy based on the neurophysiologic analogical principle of anatomic integration and functional subordination, according to which superior neurophysiologic structures subordinate and integrate lowers into a hierarchical unity. It is a logic of control and integration. Therefore it is necessary to identify the superordinate level that can govern the subordinate; culturally speaking, a cultural meta-level which can not only control specific cultural characteristics but one that can govern the entire mental cultural repository with the sum total of its conditioning. The Western dualistic psychosomatic assumption of man’s constitution does not provide – except for the neurophysiologic analogy and the Christian tradition – the third governing level of the holistic threefold noetic-psychosomatic hierarchical structure of man which can be distilled across time, space and cultures and which has the potential to integrate the totality of the psychological architecture. The third level of the constitutional hierarchy of man could therefore be considered as a third millennium key to the management of culture. It is completely free and can set man free.

The DOME TRANSCULTURAL MANAGEMENT MODEL or PROFILER is a metaphorical visualization of the hierarchically integrated global managerial psychological architecture in a transcultural management context.

A MORE DETAILED EXPLANATION OF THE

TRANSCULTURAL PROFILER LEGEND

D1 Cosmics

The absolute of consciousness silences all cultural relativities. It is the superquantic dimension of the source - timeless, nameless, and absolute; beyond the mind and the diverse aspects of matter and energy. It integrates the aspects of the real in a transcendent reality.

The unitary structure of the lantern in the DOME architectural metaphor symbolizes that singular unity; the highest level of integration.

D2 Noetics

Is the transcultural level that presides over the quantum optical consciousness and has three major characteristics:

It integrates the totality of the subjacent edifice.

It can alternatively work with intercultural consciousness which deals with the diversity of cultures and it can work with transcultural consciousness, i.e. diversity transcending unity.

In the cupola (and lantern) the twelve arcs of the DOME architectural modeling of the psychological edifice converge. Here the intercultural diversity and transcultural unity are bridged.

D3 Operationalization

Translates the superquantic and the quantic culture consciousness into the cultural dimensions of the edifice rather than sufficing itself in its transcendence and remaining aloof. In physical terms it can be considered as an energetic potentialization-actualization dynamism leading to the cycle: Consciousness- energy-waves-values-behaviors.

D4 Ethics

Ethics is a stepping stone that enables access to the consciousness of the superordinate dimensions. Personal egoism corresponds to cultural ethnocentrism. Both need to be managed for growth into the transcultural dimension. The relative particle must become aware of its being part of a dynamic of an interdependent field and become committed to and accountable for it. Ethics is a cardinal dimension on which any further evolution hinges. They are interdependent, and ethical attitudes and behaviors in the sense of the unconditional respect of any culture member is the sine qua non of viable interpersonal and intergroup relations. Love of God and fellow man is the fulfillment of ethics, of the entire law according to the Christian optic. It can unlock all doors and remove all barriers on the way to all-encompassing consciousness. The absence of this dimensional virtue is the negation of human culture and civilization in the original sense and poisons all relationships interindividual, intergroup and intercultural.

D5 Evolution

Diagnoses the phylogenic and the inter-/transcultural evolution of the cultural players. They are progressive enablers of superordinate cultural capabilities. As the cultural player masters the two sets of evolution completely transcultural as opposed to intercultural consciousness unfolds. Upon reaching the universal stage of phylogenetic evolution the threshold to the superior dimension can be crossed.

D6 ICP Individual Culture profile

The specification of the cultural players’ individual cultural profile impacts the potential for the achievement of higher dimensions of culture consciousness. The various affiliations/layers can pave the way or impede (culture) consciousness evolution.

D7 NCP National Culture Profile

The aggregate models of culture consist of 12 dualistic dimensions and illustrate the dialectics of the cultural mind. It is the realm of dualistic culture consciousness: the domain of time, mind, conditioning and antagonism; of cultural strife. The dialectics of its structural duality can be sustainably redeemed by the non-dualistic levels of consciousness, which merge the cultural waves into their source or the destination of the ocean, which form but a circle. The intercultural optic of the quantum cultural optic is only aware of the momentary manifestation of consciousness without contextualizing it in the totality of the field of consciousness which redeems the wave of culture in the ocean of consciousness with its integrative and renewing dynamic; its creativity.

D8 Communications Profile

While the previous 2 dimensions are important structural elements, which is insinuated by the architectural term “shoulders” - they provide structural information about a person or and an edifice -, the communication styles dimension can structurally be connected to walls and windows, which allow us to build up barriers or to create relationships and permeability with regard to the environment. Cultural diversity of communication styles is culture consciousness in inter(action). According to Hall culture is communication. Here we additionally conceptualize it, based on the quantum cultural optic as waves which translate as the music of consciousness resulting behaviorally as communication styles preferences.

D9 Corporate Management Profile

The organizational cultural environment grounds management in a combination of physical and psychological culture imperatives which determine horizons of managerial and HR consciousness in addition to the three other more general cultural profiles. They determine corporate consciousness, corporate culture consciousness. Corporate culture consciousness, societal culture consciousness, individual culture consciousness and transcultural consciousness will have to result in a powerful accord in musical terms and need to be based on a good foundation, if the company is to perform well; a blending of the organizational cultural, the intercultural and the transcultural, integrated by the latter.

D10 Intercultural management competencies

As an individual professional intercultural profile they complete the individual and other culture profiles and contribute to enhancing the accord between diverse cultural players in terms of business interests.

D11 Trust

Trust being the basis of all human relations it is as critical a dimension as the ethics dimension, intraindividually and interindividually. It can harmoniously tune relationships between diverse cultural players and foster a spirit of cooperation.

D12 Planetary interface

Physical culture and global governance variables constitute the interface with the global environment. The various levels of global consciousness evolution will impact choices.

The one consciousness is a continuous field of various levels of consciousness evolution and involution whose variables are integrated and governed by the higher noetic/transcultural or quantic dimension D2 and the cosmic or superquantic dimension D1. They are the ultimate destination of the culture journey, where the roadmap, the compass and the cultural traveler merge.

CORRELATION OF TRANSCULTURAL PROFILER LEVELS TO CULTURE

CONSCIOUSNESS LEVELS AND CULTURAL INTELLIGNCE LEVELS

Profiler level Consciousness level Cultural Intelligence level

D1 Cosmic level Superquantic culture Superquantic/supreme consciousness cultural intelligence

D2/3 Transcultural/Noetic level Quantic culture consciousness Transcultural, noetic or quantum cultural intelligence

D4/5 Transitional levels Transitional consciousness Transitional cultural intelligence

D6-11 Intercultural level Inter-culture consciousness Cultural intelligence

D12 Physical (planetary level) Varies according to consciousness Varies according to evolution intelligence evolution

Physical (personal level) Physical culture consciousness Physical intelligence (has an ereismatic or support function for higher (cultural) consciousness and cultural intelligence evolution).

As one rises in the culture consciousness and intelligence hierarchy more integrative capabilities of culture are released. The superior level, based on the neurophysiologic analogy of functional subordination, has the power to integrate the subordinate level. If the supreme integrative formula can be leveraged inside it will tend to manifest analogously outside, at the negotiation table, in the minds of the negotiators and the negotiation context. Quantum negotiations!? Even a hue of it might be helpful.

D1 (Cosmic Interface) is the ultimate integration and transcendence of the entire profiler edifice; cultural masters’ supreme cultural intelligence.

D2/3 (Transculturalism and its operationalization) have the switching specificity between cultural and transcultural modes of perceptions of the cultural reality; D2 is transcultural, noetic or quantum cultural intelligence that - if operationalized - complements and integrates the cultural intelligence level characterized by cybernetic thinking.

D4/5 (Ethics and Evolution) Cultural consciousness and intelligence are expanding, passing progressively form cultural to transcultural intelligence and consciousness.

D6-D11 (Interculturalism) Display only cultural intelligence unless superordinate levels are involved.

D12 (Planetary Interface) may by impacted by any level of cultural consciousness and intelligence evolution.

Cultural performance and capability depend on which of the three levels of evolution of culture consciousness and therefore cultural intelligence operates.

1. Cultural intelligence is dialectical, unstable, reversible
2. Transcultural intelligence is metastable, integrative; can be reversible unless fully developed
3. Superquantic intelligence is integrative, transcendent, stable, and relatively irreversible.

If one assumes one all-encompassing consciousness and one underlying energy to phenomena the reading of this analytical division of things - which are one - may be helped and the importance of the activity of consciousness as a determinant of cultural issues is therefore underlined. As one evolves from cultural intelligence via transcultural or quantum cultural intelligence towards superquantic cultural intelligence, one achieves Supreme Cultural Intelligence which is the hallmark of Masters of Culture. That is the destination of cultural evolution which can usher in cultural peace in our multicultural era.

HOLISTIC HUMAN INTELLIGENCE

Brief description and model

Noetic or transcultural intelligence corresponds to the top dimensions D1 and D2 of the TP (transcultural profiler), operationalized by D3. They represent the presumably transcultural approach that complements the intercultural (mental) by increasing its sustainability and effectivenss. The awareness of the totality of the integrated space of inter-transcultural awareness tends to trigger an integrative logic because its nature is to integrate, while the natural function of the complementary intercultural space analogously is to fragment and divide. By integrating the inner space the outer tends to integrate concomitantly, comparable to the quantum metapor of the complementarity principle Niels Bohr’s that postulates complementary conceptualizations of nature. This transdisciplinarily, transculturally dervied 5P (based on physics, meta physics, philosophy, psychology and p sychology) approach is a working hypothosis for the dedicated intercultural pioneer without any scientific pretense of any kind.

illustration not visible in this excerpt

3
Global Negotiations

With the access to the White House by a President of the United States who was characterized as having a global DNA by the American ambassador to the UN, a new era in managing international relations has possibly been ushered in. Whereas formerly the US has not talked to its supposed ennemies, now the same US under a different leadership seems to offer negotiations without preconditions. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, an outstanding international diplomat, multicultural by virtue of his German-Jewish-American cultural background (he emigrated as a youth from the city of Fürth in Lower Franconia, Germany to the United States) emphasized the imperative need by negotiation partners to be mutually fully aware of their respective worldviews. When he helped to usher in the opening up of China to the West in the early 70ies even Chairman Mao complimented him on his skill. Chairman Mao himself has been the receptacle, fervent student and practitioner of two and a half thousand years of Chinese strategic thinking based on Sun Tzu. Then, two shrewd negotiators where facing each other at a historical moment. In these days, the Chinese decided and announced that they would catch up with the West by the end of the century. The opening policy together with the economic strategy has resulted in the multipolarization of the world. China now seems to have surpassed Germany as an economic powerhouse, at least statistically. Much of it is certainly due to shrewd Chinese negotiation and dealing with the economically and technologically far more advanced West. In their Confucian and strategic tradition there are numerous devices, cryptic to the non-initiate, that inform on how to deal with powerful opponents. They may be considered champions of negotiation with a millennia old tradition due to the absence of what Hofstede has called the intellectual tradition of government by law and the prevalence of its own intellectual tradition of government by man, where not so much specific and codified rules govern human interactions and decision making, but rather broad Confucian principles. This gives a lot of discretion to the authorities and importance to negotiation and relationship skills in general.

In business, without the unconditional will and skill to negotiate synergistic deals and emergent organisational cultures, global M&As and IJVs (international joint ventures) are doomed to fail or lack sustainability. This applies to the set-up of the intercultural strategic ventures as well as to the negotiation of an emergent culture in a henceforth more complex social system, where different national, corporate and contextual conditions have to be aligned. As I am writing in the city where the headquarters of the Daimler Corporation are located, I also have in mind the German-American international strategic alliance with its former US partner Chrysler. How much of the failed alliance is due to negotiation and communication mismanagement is not the topic of this overview, though it seems to have played a role from its very inception. The purpose of this chapter rather is to give an overview of cross-border negotiation research based on authoritative literature and to show, how existing negotiation practice can be enhanced by what I have called the noetic approach. While there are numerous schools of thought that deal with the study of negotiation, authors like Jeanne Brett keep underlining the lack of intercultural negotiation research data. Nevertheless, there are some interesting culture general approaches to the topic, for example, the research reported by the authors of „Metaphor and the Cultural Construction of negotiation in the Encyclopaedia of Cross-Cultural Management“. Various global management training corporations and consultancies, for example Princeton-based TMC have produced practical culture general training tools for students of intercultural business negotiation. Two professors from IE, Instituto de Empresa in the Spanish capital Madrid, one of the top international business school, have recently published a guide to negotiation entitled „Como negociar en 65 paises“ (How to negotiate in 64 countries)... A lot of culture specific work has been done on Chinese Negotiation, whose complexity, due to characteristics like concomitant win-win and win-lose strategies, still remains puzzling to those who are not China or Asia experts. In this „haggling society“ as Australian Chinese negotiation scholar Katrin Blackman calls China, negotiation occupies a central role in its cultural and intellectual tradition as pointed out in the diplomatic negotiation section. Others have translated the famous Chinese stratagems to the domain of business negotiation. Fang's „Chinese Commercial Negotiation Style“ does so.

Although people must have been negotiating since the beginning of time and at the individual level beginning with childhood, there is no royal path to negotiation, no unified, general theory. The will and the determination to negotiate is already a cultural aquis (achievement), conducting negotiation in the face of adversity and across cultural barriers another important step and successfully concluding and implementing agreements, abiding by them, constitutes the fulfillment of the negotiation rationale. Humans are possibly the freest entities in the world, enjoying the widest margin of freedom of anything that lives. Their behaviours can therefore also cover a wide range of options that escape predictability. Cultural diversity magnifies the challenge. J. Brett's concept of cultural prototypes (negotiation behaviour is a distribution around a mean, represented by a bell curve), is a better approximation to the challenge than cultural stereotypes.

I considered some basics, the social psychological approach to negotiation essential and I therefore summarized for my busy engineering students Glen Fishers booklet „International Negotiation“ in the following way: This is a fairly literal summary of the former Director of the FSI (Foreign Service Institute), a scholar and practitioner of the art of negotiation, in Washington D.C.:

However, it must be added that his conceptualization of negotiation seems to results from the emergent prevailing IT paradigm of the day: in other words, the mind is viewed as a fairly deterministic information processor, whose conditioned recordings, stored as images, values, beliefs, assumptions... need alignment for interaction between the minds of diverse partners can effectively take place. The more diverse and abstract the contents the more challenging the interfacing process. My own analysis of the situation is that there are three generations of scientific paradigms, which are also espoused by intercultural research. A paradigm shift in one domain seems to affect all other domains of cognition

The interdependent evolution of scientific and intercultural paradigms or generations:

1. Determinism 1. Newton 1. Hofstede: aggregate models
2. Indeterminism 2. Quantum paradigm 2. Trompenaars: corybantic culture
3. Probabilism 3. Modern physics 3.Brannan/Salk: interpretivist parad.
4. Noetics (my own theory) 4. Noetic/Transcultural paradigm

The specificity of my approach is that it is a higher level of awareness of culture. It builds upon, enhances and puts the previous paradigms in a new perspective. The machine coding, the biological and the human mind coding and programming analogies used

by intercultural pioneers, are milestones on the way, half way, necessary to reach the destination step by step. Each makes a contribution to the better insight into the processes determining the relationship between the knower and the known, the manager and the managed or between negotiators. Noetics or transcultural intelligence as derived from the noetic function of an enhanced biological architecture of man (which has hitherto escaped our western cultural awareness) constitutes another milestone on the way to the true insight into what we paraphrase as mental software of information processors. As pointed out above, I let the author who represents a previous paradigm speak in his own words in order to build on it.

„1. The Social Psychology of International Negotiation: A Psycho-cultural Approach:

Human minds are information processors and how they process information depends on how they are programmed. The mind organizes itself to provide a system that enables it to give meaning to new stimuli and fragmentary perception without a continuous groping process. This system contains mental constructs of the external world, i.e. beliefs, images, implicit assumptions and habits of reasoning. There are four consequences:

1. Communication depends on there being a similarity of such programming between communicators. As culture provides the master programming such similarity cannot be relied on when cultures differ. The more abstract the subject, the more likely it will be that the basics differ by culture.
2. Perception habits become locked in: In physical and social perception it may be almost impossible to see something that conflicts with the way we expect to see it. We are subject to optical illusions or stereotypes flaw our judgements. - In the course of development and in order to be minimally efficient a certain internal consistency among our beliefs, images, information constructs, etc., develops and as the mind resists having this consistency disturbed, we attempt to perceive in a way that makes new stimuli or information fit into our existing organization of ideas and beliefs, or we tend to reject or seek consistent explanations for new information that does not mesh in congenially. Negotiating internationally means having to cope with new and inconsistent information, accompanied by new behaviour, social environment and even sights and smells. One can override some of these unconscious habits of mind, but that is not automatic, even when the signals indicate that there is a problem. An intellectual effort of a different order is required, which depends on a conscious analysis of alternative explanations and even on an attempt to capture some notion of the pattern of internal consistency supplied by a counterpart's culture.
3. In cross-cultural situations the mind not only places its own stamp of meaning on an incoming message, but also projects the same meaning to the other party. For example, analysis of Central Intelligence Agency estimates on Vietnam provides evidence of the tendency to project much more of an American frame of reference onto events than they were aware. This led to serious distortion of meaning and of implication, when they tried to explain the „foreign“ happenings in Vietnamese society and culture.
4. Fourth, one form of unconscious projection that wreaks particular havoc on negotiation is attribution of motive. According to attribution theory in social psychology people normally and constantly, consciously or unconsciously, attribute motives to others with whom they interact. While chances of being correct in assuming motives are relatively high in one's own culture, they diminish when cross-cultural situations are encountered and decline even further when the subject at issue is abstract and complex. The combined psychological mechanism of others constantly, naively or perversely, misattributing our motives as well as ourselves misattributing others' motives ethnocentrically, constitutes a major impediment in cross-border negotiations.“

Glen Fisher, International Negotiation, 1970

2. The Contribution of Harvard - PON - to Negotiation Research in General and to Cross-cultural Negotiation in Particular. The so-called Harvard Model based on the Harvard International Project on Negotiation (Getting to Yes by Fisher and Ury, 1981) is a principled negotiation strategy which comprises the following four steps:

1. Separating the people from the problem
2. Focusing on interests, not on positions
3. Insisting on objective criteria (and never yielding to pressure)
4. Inventing options for mutual gain.

Brief analysis of the principled approach from a cross-cultural perspective by N. Adler:

Nancy Adler argues that „cultural differences make communication more difficult. Therefore steps 1, 2 and 3 become more difficult, because understanding opponents, their interests and their assessment criteria becomes more complex. However, step 4 can become easier, because inventing options for mutual gain requires recognizing and using differences. If teams recognize, clearly communicate and understand cross-cultural differences, they can become the basis for win-win solutions.“ Indeed, the synergistic approach uses differences as a resource.

Nancy Adler, International Dimensions of Organizational Behaviour, 2000

The leading-edge approach to negotiation, also based on the Harvard PON is 3-D Negotiation (Playing the Whole Game by Lax, Sibenius and HBR November 2003). It upgrades the Harvard Strategy from 1D to 3D to cover:

D1: Tactics (people and processes)

D2: Deal design (value and substance)

D3: Setup (scope and sequence)

Brief review of this state-of-the-art approach:

First of all the authors consider the aforementioned Harvard Model as a one-dimensional approach to negotiation, while they enhance the approach by including, in addition to the face-to-face negotiation „at the table“ so-called moves away from the table, i.e. „going back to the drawing board“ to design deals that unlock value that lasts and making moves „away from the table“ to create a more favourable scope and sequence.

Evaluation of HARVARD RESEARCH on negotiation:

There, a handful of professors have been conducting research on negotiation for decades. While their contribution, particularly the Harvard Method/Model discussed above as a 4-step principled strategy and the 3-D model of this decade, have been positively received by the social science/business community across the world, the contribution to cross-cultural negotiation is, as their own website states, in the envisaged research project phase.

However, the aforementioned author, James K. Sibenius, has published an article in HBR, March 2002 on „The Hidden Challenge of Cross-Border Negotiations“, where he explores the surface and in-depth culture as determinants of cross-border negotiation management. This history of negotiation highlights an ever increasing range of variables accounted for, to make processes and outcomes more predictable. They may, however, become more probabilistic and emergent. The noetic approach seeks to go beyond deal making and implementation orientation to cover the totality of the players' interdependent concerns.

The application of game theory to global negotiations seems to fall short of its expected benefit. Evidence of this is that countries like the United States and Israel which have their schools and Nobel Prize laureates in the field of research on game theory both provide insufficient evidence of the ability to solve conflicts by way of negotiation. It seems to assume culture-free interchangeability of players, while a complete mutual understanding of the players' world views is required. To put it differently, the scholarly prowess in academic research on game theory might need cultural enhancing.

3. International Politics, Economics and Negotiation:

As Hofstede notes, in diplomacy negotiators usually are professionals, yet with decreasing discretion due to global ICT, while corporate negotiators frequently are negotiation amateurs and their negotiation projects are prepared by specialists. Transnational governmental organisations like UN agencies, NATO, EU... have developed their own organisational cultures, which impact their internal negotiation styles. Contrary to NGOs (international nongovernmental organisations) like AI, Greenpeace, The Red Cross, these organisational cultures reside at the level of practices, shared symbols and rituals, while the latter's organisational cultures reside more at the level of values.

As Geert Hofstede and Jeanne M. Brett point out, the behaviour of international negotiators is influenced by culture at three levels:

a. National culture (societal culture)
b. Occupational cultures (the diplomats' occupational/professional culture)
c. Organisational cultures (IO, NGO, MNC's organisational cultures)

Negotiations share some universal characteristics:

a. Two or more parties with conflicting interests
b. Common need of agreement because of an expected gain from such agreement
c. An initially undefined outcome
d. A control and decision-making structure on either side by which negotiators are linked to their superiors or to their constituency

Negotiation strategy broadly falls in two categories

a. Distributive bargaining (concerned with sharing value)
b. Integrative bargaining (concerned with creating and sharing value)

The Negotiation Planning Document combines the parties' positions, interests, priorities, BATNAs (best alternative to a negotiated agreement). It supports the planning and conducting of negotiations. Please, consult publications by Jeanne Brett or some publications by leading business schools for details on this type of instrument.

In international politics the need for a psycho-cultural approach is evidenced historically: As the Dean of the FSI and researcher of Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy points out, „misperceptions have been pervasive in the positions taken by the US, Russia and China in relations with each other (examples: American assumptions about Chiang Kai-shek's qualities of leadership and pro-Americanism and Russian assumptions about American docility in the Cuban missile crisis). They seem to show how collective unexamined assumptions of policy-makers get reinforced in group processes that go with decision-making. So, experts should be more qualified in using basic psychological approaches and tools. The Cyprus conflict and Arab-Israeli confrontation have produced diverse psycho-cultural studies. In „Presidential Decision-making in Foreign Policy: The effective Use of Information and Advice“, A. George from the University of Stanford - as reported by G. Fisher - „ sees the course of international relations as partly a function of how leaders use the information available to them in the light of their existing beliefs and images, and partly as a result of their ability as problem-solvers to objectively program their mental processes to establish the context and meaning of new events or to try to understand an opponent's perspective“.

While psychology is too important to be left to the psychologists in the domain of international affairs, in strategic business negotiations the institutional environment plays a critical role as we can see in the agreement on natural gas supply negotiated presently between the Russian leader and European heads of state. Although GAZROM is a joint stock company quoted on the RTI Moscow, Russian political chief executives played a decisive role in the corporate monopoly's global strategy. Similary, China's SOE's CNOOC intended acquisition of US's Unocal was vetoed by the US Congress, and Lafarge's IJV with China's HMC and subsequent ventures were closely monitored by the Chinese political establishment. The Chinese government, although encouraging foreign investment nevertheless had strong institutional interests that included maintaining some local ownership, acquiring state-of-the-art technology, maintaining employment, and availability of construction materials. Arcelor's CEO Guy Dollé negotiated indirectly through the press and public opinion, making a point of values incompatibility of the unsolicited bidder. All these cases provide evidence that in strategic business negotiations, in addition to face-to-face negotiation, a lot goes on away from the table and that major stakeholders may not be present at the negotiation table.

What I have been proposing throughout this exposé from multiple angles is the application of the Noetic Principle and/or 360° Synergy (for example in chapter 7), referred to in many chapters which alone leads to the highest synergies possible. This „fourth generation intercultural approach can greatly enhance global transcultural negotiation procedures. It is a lighthouse for the achievement of excellence in transcultural operations, be they in the sphere of global politics or economics or other international diversity challenges ahead.

4
Overcoming the intercultural fault line gap through evolutionary interculturalism.

Understanding the structures and functions of human communication in action

Preliminary remark: This paper has been written a few years before the preceding and the following chapters. The emphasis is on the quest for a method that would enable the individual to manage the mind as such.

Keywords: Conscious evolution diagnostic reference frame, psychological levels, level of conscious evolution, principle of functional subordination, noetic

Abstract: In order to upgrade intercultural performance in the key sectors of diplomacy, global business and transcultural management, the intercultural edifice needs a ‘relocation, a re-entry, a reintegration’ into its natural place. This fragment needs to be reintegrated into the whole again in order to access more powerful structural resources and in order to display more performing functions. In other words, the intercultural edifice has to be put on a wider, more solid footing that can accommodate a higher functional level, so far inactivated, in order to bring the laws of structural integration and functional subordination and control into fuller play, thus rendering the intercultural and relational issues in the major domains more manageable in the most natural way. The sensitization to and awareness of this higher functional level, which we call – beyond the psychosomatic – noetic, is the key to its activation. East and West, Antiquity and state-of-the-art high-tech experimentation confirm the presence of this level of awareness and consciousness, which waits to be activated and put to use, representing a powerful tool for personal evolution, insight and self-management as well as a diagnostic and practical tool for the management of human affairs, cultural and intercultural, national as well as international. Structures, functions and applications are clearly specified: A blueprint for a new international communication science and culture and an epistemological quantum leap.

You cannot find the right thing in the wrong place, the right destination in the wrong direction. So let us stop for a moment and start exactly here and now, where we are, who we be. Let us look at ourselves, the SELF:

The SELF in the Western sense, the psychological and cultural identity (as opposed to the Eastern concept of SELF as a transcendent, unchangeable SELF, which we would call Soul) determines communication and relationship – pretty much as the characteristics of a physical body determine its behaviour in the material world - and is therefore a key concept for the understanding of the more intangible world of communication, whether it be intra- or intercultural, whether it be at the management, the operative, or even the private level.

However, we are living in an age of transition to the global, planetary paradigm in many spheres of human existence. Economy and business are but one specific expression of this global paradigm. In this process of globalization, national and cultural identities are progressively being eroded, challenged or muted into more open, fluid and wider individual or social entities, as the case may be; wider in the case of a positive attitude towards transcending, global culture or narrower in the case of negative, defensive attitudes towards global culture. So, the width and depth of the culture of an individual, a group or a region will depend on its will and capacity to narrow or expand itself. In this process with a high degree of fluidity the enlightening and pragmatic adage of the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset ‘Yo soy yo y mis circunstancias’ comes to one’s mind, which in any case perfectly epitomizes the challenging issue of one’s cultural and psychological identity to cover all its infinite variations. It translates into English as ‘I am me and my circumstances’, which, although somewhat abstract, is a perfect answer to someone’s identity. This issue of identity, we hypothesized at the beginning, is one of the key concepts of adequate communication and relationship of which international communication and relations are but a specific aspect or form. Ortega’s golden formula being found, we have to see, how we can apply it to human interactions; and, if the formula and its application are correct and consistent, it must apply to all kinds of communication interaction, whether in intra-cultural, cross–cultural, at the management, the operative and even at the private level; comparable to the laws of physics – the principle of inertia for instance – which are applicable across the entire "space-time" we are living in. Likewise, laws of communication transaction, if they are consistent must be applicable to any of the interactions and transactions possible in the human universe. – After all, and to begin with, cultures are, as a rule, not vicious diseases, requiring each one specific, sophisticated medication to be managed. – Ortega’s words become self-evident if we reflect on them. It is the precise mirror image of what you are at any instant of your personal development or evolution, however, a static picture of your present state. That simply is what you are, your true identity, your SELF, whatever you be, whether you like it or not. Full stop. Step number one. This mirror image is static, as it reflects a given moment in time, but in reality your true image changes and evolves in accordance with your personal development and evolution.

Step number two would be to find out, whether there is an equally consistent formula, which accounts for the dynamics of the mirror image, which is obviously subject to change. Therefore we should enquire, whether we could find a law of evolution of identity of SELF, which consistently applies to any member of humankind, whatever its cultural background and conditions.

And step number 3, is it possible to diagnose instantaneously the evolutionary state of a Self or identity (individual or group identity, of which the corporate identity is but a variant) and therefore,

Number 4, be able to infer from this diagnostic the communication potential and the quality of any given identity (individual or group) corresponding to a given diagnostic? In other words, is it possible to find easily detectable, clear-cut criteria for the evolutionary diagnostic of the identity or Self, which allows you to instantaneously respond adequately, because the counterpart’s transaction potential and quality become transparent, as a given diagnostic state can only allow certain category and quality of interaction and transaction behaviour, comparable to the length of the lead which you allow a dog. Depending on the length of the lead which one allows the dog, any child can forecast the maximum range in which the dog can move. Likewise, the ‘evolutionary lead diagnostic’ determines major attributes of communication, whether it be in international diplomacy, the management of global corporate leadership issues or the private arena, for if it truly applies to communication interaction and transaction, it applies to all kinds of interactions and transactions. - Now, can we easily detect and test the various lengths of lead in an individual or group which determine and make the range and quality of the communication transaction, its motive, level and objectives transparent? What are the cues one can quickly detect and correlate to a simple reference frame - which is the application of the evolutionary diagnostic reference model (see chart below) - and therefore forecast the communication behaviour on the basis that the evolutionary level determines the quality of your communication like the length of the lead you allow a dog determines the range in which this dog must imperatively and can only move. If your diagnostic is correct, you know instantaneously what strategy or therapy is indicated, you know immediately whether it is worth engaging in transactions or whether you better refrain, because the right evolutionary diagnostic tells you exactly the range of the possible outcome of your transactions. It may spare you interminable, futile negotiations and sleepless nights, or as the case may be, allow you to adopt the adequate strategy or formulate the precise cost-benefit ratio of your input in the transaction in terms of time and energy and so forth. You will know whether it is worth it or not and if so to what extent.

Maybe there is no fast food or instant coffee approach to this diagnostic, which I want to further present to you now. However, with a little intuition and giving a little thought to the human condition in general - and, naturally, according to your own evolutionary state - it will be more or less easy.

If one observes the functioning of the human mind, one can see that it works at different levels, each level corresponding to a certain length of lead, each corresponding to certain patterns of behaviour: These levels can be systematized as a number of levels of evolution. Although they potentially are all simultaneously active, conscious energy focuses at a given time on a particular level, which you are to master at that time and therefore the principles of this level are highlighted and determine your action. I do not like to indulge in techno babble, but it could be likened to the various level of a cybernetic system, each with its given computing resources which can be activated or not, whereby the higher systems level integrates and controls the next lower of the system hierarchy, but not the other way round. One knows the features and functions of the resources of each level of the system and their relationship to each other. After all, why should the intangible matter of the mind, which in the EAST is considered material indeed, as we have noted, not obey laws like the tangible matter of physics. In neurophysiology, the law of structural integration and functional subordination has been confirmed in the first half of the past century. And Elmer Green says that each state of consciousness might have its own electroencephalic rhythms. In terms of ‘psychophysics’ we can therefore transpose this technical metaphor to the human cybernetic system and can specify the various layers of the human conscious evolution hierarchy as follows:

Evolutionary diagnostic reference model

Levels of the conscious evolution hierarchy Stages of development of a Child/adult

1. Sensory level Perception
2. Active level Action
3. Affective level Affection
4. Analytic intellectual level Intellect
5. Synthetic intellectual level EGO, social group
6. Beyond Ego and synthesis Universality

These stages actually correspond to the development of the child and later the adult, each stage being subdivided by Dr. T. Brosse (1986) in three phases defining the progressive development, mastering and integration of these stages. The behavioural patterns of the adult will depend on the extent to which each of these stages and phases have been mastered. How can one determine the level of conscious evolution of an individual or of a group and what are the corresponding behavioural and communication patterns, intra- and intercultural, public or private?

Before we answer this question I want to point out that this model has a biological foundation, as each individual in phylogeny as well as humankind as a whole in ontogeny, pass through the successive stages of evolution of this hierarchical continuum. So, we have been introducing the model via psychophysics in order to make it clear and easy to understand.

Ontogeny and phylogeny also point to the fact, that it is a consistent psychobiological model. This model therefore meets the requirements of a transdisciplinary approach. Depending on one’s background and predisposition, one may verify and test it from the vantage point and with the instruments, methods and techniques of various disciplines. It is by no means a reduction of the human structure and functioning to some form of materialistic mechanism, construable bottom to top and controllable top to bottom. For reasons of briefness and pragmatism we privilege the easily observable, knowing very well that the true key to these structures and functions may very well lie in the transcendent realm of consciousness, not only in evolution but also involution of the transcendent level which actually generates the evolution process. Seemingly we are treading a narrow path between science and metaphysics, however, paved with common sense and pragmatism. It is up to each serious searcher to do further creative research according to his belief and view of the world. Those who want to go deeper into this matter may read 'La Conscience-Energie' by Dr. Thérèse Brosse.

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