Examining an Atlanta area Tibetan Buddhist center as a symbolic and imagined borderland space, I investigate the ways that meaning is created through competing narratives of spirituality and “culture.” Drawing from theories of borderlands, cross-cultural interaction, narratives, authenticity and material culture, I analyze the ways that non-Tibetan community members of the Drepung Loseling center navigate through the interplay of culture and spirituality and how this interaction plays into larger discussions of cultural adaptation, appropriation and representation. Although this particular Tibetan Buddhist center is only a small part of Buddhism’s existence in the United States today, discourses on authenticity, representation and mediated understanding at the Drepung Loseling center provide an example of how ethnic, social, and national boundaries may be negotiated through competing – and overlapping – narratives of culture.

Este trabalho traz um exame dos guias classificados como culturais, e elaborados especificamente para a área de comércio internacional. Procura verificar a qualidade das informações neles contida a respeito da cultura em geral e da cultura árabe em particular, e também sua eficácia no processo de contato intercultural, verificando se de fato cumprem seu papel de guiar o leitor rumo ao conhecimento das características culturais do país alvo, com a intenção de possibilitar e facilitar o contato entre diferentes culturas. O exame desses guias é feito a luz da Inteligência Cultural, conceito relativamente novo que propõe o desenvolvimento de habilidades e de flexibilidade para aprender e assimilar aspectos de uma cultura. / This work brings an examination of the guides classified as cultural guides, elaborated specifically for the area of international commerce. Its aim is to verify the quality of the information contained in them about culture in general and, the Arab culture particularly; and so its efficiency in the process of intercultural contact, verifying whether in fact they fulfill the role of guiding the reader onto the path of knowledge of cultural characteristics about a particular country, with the intention of making contact possible and facilitating the contact between different cultures. The examination of these guides is made through the theory of Cultural Intelligence, a concept relatively new which is centered on the development of skills and flexibility to learn and assimilate aspects of a new culture.

This research focuses on the cultural identity of Chinese Australian adolescents in Canberra between the ages of 18 and 21. Adolescence is a developmental stage in which young people feel a need to define their cultural identity. According to social identity theory, being a member of the group provides individuals with a sense of belonging that contributes to a positive self-concept. In particular, young people belonging to ethnic minority groups need a firm sense of group identification in order to maintain a sense of wellbeing (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). The purpose and significance of this study is to update our understanding of how adolescents from a specific ethnic minority group (Chinese Australian) adjust to the mainstream Australian culture. The information gathered will be significant to the wellbeing of these individuals in helping them to come to terms with their own identity. It will also provide useful information for effective cross-cultural interaction for a range of services such as education, law, health and social services. The quantitative and qualitative approaches employed in this study include a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview. The semi-structured interview complements the questionnaire in confirming the adjustments of these adolescents within an analytical framework that is a replica of Phinney's framework (1994). In her research on bicultural identity orientations of African American and Mexican American adolescents, Phinney categorised these adolescents under four distinct types of interaction with the mainstream culture. These are namely: separation (focus only on the ethnic culture), assimilation (identifying solely with the dominant culture), integration (relating well to both cultures) and marginality (relating to neither culture). In this dissertation the researcher also aims to determine the cultural identity of Chinese Australian adolescents in Canberra in the study using these four categories. The results of this study demonstrate that this framework is an appropriate analytical tool for the study of the cultural identity of Chinese Australian adolescents, most of whom classified themselves as integrated. Overall, Chinese Australian adolescents between the ages of 18 and 21 in the Canberra region were well adjusted and showed little tension or stress in relating to their ethnic culture or to the mainstream Australian culture.

<p>The global competition and as the worldwide market has become more open a company’s ability to outsource activities to external companies based in other countries, i.e. offshore outsourcing, has increased dramatically. Companies are starting to transfer higher value-added activities that require certain skills, domain knowledge and experience, i.e. Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO). These activities are getting more difficult and complex to manage compared with standardised activities such as payroll, and predict another kind of co-operation and communication between the companies. When the sender and receiver are based in different context, such as organisational and cultural, other aspects might be added to the difficulty. The purpose of this thesis is to describe, and analyse knowledge transfer in a cross cultural context based on three categories identified in the theoretical framework: character of knowledge, distances between sending and receiving context and mutual understanding. Also to answer how cultural differences might affect the knowledge transfer process. The objective of this study is mainly from a Swedish R&D company’s perspective that has an established relation with an external consultancy company based in India. The activities are within the area of dynamical changing software development of complex, communication and knowledge intensive products.</p><p>A qualitative case study has been performed based on open target interviews. The findings show that the character of knowledge is an important factor to consider when establishing the knowledge transfer process. It was a need to transfer knowledge not only related to the product itself but also knowledge embedded in organisational routines, processes, practises and norms. This is related to distances between sending and receiving context: organisational and knowledge differences shown in organisational skills and previous experience, and cultural differences mainly visible in communication such as raising problems and an expected top-down approach by managers. The geographical distance adds to the difficulty due to the missing face-to-face contact. The sending company must therefore be very active and can not just expect the receiving company to handle the activity, and especially when the companies’ prerequisites differ as much as in this case. Culture awareness and mutual understanding are factors that improve knowledge transfer.</p>

The global competition and as the worldwide market has become more open a company’s ability to outsource activities to external companies based in other countries, i.e. offshore outsourcing, has increased dramatically. Companies are starting to transfer higher value-added activities that require certain skills, domain knowledge and experience, i.e. Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO). These activities are getting more difficult and complex to manage compared with standardised activities such as payroll, and predict another kind of co-operation and communication between the companies. When the sender and receiver are based in different context, such as organisational and cultural, other aspects might be added to the difficulty. The purpose of this thesis is to describe, and analyse knowledge transfer in a cross cultural context based on three categories identified in the theoretical framework: character of knowledge, distances between sending and receiving context and mutual understanding. Also to answer how cultural differences might affect the knowledge transfer process. The objective of this study is mainly from a Swedish R&amp;D company’s perspective that has an established relation with an external consultancy company based in India. The activities are within the area of dynamical changing software development of complex, communication and knowledge intensive products. A qualitative case study has been performed based on open target interviews. The findings show that the character of knowledge is an important factor to consider when establishing the knowledge transfer process. It was a need to transfer knowledge not only related to the product itself but also knowledge embedded in organisational routines, processes, practises and norms. This is related to distances between sending and receiving context: organisational and knowledge differences shown in organisational skills and previous experience, and cultural differences mainly visible in communication such as raising problems and an expected top-down approach by managers. The geographical distance adds to the difficulty due to the missing face-to-face contact. The sending company must therefore be very active and can not just expect the receiving company to handle the activity, and especially when the companies’ prerequisites differ as much as in this case. Culture awareness and mutual understanding are factors that improve knowledge transfer.

As a fundamental concept in communication in general and intercultural communication in particular, politeness has become a central topic in the research literature. The critical review of the relevant literature shows that the existing theories of politeness do not satisfactorily explain politeness behaviour across cultures, especially politeness behaviour of people in Asian Confucian cultures. Influential theories of politeness have so far focused primarily on the linguistic presentation of politeness (i.e., linguistics politeness) and viewed the individual desire to be free from imposition as the main motivation for politeness, whereas other social and interpersonal motivational concerns for politeness behaviour and the cultural values underlying politeness behaviour are marginalised in the current literature. Additionally, existing theories of politeness are more centred on Anglo-cultural language, particularly English and English-speaking cultures. Intercultural contexts where misunderstandings most probably occur as a result of the differences in cultural values are under-represented in the literature on communication and politeness. Given the widely recognized influence of Confucianism on communication in major Asian cultures, the present study aims to explore how well Confucian theory and principles are able to describe and elucidate Vietnamese politeness in Vietnamese – Anglo-cultural interactions. The goal of the study is to show how an alternative value system can operate in politeness in intercultural communication contexts. It helps bridge the gap in the literature by exploring Vietnamese politeness motivational concerns and their (non)imposition acts in their interactions with Anglo-culturals in intercultural workplace contexts in non-governmental organizations in Vietnam. The results show that the politeness behaviour of Vietnamese working in intercultural contexts is more influenced by their Confucian orientation to interpersonal harmony rather than by their desire to be free from imposition. In addition, the Vietnamese decision to perform an imposition act on their Anglo-cultural colleagues, and about the level of imposition, is significantly influenced by their perception of the potential benefit of their act toward the Anglo-cultural, and by their perception of the social distance between themselves and the Anglo-cultural with whom they are interacting. On the basis of its findings, the present study supports the need for major amendments to the current literature on politeness. It also proposes further implications for more effective communication between Vietnamese and Anglo-culturals in intercultural workplace contexts, and for language teaching.

Este trabalho traz um exame dos guias classificados como culturais, e elaborados especificamente para a área de comércio internacional. Procura verificar a qualidade das informações neles contida a respeito da cultura em geral e da cultura árabe em particular, e também sua eficácia no processo de contato intercultural, verificando se de fato cumprem seu papel de guiar o leitor rumo ao conhecimento das características culturais do país alvo, com a intenção de possibilitar e facilitar o contato entre diferentes culturas. O exame desses guias é feito a luz da Inteligência Cultural, conceito relativamente novo que propõe o desenvolvimento de habilidades e de flexibilidade para aprender e assimilar aspectos de uma cultura. / This work brings an examination of the guides classified as cultural guides, elaborated specifically for the area of international commerce. Its aim is to verify the quality of the information contained in them about culture in general and, the Arab culture particularly; and so its efficiency in the process of intercultural contact, verifying whether in fact they fulfill the role of guiding the reader onto the path of knowledge of cultural characteristics about a particular country, with the intention of making contact possible and facilitating the contact between different cultures. The examination of these guides is made through the theory of Cultural Intelligence, a concept relatively new which is centered on the development of skills and flexibility to learn and assimilate aspects of a new culture.

The Swedish Midsummer event has been organized and celebrated for several years in Tobetsu inJ apan, especially since the establishment of a sister city relationship with Leksand in Sweden. Yet, there is little to no data or literature on the event as to why Japanese residents chooses to involve the culture of Sweden by organizing such an event annually and what the residents actually perceive of the event This research explores the Swedish Midsummer event in Tobetsu more closely in the formof a case study which involves the organizers and residents. By conducting semi-structured interviews it was clear that the organizers want to highlight the relationship with Sweden, to enable cultural interaction as well as attracting more people to the town due to its decreasing and aging residents. However, some of the residents find the event disturbing while others enjoy it to some degree. As a case study on Tobetsu, this research demonstrates the utilization of a sister city relationship in order to differentiate the town and to nurture the relationship with the other town, in this case being Leksand, on a local level by contextualizing it in a yearly cultural event. The findings of this case study along with the theoretical framework highlights the importance of involving the residents in the organization of the event in order to succeed and reach the goals of Midsummer. In the future, there exists an interesting notion of following up this research, in order to investigate whether the goals of organizing Midsummer in Tobetsu have been fulfilled or not and if and/or how the residents have been involved in the organization process.

No description available.

Backpacker tourists frequently express “anti-tourist” attitudes and are confident that they contribute positively to their destinations. Ironically, they are sometimes characterised by stakeholders in destinations in less developed countries as neo-colonial invaders. In spite of their anti-tourist attitudes, in reality, backpacker tourists tend to stay in backpacker enclaves where the cultural and moral values of backpackers are dominant. This happens because they encounter many obstacles to enjoying the backpacking experience in an unfamiliar interregional (intercultural) environment. Given such contradictory phenomena surrounding backpacker tourists in less developed countries, one question is how they manifest their responsible behaviour. Therefore, this research aims to explore the nature and degree of responsible behaviour amongst backpacker tourists in Thailand, which is one of the most popular backpacker destinations in the world. Through mixed method research, this principally explores (1) the frequency levels of backpackers’ behavioural intentions, their actual responsible behaviour, and the gap between them based on a series of items representing responsible behaviour, and (2) their definitions and perceived experiences of responsible behaviour. The research found that whilst backpacker tourists tend to report their frequent responsible behaviour and perceive themselves as “responsible” tourists, in reality, they experience many difficulties in behaving responsibly in an unfamiliar interregional (intercultural) tourism setting in spite of their intention to do so, and while being well aware of the importance of behaving responsibly. There is a propensity among backpacker tourists to exaggerate the importance of small and fleeting experiences of responsible behaviour outside backpacker enclaves (e.g. a moment of demonstrating a respectful attitude towards local people). Also, cultural experiences within backpacker enclaves, which are staged authentic manner (e.g. participation in a cultural or cookery class), tend to be exaggerated in importance and regarded as highly responsible behaviour. Moreover, whilst backpacker tourists appreciate themselves as “responsible” tourists and during their travels they respect others and behave so as not to disturb others which are required to do so regardless of place, culture and custom even in the home in daily life, they represented their reluctance to “engage” in responsible behaviour, especially altruistic and philanthropic activities (i.e., engagement in volunteering work or donating to local communities). These propensities were common to all types of backpacker tourists in this study; even those who reported their own outstandingly frequent intention and actual responsible behaviour (i.e., backpacker tourists who travel extensively with the strong motivation to explore destination countries). The principal conclusion in this research is that, whilst the behaviour reported by the backpacker tourists was never harmfully irresponsible, there are several contradictions between their evaluation of their responsible behaviour and their actual behaviour patterns. Moreover, there is a gap between their behavioural pattern of responsible behaviour and the concept of “responsible tourism” for backpacker tourists. The declared good intentions and instances of actually behaving in a responsible manner by backpacker tourists do not necessarily mean that they behave altruistically and philanthropically that the concept of responsible tourism aims to engender.