French Culture vs American Culture Research Paper

French Culture vs American Culture - Research Paper Example As in playing a game of chess, knowing how to plan several moves ahead and anticipate what move your opponent could make accordingly, is essential to winning or the success of a goal. Culture, as defined by Brooks Peterson (2004), is a composition of several aspects of a people. â€Å"Culture is the relatively stable set of inner values and beliefs generally held by groups of people in countries or regions, and the noticeable impact these values and beliefs have on the peoples’ outward behaviors and environment (Peterson 17).† Understanding values of a society does not always mean that a person will act according to those values, given a certain set of circumstances. As Japanese children are trained early on to work together in a group and value this aspect of working, this may not actually occur in a business situation unless the right elements of understanding the goal and who does what, is precisely defined for them. Themes can be viewed as big themes such as famous actors, or little themes, such as the latest trend in android phones. In the United States, technology and new media are considered little themes and Angelina Jolie is a big theme. For the French, foreigners who can speak French while in their country, will fare much better than the Americans, who float from one town to the next, asking who can speak English. It is a certain type of snobbery that the French have about foreigners being in their country (Peterson 25). The ‘Big Five’ personality traits used in determining cultural intelligence, as proposed by both Peterson (2004) and in the work of Engle and Nehrt (2012), are neuroticism versus emotional stability, extraversion, openness to experiences, agreement versus antagonism, and conscientiousness versus undirectedness or lack of focus (Engle and Nehrt 36). In having these attributes, a person is able to adjust and assimilate with another culture without standing out as a sore thumb, thus providing a company the oppo rtunity to work with others on a global basis. Americans, however, in business situations, are more readily adaptable to other cultures than those who have cultures that are not so heavily integrated as is found in the United States (Earley and Mosakowski 139). As many Americans, particularly in large Northeastern cities, come from foreign countries or at least grew up in a family with a non-American background, it is easier to assimilate other cultures than those people who come from a predominantly one-culture world in their country. As global companies move their businesses to Southern states in the U.S., this trend is also growing here as well. Different styles of how to approach a joint project between two global countries, one, French and one, American, may show that Americans are ready to move ahead while the French prefer to have all the details worked out and the numbers in place before even taking the first step (Peterson 54). Some of this could be put down to the fact tha t governments work differently from one country to the next and therefore, have learned to work according to the criteria presented by regulations and government restrictions. Working this side out, takes a bit of doing, depending on which country the project will actually be implemented in (Earley and Mosakowski 140). In choosing those with cultural intelligence for positions of conducting projects with foreign companies, it is