Cultural Competence

Culture and the Need for Cultural Competence

Cultures vary significantly from each other in terms of customs, beliefs, and lifestyles. These cultural differences affect people's expectations and behaviors when interacting with each other. For instance, perceptions of constructs such as time differ greatly between cultures. People from cultures with a sequential view of time prefer to have detailed agendas that are followed throughout the day. Being late to appointments may be considered unprofessional and disrespectful. People from cultures with a synchronic view of time tend to have a more flexible perception of time. They believe that rigid deadlines are unnecessary and that showing up after an agreed-upon time is acceptable. A culturally competent individual or organization would recognize these different orientations toward time and may institute policies and protocols that prevent conflicts from emerging. In addition, effective and culturally sensitive programs for handling conflict would be developed using cultural competence as its theoretical framework.

To systematically identify factors that differ across cultures, researcher Geert Hofstede conducted a study of over 40 countries with the assistance of the IBM company. He identified five dimensions that vary across cultures: (1) relations between people, namely whether people emphasize the group (collectivist) versus the individual (individualistic); (2) power distance, which is the extent to which people accept that power and influence is distributed equally among members of the society; (3) uncertainty avoidance, which is the extent to which people feel comfortable or uncomfortable in unstructured situations; (4) masculinity versus femininity, or the extent to which gender roles are highly distinct from each other, in that men are expected to be tough, assertive, [Page 638]and focused on material success, whereas women are expected to be more tender, modest, and caring about quality of life—in contrast, more egalitarian societies may have more overlap between gender roles; and (5) short-term versus long-term orientation, which refers to the extent to which people expect immediate rewards for their efforts versus accepting delayed gratification.

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