Blog Post #4 : Evaluating Intercultural Behavior

Cultural differences are an important factor in international negotiations. In addition to language differences, different cultures have differing values, perceptions and philosophies. As a result, certain ideas may have very different connotations in different cultures. These differences of interpretation may lead to conflict, or escalate existing conflict.

For instance, Americans and Japanese tend to have different views on the purpose of negotiations. An American was renegotiating a contract with a Japanese. What the Japanese see as a reasonable willingness to modify a contract to reflect changes in the parties relationship, Americans see as a tendency to renege. American insistence on adherence to the original terms of the contract may be perceived as distrust by the Japanese. Consequently, a conflict erupted and the relationship turned sour because on their different views on contract.

As what I view, Americans see the goal of negotiations as to produce a binding contract which creates specific rights and obligations. The emphasis is on getting a contract signed rather than building a relationship. The relationship may develop once the first contract has been signed. While Japanese see the goal of negotiations as to create a relationship between the two parties; the written contract is simply an expression of that relationship and contracts are not perceived as final.

People from different cultures encode and decode messages differently, increasing the chances of misunderstanding, so the safety-first consequence of recognising cultural differences should be to assume that everyone’s thoughts and actions are not just like ours. It is essential that we research the cultures and communication conventions of those whom we are propose to meet, this will minimise the risk of making the elementary mistakes.

The main strategy for effective communication is to learn to be empathetic, it is only through empathy that we see things from the audience’s perspectives and know what their expectations are. In addition, to be versatile in the way to be open and welcome others’ feedback about who we are so that we can improve progressively and lastly, to reflect ourselves as a communicator constantly so that we can communicate effectively with people no matter where they come from and who they are.

Blog Post #3 : Potential Research Project Topics

Industrial Attachment Programme enables students to learn beyond the boundaries of the classroom. It integrates both training and performance evaluation as part of the program requirements. Through this program, it allows students to gain on-the-job training and work professionalism to prepare us to contribute effectively as soon as we graduate.

But as far as we know, the industrial attachment programme in NUS is not made available to all science students. Not all the science students need to go through the industrial attachment programme in NUS, it is not an integral part of our curriculum. This might possess problems to gain practical experiences in the working environment as compared to other fresh graduates from other universities. Other problems that might resulted are students are not able to put into practice the knowledge and skills acquired from their course, applying it to real-life working environment, gaining the required experience even before they graduate. In that case, the students are not prepared for ready absorption into the workforce as theories learnt in university and real-life working situations are totally different. The students are not instilled with the right kind of work attitudes and professionalism through interaction with people in the organizations, then how can we become effective and productive to our respective organizations? People from the industry might judge the NUS graduates as being not well-equipped with hands on skill. Therefore, my research question is should industrial attachment programme be made available to all science students in NUS?

An attitudinal survey is used as a medium for the population to voice out their feedback and suggestions. In this case, it would help by identifying how science students feel about the current Industrial Attachment Programme system in NUS and also to determine if industrial attachment programme should be made available to them.