Menon parses cultural complications

Cultures are a mess, said Tanya Menon, associate professor of behavioral science, who shared her thoughts on academic ways to consider culture during a Meet the Professor discussion February 22 at Gleacher Center. The event was sponsored by the Chicago GSB Club.

Culture is complex and we all have intuitive ideas about it. I want to show you an analytic way to think about culture, which is the basic foundation needed, said Menon, whose passion is studying the national culture of East Indians, Asians, and Americans, and how they think about issues relevant to business. She said that it is usually assumed that culture has a stable influence and that there are ways for business professionals to anticipate or respond to cultural differences. Culture is not an unchangeable operating system, she noted. We don’t realize the extent to which it dynamically varies. There are significant differences among individuals, situational cues, and bicultural ‘primes' that may affect behavior.

For example, Menon said, talking and thinking are connected in fundamentally different ways in American and Asian cultures. Americans use talking as a way to think; for Asians, talking interferes with thinking. But she cautions against what she calls vague generalizations or thousands of rules advice. The problem with these is that you will never come to understand the culture, Menon said.

 

Donna Eckert