Culture in the Workplace

Culture is obviously an issue that pervades all aspects of life. This is and remains true even in cultures that are rather homogenous in nature like Japan. Just one of the realms of life that culture pervades is the workplace. Rose Kearney-Nunnery openly explores this from the perspective of nursing. Two of the important concepts that she covers when it comes to the same is cultural competence and cultural humility. They involve the same overall topic but they are actually quite different in terms of their definition and function. While it is possible to get too fixated and focus on what makes people different from a cultural standpoint, not focusing on such things at all is less than wise.

The first term up for discussion is cultural competence. The author mentioned in the introduction briefly summaries the term by saying it is the competent and informed practice of catering to and recognizing differing cultures in the workplace that leads to diversity, good will and collaboration. The introduction to this report mentions Japan. That country is rather homogenous when it comes to culture and this is because the ethnicity and race in that country is rather monolithic in nature. Even so, there are still a lot of people from around the world that either travel or work there and the frameworks within society must properly react to the same. Indeed, people that travel to or work in Japan are going to get sick or injured and this means that they will obviously have interactions with Japanese nurses and other professionals. Beyond that, there would be at least some nurses and other clinicians or healthcare workers that are not Japanese in terms of their birth and/or race. As such, these differing cultures need to be able to interact and work together in a cohesive and proper way. Knowing how best to pull this off and otherwise instill such a practice as a norm and a value within a nursing paradigm is the very epitome of cultural competence (Kearney-Nunnery, 2012).

Cultural humility, on the other hand, is related to cultural competence and is actually a necessary part of the same. However, it stands apart because it does deserve its own mention. Nationalism and any related cultural pride is commonly assailed as being evil, racist or xenophobic. There are many others that say that culture is invaluable and that forcing people to assimilate at the expense of that source culture is not right. As with most things, there needs to be some sort of balance and the proper level of perspective. Cultural humility is not about a lack of pride in one's culture, however that might manifest. It is just a reminder that there is a difference between pride in one's culture and feeling that one's culture is superior in nature. For example, a Japanese manager having pride in his/her homeland and loving who he/she is from a cultural standpoint is fine. However, if that same manager automatically feels disdain or contempt for a person or any sort of superiority over a person that is Chinese or Vietnamese, that would be an example of someone that is, at the very least, lacking in cultural humility. Even worse, it could mean that bigotry and xenophobia are afoot. The point is that even if a culture is dominant in a given workplace, that does not give anyone license to demean, belittle or otherwise inflict themselves on people from other cultures just because they are not of the dominant culture. That is bullying and quite likely bigoted behavior. Regardless of the motives and feelings behind it, such snobbery and elitism should never be allowed to grow and fester (Kearney-Nunnery, 2012).