Although expat-benefit packages can differ broadly from country to country, here's a brief outline of a "fully loaded expat package," compiled from conversations with a number of international relocation specialists:
Cultural and language training. The extent of this training often depends on the destination country - in other words, an expat headed to an English-speaking environment may not receive as much assistance as one heading to Asia. "Many times [cultural and language training] is provided for the employee; to a lesser extent, to spouses and children," says Fender.
Resettlement assistance. Many firms pay for an initial house-hunting trip, the services of a moving consultant and storage and shipping of goods abroad. Some employers - like King & Spalding - even help expats sell their US residences, if need be.
Immigration and visa issues. "Immigration paperwork is always part of the [standard] package," says Curtis.
Family assistance. If an expat moves abroad with his or her family, the US employer often will pay for the children's schooling.
Tax preparation and equalisation. Many firms pay for a tax professional to compile and file an expat's domestic and foreign-country tax returns. Tax equalisation, another common feature of most packages, ensures that an expat doesn't suffer double taxation for living abroad.
Health care. Don't leave home without it. While some countries offer socialized, free health care, most firms will pay for private health care. If you're heading to a dangerous locale, make sure you also have a health plan that covers the cost of emergency evacuation, if necessary.
Exchange-rate protection. This isn't a trivial matter - if you're paid in US dollars and the dollar weakens versus the local currency of the country in which you're currently living, you could sustain a huge financial hit. Don't underestimate this risk.
Repatriation assistance. In all likelihood, you won't stay abroad forever. Most companies cover the costs of moving you - and all of your belongings - back to the US.
This general increase in the relevance of cultural differences means a change of paradigm for intercultural learning, as it necessarily involves having to face up to the challenges of education for dealing with cultural difference. This produces an extremely difficult situation for practical educational work. Although cultural differences are accepted, they cannot be defined in concrete terms and remain vague and difficult to grasp for teachers and learners alike (apart from cultural anthropologists and ethnologists). At the same time, the continuing effect of the international understanding approach means that the educational process is often weighed down by a morally based desire to "improve the world", which has an impeding and counterproductive effect on professional intercultural learning.
It is learners from the social pedagogy and youth work sectors that are most affected by this change in paradigm. Their professional backgrounds mean that they are more likely than others to wish to avoid discrimination and accordingly to stress similarities in their relations with people from other cultures, placing emphasis on 'tolerance' and 'respect'. The organisational structure and orientation of youth work also strengthen this desire to "improve the world" and at the same time unintentionally trigger resistance to intercultural learning of a kind that is based on cultural differences.
Richard Nisbett is Theodore M. Newcomb Distinguished Professor of social psychology and co-director of the Culture and Cognition program at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Nisbett's most recent book, The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently... And Why (Free Press; 2003) contends that Asians and Westerners "have maintained very different systems of thought for thousands of years," and that these differences are scientifically measurable.
What triggered your research into cognitive differences between cultures?
I have always been interested in ethnicity and culture. In 1982, I was an exchange professor at Peking University and delivered a number of lectures there on social psychology. I was really struck with this totally different understanding of the relationship between the individual and the society, and between the individual and the State. It has been different from the trend in the West over the last 2,500 years. Actually, in some way, I was lulled by that trip into thinking that there were few psychological differences between Chinese and Americans, because the Chinese had full, rich and interesting personalities, and I found they matched, or didn’t seem unusual compared to the people I knew in the West. I also found that I could gossip with my Chinese colleague about other colleagues–we completely understood one another. It led to the feeling that we were the same.
So at a superficial level, they didn’t seem to be that different than Westerners?
That’s right, but I didn’t really have any clear inkling of what the thinking processes might be like. There was an undergraduate at the time named Kaipingpeng and he was clearly very brilliant. He didn’t speak much English but he was interested in what I had to say and we had a couple of conversations. Many years later, after he got his PhD in Psychology at Peking University, he came to the University of Michigan to earn a post-doctoral scholarship, but then decided to stay and get another PhD at Michigan. After working together for a few months he told me that American and Chinese, Westerners and Easterners, thought in completely different ways about the world, and had completely different thinking processes. I didn’t believe him for a minute but we talked and it became clear that there were very strong and clear empirical implications of what he was saying. So we started to design experiments and basically, everything that he proposed, and everything that the East-Asian students who worked with me proposed, worked out essentially as they said. After a while, I stopped telling them that nobody thought the way they said people thought because they were always turning out to be right.
Your book, The Geography of Thought, describes the different research and experiments behind trying to prove this hypothesis: Westerner and Asians not only think about different things, but they process information in different ways.
The overall theory is that Westerners tend to think about things in an analytic fashion. They focus on some object and they tend to attribute the object – it can be a person or a thing – and categorize those attributes to try and figure out the rules that apply to those categories. Formal logic is actually used in thinking.
Easterners, by which I mean East-Asians, think in a more holistic fashion, which means that they pay attention to a much broader array of perceptions and cognition than Westerners, and make relationships among those cognitions and perceptions. They don’t make much use of categories; they don’t make much use of the rules. There is no tradition of formal logic at all. Instead they have a dialectical tradition, which means lots of things, but one of the central things it means is instead of trying to find out which of two propositions was true, the goal is to find out what is the truth that might underlie both of those two propositions.
A Western approach would typically seek out the weaknesses in an argument and use those weaknesses to crush the opposing view and strengthen your argument.
That’s right. Our rhetorical tradition, our legal tradition, our scientific tradition all make explicit use of formal logic.
C’est la femme ukrainienne qui, sans conteste, a assumé le fardeau le plus lourd de la reconstruction sociale – en prenant soin de la famille, en assumant parfois plusieurs emplois et en s’occupant d’un jardin pour nourrir la famille. Selon un dicton ukrainien, l’homme est une tête et la femme le cou : là où le cou tourne – la tête regarde (ce qui signifie que les femmes jouent un rôle dominant dans leur famille, mais qu’elles sont présentées d’une façon qui donne ce rôle aux hommes). Il existe aussi dans les familles ukrainiennes des rôles et des attentes qui, traditionnellement, se rattachent à chaque sexe.
Les femmes sont moins visibles dans les postes de haute direction dans les domaines politiques et économiques où l’on ne croit pas fermement qu’elles devraient être mises davantage en évidence. Le code vestimentaire des femmes tend à accorder une grande importance à la féminité, particulièrement en hiver, lorsque plusieurs portent des fourrures. La question du harcèlement sexuel, tel qu’on le conçoit dans les pays occidentaux, n’est pas comprise ni acceptée en Ukraine. Certains gestes qui, au Canada, pourraient être jugés intimes et inconvenants entre collègues de travail sont en général très courants en Ukraine.
Point de vue local :
Traditionnellement, un gestionnaire ukrainien dans un milieu professionnel est un leader fort qui est censé avoir toutes les réponses à tous les problèmes en milieu de travail. Il est donc capable de prendre des décisions sans consulter beaucoup ses subordonnés. Cela est particulièrement vrai dans les milieux administratifs et d’affaires. Le gestionnaire typique a une formation universitaire. L’expérience tient une place importante en ce qui a trait au poste qu’on occupe dans l’organisme, mais cela vaut aussi souvent pour les contacts qu’on a dans un établissement professionnel ou dans la société en général.
Si le gestionnaire professionnel est un expatrié, ses collègues ukrainiens attendront de lui qu’il s’informe le plus possible sur le pays, le domaine professionnel, l’organisme, etc. Le personnel ukrainien s’attendra normalement qu’il « donne le ton » de l’organisation ou d’un projet et établisse les règles. Les attentes seront plus élevées à son égard, ce qui signifie que les Ukrainiens voudront un traitement équitable et compareront habituellement leur propre situation professionnelle et leurs conditions d’emploi avec d’autres employés d’organismes et de projets semblables. Le gestionnaire expatrié ne doit pas s’attendre à beaucoup d’initiative de la part des employés locaux, à moins qu’il ne les encourage. En outre, les Ukrainiens tendent à se montrer plutôt susceptibles à l’égard des évaluations de leur rendement professionnel et peuvent prendre une critique comme une insulte personnelle.
Il est de tradition de socialiser avec ses collègues. Dans les milieux professionnels ukrainiens, les conversations les plus importantes se tiennent souvent dans les couloirs ou dans les endroits où il est possible de fumer ou de prendre un verre (ou au bureau, puisque de nombreux Ukrainiens y fument). Le phénomène social que représente l’usage du tabac ou le fait de prendre un verre ensemble est aussi un mécanisme d’acceptation ou de rejet des personnes et une indication qu’on vous fait confiance ou que l’on se méfie de vous. Parfois, fumer ou prendre un verre ensemble aide à clarifier les questions ou les relations. Il en va de même pour les fêtes célébrées au travail. Une invitation à y participer indique habituellement que vous êtes désormais « un des leurs ».
La célébration des anniversaires de naissance et d’autres fêtes tient une place importante dans la vie ukrainienne et elle se fait habituellement au travail.
Point de vue canadien :
Les Ukrainiens attachent une très grande importance à l’éducation, au titre que confère le poste occupé, au pouvoir de prendre des décisions et aux transactions financières. À un moindre degré, ils valorisent aussi l’expérience et ont la même perception que les Canadiens à l’égard du travail productif.
Le contrôle de la gestion des fonds et une responsabilité décisionnelle sont jugées importants. Un bénévole, par exemple, est très peu considéré parce qu’il n’a ni titre ni pouvoir de prendre des décisions et ne contrôle pas la circulation de fonds. Cela s’applique aux Ukrainiens et aux expatriés. Bien qu’un expert paraisse respecté et très bien considéré, les Ukrainiens ne le verront pas comme compétent s’il n’a aucun pouvoir décisionnel.
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