Page 426 - Cultures and Organizations

Intercultural Encounters 391

threw Markus a friendly grin and as an afterthought he called over his
shoulder: “You’re on a nice stealing spree, Markus?” Then he left, await-
ing no answer.
When Frans returned to his offi ce after lunch, Markus was wait-
ing for him. Frans noticed Markus had put on a tie, which was unusual.
“Markus, my good friend, what can I do for you?” Frans asked. Markus
watched him gloomily, sat straight in his chair and said firmly and sol-

emnly: “Frans, I hereby declare that I am not a thief.”
Dumbfounded, Frans asked what the hell he was talking about. It took
them another forty-fi ve minutes to resolve the misunderstanding. 12

In the Dutch culture, in which the maintenance of face and status is not a
big issue, the “friendly insult” is a common way of joking among friends.
“You scoundrel” or “you fool,” if pronounced with the right intonation,
expresses warm sympathy. In Indonesia, where status is sacred and main-
taining face is imperative, an insult is always taken literally. Frans should
have known this.

The Influence of Communication Technologies

Popular media often suggest that communication technologies, including
television, e-mail, the Internet, mobile telephones, and social software, will
bring people around the world together in a global village where cultural
differences cease to matter. This dominance of technology over culture is
an illusion. The software of the machines may be globalized, but the soft-
ware of the minds that use them is not.
Electronic communication enormously increases the amount of infor-
mation accessible to its users, but it does not increase their capacity to
absorb this information, nor does it change their value systems. As users,

we select information according to our values. Following the model of
our parents, we read newspapers and watch TV programs that we expect
to present our preferred points of view, and confronted with the almost
unlimited offer of electronic information, we again pick whatever reinforces
our preexisting ideas. The experience with the Internet has shown that
people use it to do mostly things they would have done anyway, only maybe
now they do these things more and faster.
Communication technologies increase our consciousness of differences
between and within countries. Some disadvantaged groups, watching TV