Name of culture observed: Nigerian
Communication Behavior Observations (time 1)
Personal observations 1:
After migrating to Miami to further my education, I realized it was a very diverse place. I met many different people of different cultures and have made new friendships. I met a Nigerian woman during my time here and we have become friends. Being around her, I was able to observe and note her behaviors for this project. She is very driven and motivated. She recently shared with me that she has studied pharmacy and is now studying fashion. She works part time in a local pharmacy. This is very important to her as she is helping her husband provide for the family. Before, it was only him taking care of the finances. She shared with me
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Hierarchy in an organization is seen as reflecting inherent inequalities, centralization is popular, subordinates expect to be told what to do and the ideal boss is a benevolent autocrat.
Masculinity-femininity: Nigeria scores 60 on this dimension and is thus a masculine society. In masculine countries people “live in order to work”, managers are expected to be decisive and assertive, the emphasis is on equity, competition and performance and conflicts are resolved by fighting them out.
Other observations 2: My Nigerian friend has a young child who is not able to walk on his own yet. I noticed that she carries her child on her back. The child would be carried by fastening a broad cloth or fabric which is tied around the baby and fastened at her bosom. When the baby fusses, she would fasten him to her this way and walk around the house doing her regular household chores, even when she is prepping to cook. I observe that children are very important to them and the relationship between mother and child is very strong. I realize that Nigerians regard newborns with a high pride because they represent the community and the family’s future. Being invited to the home of a Nigerian, I am immediately offered food. She likes to entertain in her own household and finds it rude not to offer a guest or friend something to eat. I was asked to remove my shoes at the door before coming in. Though the main language is English, she speaks tribal languages from
We define masculinity in a very narrow way. Masculinity becomes this hard, small cage, and we put boys inside the cage. We teach boys to be afraid of fear. We teach boys to be afraid of weakness, of vulnerability. We teach them to mask their true selves because they have to be, in Nigeria speak, ‘hard man’ (Adichie).
How important is hierarchy [look this up if you don’t know what it means] in this society?
The following paragraphs in this section will seek to elaborate on the scores that make up Nigeria’s Cultural Dimension and to place these numbers in context. The definitions presented and the numbers given will be calculated based on the information presented in the Cultural Visualization table in Appendix C.
Status hierarchy is how you are looked at by others that surround you. Depending on your placement or “status,” you will be looked at differently. One example of status hierarchy is Harding, he likes to have complete control in most situations and believes he is above most due to his mindset being no as messed up. Another example is McMurphy, he goes in knowing he is not a lunatic, so that puts him in a more powerful
Barbara said “Managers can sit –for hours at a time if they want… You start dragging out each little chore because if the manager on duty catches you in an idle moment he will give you something far nastier to do. So I wipe, I clean, I consolidate catsup bottles…” (22). Hierarchy system is defiantly showing the roots, so to say we are controlled by people of higher rank positions. It is common nowadays to encounter such philosophy, pretty much anywhere we go, any movie we watch, we see the rules are set by people of higher position or rank. It is also interesting how the less you get paid, the more work you invest. And the more you get paid the less work you do. Higher positions require more work, yet it comes with a perk of controlling other, so that can give the luxury of making others do your job which is unfair and has no justice to it. And as a scenario we can take two workers of same position. One worker is fast learner and grows quickly, yet the other one has small difficulties. The worker who is behind most likely will be given the “Dirty Work” and will have twice the work load. It is sort of a battlefield; if I do better and know the work, I can work my way out of
There is no hierarchy, and everyone is treated as equal. There are also no titles for staff or permanent assignment to them. In turn, this helps to boost the morale of the staffs, since they are all considered a valued asset to the company. It also helps to enhance teamwork, as there is no competition among staffs to get a promotion. Furthermore, their group leader is elected not because of seniority but because of his ability to work well in groups. With a skilled leader, it will serve to improve both the efficiency and effectiveness of the company. The company also believes in hiring people who do not listen to the boss, but instead takes risk. Such a fair and equal culture is a key component to
Hierarchy is what creates an order in society, without it there would be little to no rules set in place that people followed. People who have hierarchy are advised to
It was back in the year 2008, a hot night in the month of August my brother asked me on the phone, calling from Miami, if I was determined to come to the United States with the possibility to take along my wife and kids , I did not hesitate for a second on a positive answer, although I was still living with my parents at the age of thirty two, being so close to them was a heartbreaking decision but you cannot think twice when the future is so cloudy and grey in Cuba, the communist island. Of course, he legally claimed for us as an immigrant, and today, I still feel ashamed to fly on an airplane, comfortly and easily when so many Cuban brothers, women, children and men have found a terrible end on the Straits of Florida, drowned or eaten
The migration of Jamaicans to the United States began in the early 19th century. Starting in the 1850s, there were only a couple hundred Jamaicans immigrating into the United States each year. However, by the end of the century, this number rose to approximately 1,000 per year. Between the years of 1981 and 1991, there were approximately one million immigrants from the entire Caribbean in the United States; the Jamaican immigrants made up one-fourth of that total. A common immigration scenario for this culture is for one family member to travel alone to the United States, become established, and send for other family members later. Several Jamaican families often decide to share an apartment or house, with each family occupying a bedroom, as they viewed extended family as an important resource. Jamaicans have come to the United States voluntarily, often looking for educational and occupational advancement. This immigration process was characterized by family separations (often prolonged due to the cost of flying back to Jamaica), feelings of dislocation, and adjustment to the urban settings and colder temperatures.
All over Africa it is customary for men to be in power in some sort of way, the word “Big Men” is very known in Africa and what a Big Man is a man having control, power and wealth. In The film Big Men by Rachel Boynton, it is only mentioned once how men try to become a big man and how women also try to be a big woman, but other than that the majority is only men. The social structure that is shown in Ghana and Nigeria from the film is made that the goal for each man is to become powerful, Certainly the phrase “Big Men” does involve with masculinity and how countless of men were stereotyped by the way they acted. For example in the film it is said that militant groups were formed by civilians that had enough with the “Big Men” robbing so much
The world average for the Masculinity Dimension is 50, with both the United States and Australia having a higher ranking. Traits associated with masculinity are assertiveness, material success, and individual achievement. The female population has adapted these traits and begun to shift toward a more traditional male role, with an increasing number of women continuing to enter the workforce. The direct communication style of the United States illustrates the masculine traits. The U.S. places heavy emphasis on getting their point across rather than getting to know those they are doing business with. This dimension is closely related to both countries’ rankings in the individuality dimension.
Child Mortality: According to Unicef, Nigeria loses about 2,300 under five-year-olds and 145 women of childbearing age every single day and this makes Nigeria the second largest contributor to under-five and maternal mortality rate” (Unicef). What people tend to forget is that this is an effect of gender inequality, gender inequality decreases maternal health and can harm children both the unborn and born kids. Gender inequality increases the incidence of low birth and malnourished kids and this causes the death of kids before the age of five. If these women were educated or at least taken a better hospital and not depending on their village herbs and all those medicines, then the rate of child mortality will be decreased in Nigeria. This is also a part of the UN millennium development goals, so as to reduce the rate of child mortality and help this women learn more about how to take care of themselves since they were never educated because they are “Women”.
The major problem every company encounters is the structure or hierarchy of the organization. Usually, it is in the form of a pyramid and gets narrower as it rises resulting in the few people on the top of the pyramid gets more advantages in the company. But the lower level employees are not given that importance when it comes to the utilization of the benefits provided by the company.
Structure and hierarchy come from how work and the work processes are coordinated together and relating how tasks and coordination of these tasks is to be obtained. When determining the authority in the structure of an organization, there are two major options, centralized and decentralized. A centralized organizational setup is where the authority to make important decisions is retained by managers at the top of the created hierarchy whereas a decentralized organizational setup is where the authority to make important decisions about organizational resources and to initiate new projects is delegated to managers at all levels in the hierarchy. Each choice is made based upon the main goal/task of the organization and what would better fit the organization. Whether work/the
xii). Although rather obvious that the higher level of leaders have a commanding subculture, rank is not the only condition, the reach of this group offers a substantial aspect to its power. Leaders at the highest levels of organizations control a more considerable territory – internal and external – and a greater number of employees.