East vs. West: Culture and Distributed Development

CowboyRobot writes "ACM's Queue has an article entitled, Culture Surprises in Remote Software Development Teams that reviews differences in cultures and explores the impact they have on distributed software development teams. From the article: "In Western societies, decisions are made on the basis of input from those involved. In cultures with greater hierarchies, group members assume an authority will decide and they are only to enact the decision." Some stereotypes and some common sense, but I recognized myself in the descriptions of the 'typical American'."

Comments

This is not news

[KingOfBLASH]

The difference between east and west culture and the ramifications for the world have been in the news for a long time. For instance, the traditional religions in Asia have absolutely no problems with cloning or experimentation on embryos (which is basically verboten in western countries), so the majority of work in that field is in China or other countries which accept the future for what it is. The global marketplace is shrinking, and as we become more and more interconnected cultural differences will no doubt become more and more of an issue.

Re:A Nice Way of Saying

[xenocide2]

Maybe you should be offended that it implies that "Western" cultures are full of people who are argumentitive, subversive and prone to waste time questioning decisions.

I'd imagine you'd take offense at this, even though it fits your post to a tee.

Culture and Nationality correlation is exagerated

[rcastro0]

The correlation between culture (as defined in the article) and nationality is very, ver often exagerated. At least that is my experience, after having worked/studied in plenty of multinational environments and with people of multiple nationalities.

Stereotypes do apply, but anti-stereotypes are plenty, as well. You will find the organized Greek, the warm German, the shy Italian, the Brazilian who does not like soccer and the American who knows world geography.

I have experienced much more consistent cultural environments going from ony company (corporate culture) to another, than crossing national borders. I have seen corporate environments absorb various nationalities, even operating in different countries, and retaining its own (original) corporate culture. And I have seen, as well, plenty of cultural clashes and disagreement over world view within more than one country.

The internet makes the dissociation between nationality/geography and culture even starker. /.ers, for example, have a cultural outlook more similar to one another than to the average of his/her national peer. Same applies to many other online communities.

Decisions

[nuggz]

I think this comes from decision making.
In my experience there are two ways.
Western (Canada/US), get an idea, get some information, quicikly make a decision. Hopefully if it is wrong, someone points out the mistake before it gets too big.

Eastern (Japan), get a lot of information, make a good well documented decision. Pointing out mistakes means you think that their work in making the decision is wrong, likely you haven't done the same investigation.

When everyone makes off the cuff decisions, there is value to second guessing.
When someone takes a lot of time and energy to make the right decision, it is insulting to be constantly second guessed.

Re:Quit Your Crying

[bigman2003]

Umm...actually a lot of Americans are Mexican, so there is a good chance that he is.

For all the smack that gets talked about Americans, we're actually surprisingly diverse and worldly. Name me a country in the world that has a population as diverse as ours. Show me another place that has such a wide variety of culture. Honestly, if it can be pointed out that somewhere else in the world there is a place where more cultures co-exist than the United States, I will jump on that bandwagon right away. But, I don't think that place exists.

Most places in the United States have people from all around the world. The area I live in has huge hispanic, Russian, asian, black, Indian, and white populations (probably the only group missing is Eskimo, but we do have a lot of American Indian). You see signs in a zillion different languages- and believe it or not, there are few problems.

I lived in Europe for 4 years, been to Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Each one of those places is fairly singular in their culture. Each culture has some really amazing things to offer- but surprisingly, it seems like they want to give, but not take. I saw little of Asian culture in Latin America. Europe does not have a lot of Middle Eastern influence- other than the Turkish slums.

While travelling around the world, it seems that I see a lot of europeans who are trying to suck in some culture. Yes, it is great that you went to India. Yes, you saw some good things. Yes, it is sad that a lot of Americans prefer to vacation at Disney World. But...when I want to absorb Indian culture, I can go talk to my neighbors. When I feel the hankering for a little bit of Korea, I just go a few more houses over. And during Black History Month, I don't have far to travel. You get to feel smug about dipping your toe into these cultures during an 'adventure' while I get to see the daily lives of people from all around the world.

And somehow Americans are seen as the ones who are not 'worldly'. We are the ones who are seen as 'insulated'.

While the rest of the world holds onto their culture, we have been absorbing all of them. We have exported some crap (McDonalds, Baywatch, Jerry Lewis) but our culture is really an amalgamation of what the rest of the world has brought here.

Any Slashdotter who lives outside of the US, and would like to come for a visit- I would like to offer up my home as a place for you to stay while visiting. I can show you around, and hopefully you can see that there is more to this place than Dairy Queen and Wal*Mart. Really- this is an open offer. (I live in California if you are interested) (And for a 'freak check' I'm 35, and married. Don't live in my parents house, and don't have foil on my windows. I bathe regularly.)

No it isn't...

[sterno]

It's simply stating the cultural differences that do exist. There are advantages and disadvantages to the approaches innate in each culture. It would seem that the American culture is better suited to innovation and creativity, but that other cultures are better suited to precision and perfection. Both are important in the development of technology.

This didn't say they cannot think for themselves, rather that they defer to authority, and in many situations, that's a good thing. Conversely it seems to suggest that Americans don't have much appreciation for structure, heirarchy and procedure, and that might explain why some software is as flaky as it is even if it is innovative.