Identity Management: A Critical Dimension of Global Management

Table of Contents

Part I New IdentityHorizons

1... Who is Man?

2... Mystery and Grace of the Encounter with One’s True Identity

3... Towards a Trans-cultural Identity and Enhanced Self-awareness

4... The Human Quest for Identity. Culture, identity and Pleasure

5... The “I” in the Area of Tension between Self-, Social- and Divine Perception

Part II Papers on Identity Issues. 47

6... Die deutsche Identität: Gedanken zur Identitätsfrage Deutschlands

7... Identity and Relationship as the Basis of Culture and Civilisation

8... Identity, Culture and Freedom

9... The Identity War: Divesity, Reciprocity and the Ethics of Peaceful Coexistence

10. Germany – Shedding a New Light on a Perennial Question

Part III Reference Section: International Diversity and Identity Management 101

11. Synopsis of Cultural Diversity and Identity Management Instruments

12. Bilingual English-German Inter- and Transcultual Management Dictionary

Bibliography.

Part I New Identity Horizons

1. Who is Man?

Vidya(Sanskrit)

Gnothi seauton(Greek)

Nosce te ipsum (Latin)

Self-awareness (GB/US)

This is the most important question man is faced with, because his self-perception guides his values and behaviours. The solution of the question will impact himself and as a consequence the environment. Therefore it is the most important individual and social question, whether it is avoided or solved in one cultural way or the other.

Therefore it is also not surprising that all civilisations and cultures on the on hand tend to agree on the prime importance of the question and as a consequence try to find culturally conditioned solutions to the question on the other hand.

According to the prevailing paradigm, philosophical, spiritual and, nowadays, supposedly more scientific ones, based on natural science and thehumanities alike,

areoffered. Social science offers cultural values models and the dynamics of group affiliation throughout socialization to answer the question on the assumption that man’s self-perception is a cultural construct. Here man’s identity is a matter of sociocultural conditioning in addition to unique individual and universal endowments which, nonetheless, are additional conditioners. So, the term conditioning prevails. Science concludes to science-specific determinisms which are also conditioned perception, and philosophical and spiritual answers as to man’s identity bear the conditioning hue of the ideology that acts as a filter of perception. Is there only relativity in the identity construction of man or is there anything that transcends ism-relative identity construction that explains man’s real identity and that can therefore appease man himself and his relations with other identity assumptions that tend to clash in the social arena, as they entail identity-specific values and behavioural patterns? This is a seeminglyimpossiblequestion because man’s mind that tries to answer the question seems to be a time-relative construct itself which can therefore, similarly,offer onlyrelative answers that are not time enduring, because that mind changes with its conditioning in timeand therefore tends to provide relative answers. So, how can the quest for human identity be managed in a satisfactory way, a way that is not conducive to identity clashes based on identity mismanagement?

Certainty about the nature of man’s identityor a form of objective knowledge of who man is would appeasehis perennial quest whose culturally constructed answers are conducive to deficitaryassumptions about who man is and should therefore be. It triggers the relative circle of what should be that leads to competing spirals of interacting values and behaviours to impose one’s relative assumptions about what is assumed right in this respect. Can the innumerable relative identity constructions be resolved in a higher order objective understanding and awareness of man’s true identity?

The question as to man’s identity has been raised across time, space and civilizations: As the answers were relative the ensuing diverse relative assumptions caused diverse clashing world views that have been and are the determinants of human history throughout the ages. An unresolved question rather than material circumstances can be said to be at the origin of the overallhumancondition. Is that not a first tremendous insight into human affairs from the quest into human identity that can rerprioritize human efforts in problem solving in general?

But the answer to the question remains open. Yet the diagnose according to which this question and the answer or the lack of an answer to it are determinants of human history can alreadyhave an extraordinary impact on the nature, the relevance and the consequences of the question for mankind. Awareness and also awareness of unawareness tend to impact matters already. And the diverse degrees of awareness correspondingly offer diverse awareness-relative solutions to the potential impact of the identity question.

All mental constructions, even the most sophisticatedphilosophical constructions, are time- and culture-relative and therefore impermanent, reversible and not time enduring. They constitute no reliable basis for sustainable action,geared towards lasting freedom and peace in humanity, neither within nor between cultures. So are all scientific constructions, as all science is subject to the prevailing scientific paradigm of the respective state of scientific advancement.

Intuitive perceptions vary with the quality of intuition and revealed perceptionwith the nature of the diverse revelations. It appears as an ocean in which there is no way of finding a secure anchor. Is this anchorlessness and flux of the relative at least an aspect of man’s trueidentity?A constant in a world of inconstancy! Is one seeking something that is a mere projection of wishful thinking due to the desire of security?

The great sage J. Krishnamurti has dedicated his life to such fundamental questions, as he came from a culture, where the investigation into truth has been a culturalpreference across time. Is the very search then, together with all the answers, a culture-relative construct as well, that simply translates a cultural preference and a need, and which is therefore also culture-relative while he assumes that the negation of all mental (and therefore culture-relative) answers to the question may transcend conditioning and lead to a truer perception of the real?

Is the search for an answer out of human reach and human identity a process in the making rather than a completed project? And if incompleted, by whom or what should it be completed? The scientific lead-paradigms for the understanding of matter and energy, of determinism, indeterminism and probabilism, come to one’s mind. Is his identity one of the three and not the others or rather a combination of the three and a dynamic process that can be defined and determined within limits andwhich allows for human freedom to co-create his identity in the making?

Or is there, beyond this assumption, a time-transcendent design that works teleologically towards its fulfillmentinwhich man is meant to cooperate, while ethics consists in the degree of cooperation with this image of man which is in and beyond time?

When the mind can settle and comply with one or another assumption about man’s identity it brings about a certain degree of subjective peace, whatever the degree of truth in the assumption may be. Yet, the more objective the perception, on the assumption that there is objectivity in this question, the more permanent the peace derived from the truth of the assumption. True peace can only come from the truth about man’s identity, Therefore the inquiry into this question is a way towards social and individual peace and needs persual from all angles; such is its importance.

Therefore Ancient India has preached the importance of Vidya, true knowledge of who one is or what one’s true self or identity is. Ancient Greece has also identified this question as the key to all knowledge. It has equated micro- and macrocosmic self-knowledge in the sense that the revelation of one’s individual identity alsoimplies the revelations of the universe and the divine: A micro-macrocosmic continuum! And the Roman world has replicated this understanding and postulate in the dictum "nosce te ipsum". This sense of a continuum foreshadows the Christian assumption of a continuum, however, starting in in the reverse order from the transcendent to the immanent, namely that of man being a manifestation or image of God. The image is a representation of something else that precedes it and which is mirrored by the image. AdditionalChristian understanding holds that the image is also imbued with the same spirit, provided the image remains in the spirit of what it represents and vice versa. There is potential identity between the image and that which the image represents. Theassumption of a unity identity, “thou art that”…in Sanskrit terms, the notion of a human-divine micro-macrocosmiccontinuum and the notion of potential identity of the Creator and his replications according to the degree of their interpenetration based on the compliance with the Christian tenets are not dissimilar in nature, because they postulate forms of interdependence. The non-relatedness would therefore amount to a negation of identity, a non-identifiable state of identity.

Although formulated across thousands of years at certainintervals and distances in time and space, the convergence of similar assumptions about human identity provides evidence for a more irreversible conception of human identitythat can sustainably complement relative human identity constructions and bringman closer to the peace making function of truthfulidentifyconstruction.

Man can only find irrevesible and lasting peace in truth, by abiding by this truth and by making it his benchmark for values, norms and conduct.One could conclude thateffective identity management conditions the human condition at large. Such is the relevance of the human identity challenge that increases with globalization. The solution to this question is, in addition to human endeavour, a matter of grace that relieves humanity from its own deficitary identity constructionswith their endless cycles of inner and outer conflicts.

2. Mystery and Grace of the Encounter with One’s True Identity

Isn’t one that which one presently is minus that which one is not plus that which is also part of oneself, in the language of universal mathematics? If one’s identity was an unchangeable structure, the question of identity management would be no issue because it would resist and need no management.

Anything flows and is impermanent, while the information of how things really are, is there, biologically in the DNA and spiritually in the nature of the soul which is beyond time and therefore unchangeable.

In spite of the flux and changeability of the impermanent world of mind and matter, there are two constants, the bio-spiritual DNA, which can be said to have been there before one was born and which will have to interact with other identities of the environment in a process thatstarts with birth and probably before birth as some would argue.

The afore-mentioned “identity equation” is a mathematically-based short-cut of the entire identity issue and therefore a formula which can function as a practical identity management instrument that can help one to always recover ones integrity, to ”return ad integrum” (structural and functional integrity), to one’s undivided self, unimpededby the superfluous of alien inputs. This amounts to a second practical formula of identity management, of identity recovery and personal identity information recovery to use a digital era expression.

Of course these are fairly abstract,holistic identity conceptualizations that are rather implicit than explicit. The diverse science approaches can, according to discipline,substantiate and explicitate the implicit, practical identity conceptualizations. The range of sciences dealing with the issue provides information that uses discipline-specific language and methodology for this purpose. Culture shock theory and intercultural adaptation models, dealt with by many intercultural scholars like Adler, Toomey, Hofstede, Marx et alia (see relevant dictionary entries, chapter 12) provide useful information on identity challenges and their management within the context of the expatriation-repatriation cycle. Yet, this study intends to pioneer terrain beyond generally available information on identity management. The reference section of Part III contains this type of information as well as more innovative thinking.

Ortega y Gasset accounts for the wholeness of the identity information, when he assumes that one is oneself plus one’s circumstances. This seems to be half way towards East-Asian collectivist identity conceptualization that hold that there is no such a thing as an independent personality, but that man cannot be separated from his environment which would lead, somewhat mathematically speaking, to the formula: One is not only oneself but also one’s environment or the individual plus his environment are the two complementary aspects of the personality in the sense of his or her identity. Therefore in Chinese there does not seem to be a concept of a singularlydistinctive personality as in the individualist Western cultures.

So,Ortega y Gasset accounts for the sum total of circumstantial conditioning factors of the individual that constitute the individual and thus co-determine his identity. In the Chinese assumption the person and the environment seem to be indissociably linked and inseparable.

Obviously the philosopher’s definition is as culture-relative as the Chinese cultural assumption about identity and personality. Yet, the mathematical formulation of the beginning is sufficiently universal to transcend the cultural conceptualizations of identity and personality. Obviously it boasts a form of mathematical precision, while it seems to offer less concrete information that explicitates the identity equation. And there remains no blind spot in the definition, because it is comprehensive, whereas the two cultural ones are more aleatory but provide more substance. It is incumbentto the afore-mentioned multidisciplinary approaches to the issue, to fill in the formula with discipline-relative specific information. The reader is referred to those disciplines for additional information.

The identity structure and process can be compared to a spring which is unpolluted and transparent at the source. As it meanders according to the geological,environmental conditions through the landscape it becomes ever bigger. On its path it has been conditioned in its movement by the physical environment and it also carries the good, the bad and the polluting inputs of the environment with it. Now, we can ask: “Where is that pristine clear mountain spring in the dirty river which it now is?”

That raises the question of the restoration of the Self or Identity as one may restore an ancient painting from the wear and tear of time. So, it refers to the question involved here, which is that of the effect of the relative world of time and space that,however, also points to the timeless and eternal aspect of time, for one makes no sense without its complement and the two cannot be conceived of but as interdependent attributes of identity: the relative attributes of time and the attributes which are beyond time. For nothing exists without its constitutionally necessary complement, comparable to the Dao with its two arms of yin and yang that generate the phenomena by stepping out of the GRAND ONE to manifest as many, while the remain connected to the unity of the one. It is the one and the many that together constitute complementary aspects of reality. That beyond time manifests in time and the timeless-temporal complementarity constitutes the totality of phenomena; and identity is such a phenomenon with complementary aspects, which have to be dealt with alike in order to understand it in its entirety.

But first let us pragmatically look at identity mismanagement in order to better understand sustainable identity management. For the first purpose I would like to quote US president Clinton from International Herald tribune, December 19th, 2002, who attributes the whole of human history to the workings of the I, the self or identity as we call it here: he refers to the “persistent curse, consistent in the compulsion people feel to define the meaning of their lives in positive terms with reference to those who are like them racially, tribally, culturally, religiously, politically, and by negative reference to those who are different. People then feel compelled to oppress those who are different when they are small and powerless enough not to prevent it. …the whole course of human history can be seen as a struggle to expandthe definition of who is ‘us’ and shrink the definition of who is ‘them’.”

In identity terms, the quotation’s tenor seems to be that of identity expansion at the expense of other identities or of identity mismanagement as the prime evil of man that has been and is the determinant of human history. The quintessence of the Christian teaching consists in the reverse approach which entails not only the respect and love of one’s own and all other identities as well as thatof the divine original or God from whom all other identities are but images with singular endowments,and furthermore requires putting other identities in a superior position to one’s own. That is the fulfillment of the law which makes any identity conflict pointless and unnecessary and thereby constitutes the sole irreversible and sustainable rationale for peace and synergistic cooperation in an increasingly globalizing world in whatever sphere and walk of life. Isn’t that a glorious axiomatic, if adhered to that effectively meets the diversity and identity challenges of our time and that to come, for it is a formula that can effectively integrate the diverse worlds, man is concomitantly part of.

Identity expansion and identity relativization seemingly make the difference between war and peace, success and failure of human relationships, individually and collectively.With the increase of potential identity clashes in the global world, the associated diversity challenge can be reframed as an identity managementchallenge andincreases in importance parallelly to the degree of globalization. The supposed master formula makes the prevention and management of identity-related conflict possible. To what extent can it be operationalized and constitute the foundation for a viable global future?

The time-relative diverse and time-transcendent more integrative qualities of identity (see Transcultural Profiler that visualizes the two worlds and highlights the integrative quality of the (inter)cultural by the transcultural identity) are the two complementary aspects of time which make up the complete identity of individuals and groups which are the two main aspects of the manifestation of humanity at large.

Privileging one aspect of the whole time-eternity, relative or absolute notion of identity may be said to be an original sin which causes problems due to a faulty perception of human affairs in general. That is the insight we can gain from the quantum paradigm, more specifically, Niels Bohr's complementarity principle, which is known as the wave-particle duality that accounts for a more complete perception of matter and energy by means of complementary readings of natural phenomena in order to provide a fuller understanding of them.

The ultimate metaphorical quantum logic is the complementary conceptualization of man, at least to a Christian, the integration of the two complementary aspects of human identity consisting in the human and the divine perspective, the Creator and man, his creature. (The biological diversification-integration rationale can serve as a provisional substitute for other worldviews).

Withoutthis complementary understanding of human identity it cannot be fully understood. In its absence it remains a lopsided, single principle and therefore unbalanced approach to man’s identity. And this lack of balance and integration causes individual and social malaise that diffuses as destructive waves of culture and identity mismanagement across time, space, cultures and civilisations. It can only subside through a complete understanding of man’s identity.

And this is a great mystery nearly unfathomable to the human mind, as it implies the merger of the temporal and the atemporal eternal in one entity. This encounter of the relative and the absolute which are complementary vistas of true human identity is that by which all identity-related challenges can end. Its perception or realization ends human turmoil, as the relative is transcended and transformed by the indestructible absolute and eternal. A synergistic or complementary conceptualization of man is therefore the key and the answer that solves all human social and existential problems. Again we have discovered another effective true panacea for questions of identity diversity management and many other related challenges.

Effective identity management therefore consists in an enhanced awareness of the dual identity of man which integrates as his one and real identity that is in and beyond time. From this more complete understanding of human identity follow patterns of values and behaviour which do not expand at the expense of others with their legitimate identities and thereby cause conflict, because the diminishing of the other entails a similar shrinking of the own identity, as from the complementarystandpoint to the relative temporal identity, the two are interdependent in God, the One and the aggrandizement and love of the othermeans, due to the interconnection, love and aggrandizement of self and God.

The assumed interdependence of the own, the other and God’s identity provides a continuous field in which what you do onto others you do onto yourself and vice versa. Again a great spiritual enigma that of unity manifested as diversity and diverse identities for the sake of the ennoblement of the whole, while singular identities are not sacrificed but enhanced by their reconnection to the complementary integrative pole. It is the mystery of the One and Love as the determinants of the diversitygame, the game of the one and the many, the hidden and the apparent. When they meet the true understanding of identity can take place. It can be framed in scientific, philosophical, spiritual and other metaphor offered by the quantum paradigm, dilemma theory or many parables in the Bible as well.

By now we have reached the opposite pole of the conflict generating identity issue. Negative and positive identity management amount to where we positionourselves on an assumed identity management continuum and whether we can integrate the relative and the absolute poles of complementary identity conceptualizations. The degree of their integration determines the degree of conflict-free identity management. And as identity management is at the heart and core of globalization management it is also the actual key to globalizationmanagement and intercultural management.

Intercultural management deals with relative cultural identities, transcultural management preferably deals with culture transcending universal identity. The successful integration of the two complementary sets of identity dimensions that constitute its wholeness can be visualized in the following Transcultural Profiler whose top dimensions D1- D3 correspond to transcendent identity and dimensionsD4 and D5 to transitions to the latter from relative cultural identities D6- D12.

The complementary top dimensions have an integrative function for the body of the metaphorical psychological culture edifice of the global manager. It therefore is a model of global identity management whose success or failure condition individual, organizational, institutional, national and world peace. And it hinges on the right understanding of human identity with regard to the whole.A difficulty resides in the complexity of the multilayered concept of identity with its complementary aspects of physical, mental, spiritual and energetic dimensions which synergize as a whole which is in turn contextualized in a micro-macrocosmic totality that follows a rationale of evolution or of that of the Creator. The delicacy and complexity require ethical approaches for the continuity of individual and collective identities. In its absence man engineers and resorts to defensive and offensive measures to ensure the permanence of the ever more delicate construct of ever higher evolution. There is, so it seems, evidence for the assumption that the successful management or mismanagement of identity is a matter of war and peace. The perennial German identity issue, for example, discussed in Part II and its history of wars seem to support this assumption. And the principle that applies to collectivies is also active at the individual and intercultural levels.

Man is a thinking and feeling reed (referred to as such by Blaise Pascal) placed half-way between the infinitely supercosmic vast and the infinitely microcosmic small, a creature that requires the maintenance of an identity of the middle. Identity may therefore be said to require a cultivation of a path and an art of the middle, which does not imply mediocrity but rather ethical effectiveness. The transcultural dimension referred to and discussed in this exposé wants to ensure the integrity of this human legacy and mission in a biologically and spiritually consistent way that can be supported scientifically. In that sense human destiny is connected to an appropriate identity management. And the unconditional respect for the integrity of human identity in every way can be said to be the deeper inner meaning of culture and cultural sensitivity in general as opposed to sophistication based on outer, instrumental knowledge. True cultural sophistication therefore needs to incorporate sophistication with regard to identity requirements as well.

In that sense one can subscribe to the Ancient Greek dictum from Delphithat states: “Man know thyself and you will know God and the universe.”Before the monotheistic Christian era God was written in the plural. It is the realization of “vidya”, the “nosce te ipsum” and true and complete “self-awareness” that have been identified as the key questions of existence to be unraveled.

The degree of the encounter with the absolute makes all relativity subside and allows itsconstructive and purposeful integration in view of successful global management.

3. Towards a Trans-cultural Identity and Enhanced Self-awareness

DOME-12D-Transcultural Management Model/Profiler

First an accomplished example of a physical DOME architecture

Source: 798px_Peterskirken_om_natten

Michelangelo‘s unrepeatable cupola design of Saint Peter that aptly illustrates the structure and the dynamic of harmonious transition from the diversity of the cupola’s arcs into the diversity integrating logic of the lantern and beyond

followed by

A metaphorical psychological DOME architecture, whose 12 octaves cover all registers relevant to global management. Structural and functional aspects of integration of the world of physical and psychological culture - the world of diversity - by the culture-transcending transcultural top of the cupola with the lantern are illustrated.

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Presentation of the DOME-12D-Transcultural Management Profiler

Legend/Review of the Transcultural Profiler Dimensions

D1

Cosmics: The Cosmic environment interconnection. The biological and mental roots of life.

D2

Noetics: The highest psychological control, subordination and integration function.

D3

Ethics: Altruistic-allocentric, sustainable approach that thinks and acts in terms of each players long-term interests.

D4

Evolution: Phylogenetic development stages 1-6/Intercultural Development stages 7-12

1 sensory level: human developmental stage of perception
2 active level: human developmental stage of action
3 affective level: human developmental stage of affection
4 analytic intellectual level: human developmental stage of the intellect
5 synthetic intellectual level: human developmental stage of the Ego and the social group
6 universal level: human developmental stage that goes beyond Ego and synthesis
7 stage 1 denial: unable to identify cultural differences
8 stage 2 defence: recognition of cultural differences but tendency to evaluate other cultures negatively to one’s own
9 stage 3 minimization: recognition of superficial differences (objective culture) such as customs and habits, while holding the view that all cultures are essentially the same
10 stage 4 acceptance: Recognition and appreciation of cultural differences in behavior and values; considering them as logical and coherent solutions in different contexts.
11 stage 5 adaptation: development of communication skills that facilitate intercultural communication; cybernetic thinking
12 stage 6 integration: internalization of a bicultural or multicultural perspective; intercultural facilitator. (section based on Milton Bennett and Dr. Thérèse Brosse).

D5

ICP The Individual culture profile: Individualization of one's mental software by these variables

1 family
2 religion
3 education
4 language
5 profession
6 class
7 gender
8 race
9 generation
10 neighbours
11 friends
12 region.

D6

NCP National Culture Profile: Acquired through primary, secondary and tertiary socialization

1 Power distance: indicates the extent to which a society accepts the unequal distribution of power in institutions and organization
2 Uncertainty avoidance: refers to a society's discomfort with uncertainty, preferring predictability and stability
3 Individualism/collectivism: reflects the extent to which people prefer to take care of themselves and their immediate families, remaining emotionally independent from groups, organizations and other collectives.
4 Masculinity/femininity: reveals the bias towards either masculine values of assertiveness, competitiveness, and materialism, or towards feminine values of nurturing and the quality of life and relationships
5 Long-term orientation: refers to the extent to which past, present or future oriented attitudes, thought patterns, bahaviours and values are preferred' (Hofstede 5D-model, source: Bartlett, Ghoshal and Birkinshaw, Transnational Management 2003)
6 Universalism-particularism: seeks to discover one's prime allegiance to rules and rule-bound classifications or to the exceptional, unique circumstances and relationships
7 Individualism-communitarianism: measures the extent to which managers see the individual employee and shareholder as paramount, their development, enrichment, and fulfillment; or to what extent the corporation, customers and the wider community should be the beneficiaries of all personal allegiances
8 Specific-diffuse: measures the tendency to analyze, reduce and break down the field of experience or to synthesize, augment, and construct patterns of experience
9 Neutral versus affective: this concern the legitimacy to show emotions while at work
10 Inner-directed - outer-directed: concerns the 'locus of control.' Is it inside each of us, or outside in our environments to which we must adapt?
11 Achieved-ascribed status: refers to whether status is conferred to people on the basis of what they have achieved or because of what they are
12 Sequential-synchronous time: has to do with whether one sees time as passing in a sequence or coming round again and again' (THT 7D-model, source: Trompenaars, Hampden-Turner, Managing People Across Cultures 2005).

D7

Communication styles profile

1 High context-low context: Is information in the explicit code or is it implicit in the person?
2 Controlled-free information flow: must be informed versus are already informed
3 Monochronic-polychronic: one thing at a time versus many things at a time
4 Private space-public space: privacy and territoriality versus open space, supportive of networking
5 Concise-elaborate: not talkative versus loquacious
6 Context-centered – person-centered: relevance of speaker and role relations between the parties versus relevance of speaker and the bridging of the communication gap
7 Direct-indirect: cooperativeness. say briefly and clearly what is true, relevant and needed versus indirectness and circumlocutions
8 Affective-neutral: appropriateness versus inappropriateness of expressing emotions in a professional context
9 Abstract-concrete: refers to how concrete one can be in communicating one's ideas?
10 Private-public information space: how healthy is it to give access to personal information in building business contacts?
11 Linear-circular: how linear can you be in conveying your point?
12 Intellectual-relational: the intellectual style can confront ideas but deals with relationships delicately, whereas the relational style deals with relational issues directly, and ideas more indirectly. (Based on Hall and Hall and E. Ewington, TCO London and Univ. of Cambridge).

D8

Corporate Management Profile: further conditions the national and individual culture profile

1 Specialist job: different functional environments condition different perceptions and attitudes
2 Level of hierarchy: attitudes and bahaviours differ on the board compared to the shop floor
3 Training: the professional ethos of an engineer and a business manager differ
4 Orgnizational culture: either Hofstede's UAI-PDI matrix based classification of implicit organization models as tribe/family, pyramid, machine and market: Alternatively THT's classification as Guided Missile, Eiffel Tower, Family and Incubator organizational patterns based on the dimensions equality-hierarchy and person-task
5 Operating field: depending on the availability of resources and supplies companies may be more or less centralized and controlled
6 Scale of operations: big companies tend to be more formalized than smaller ones
7 Institutional environment: In different societies ownership is either personal or by impersonal, shifting shareholders (1-7 are based on Hickson and Pugh, International Management 2001)
8 Leadership style: exploitative autocratic, benevolent autocratic, participative, democratic (Hodgetts and Luthans, International Management) alternatively, situational-contingent leadership: directing, influencing, collaborating, delegating based on the task-relationship orientation matrix (Hersey, Blanchard, Situational Leadership)
9 Management style: factual, intuitive, analytic, and normative
10 Motivation: based on Hofstede's UAI-MAS matrix this typology exists: Achievement of self or group and esteem, achievement and belongingness, security and esteem, and security and belongingness
11 Stages of corporate development: N. Adler's multinational, global, international, transnational stages, alt. Ethnocentric, polycentric, regiocentric and geocentric
12 Cultural distance: CAGE analysis: cultural, administrative, geographic, economic distance.

D9

Intercultural management competencies (3-12 based entirely on International Profiler, WorldWork LTD, London 2001)

1 Altruism: altruistic behaviour as a source of creativity and integration of dilemma
2 Transcultural mindset: holistic perspective of culture and the mind
3 Openness: new thinking, welcoming strangers, acceptance
4 Flexibility: flexible behaviour, flexible judgement, learning languages
5 Personal autonomy: Inner purpose, focus on goals
6 Emotional strength: resilience, coping, spirit of adventure
7 Perceptiveness: attuned, reflected awareness
8 Listening orientation: active listening
9 Transparency: clarity of communication, exposing intentions
10 Cultural knowledge: information gathering, valuing difference
11 Influencing: rapport, range of style, sensitivity to context
12 Synergy: creating new alternatives.

D10

Trust: is the foundation of relationships in general and across cultures in particular, particularly in GBTs (Based on WorldWork Ltd, London and Univ. of Cambridge course materials)

1 Competence: trust based on the perception that team members are competent
2 Compatibility: based on common background, values, approaches, interests and objectives
3 Benevolence: based on the belief that other team members are concerned about one's welfare
4 Integrity: based on keeping promises and a moral behaviour code
5 Predictability: based on consistency over time of team members' behaviour
6 Security: absence of fear
7 Inclusion: partners are team-oriented and integrative
8 Open with information: willingness to share relevant information
9 Accessible: communication at a personal level
10 Reciprocal: mutual trust and cooperation
11 Moral responsibility: assuming responsibility for one's behaviours
12 Good intentions: ethical motivations

D11

Globalism. Planetary environment interconnection diagnostic: global compatibility check.

1 International Law
2 Biodiversity
3 Sustainability
4 Climate change impact
5 International political equilibrium
6 International economic equilibrium
7 International cultural equilibrium
8 Strategic balance
9 Genetic heritage integrity
10 Cultural ethics. Intercultural ethics.Global code of ethics.
11 Environmental compatibility
12 Resources impact

Erklärung zum Profiler:

Der Dom ist eine architekturale Semiotik und Metapher der Bewusstseinsarchitektur, mit dem Vertrauen als Eckstein und der ethisch-noetischen Dimension als Schlussstein. Die Kultur ist eine zentrale Komponente dieser Bewusstseinsarchitektur. Darunter und darüber befinden sich die planetaren und kosmischen Schnittstellen, die Dimensionen 1 und 12.

Die Operationalisierungs-Dimension, der Übergang aus der Einheit des Bewusstseins in die energetische Dialektik ist in der Legende implizit, in der Visualisierung explizit: die Operationalisierung der Einheit des Bewusstseins, sichtbar in der Diversifizierung in die 12-dimensionale Kuppelarchitektur. Sie ist im kompletten 12 D-Modell (siehe Visualisierung) die Ebene D3. Die 11 D Legende vereinfacht das multidimensionale Modell, was aber der 12 mal 12 dimensionalen Logik keinen Abbruch tut. 9 Dimensionen/Ebenen von Eckstein bis Schlussstein, 1 Operationalisierungs-Dimension, die die Struktur operationalisiert, 1 untere planetare Schnittstellen-Dimension, eine obere kosmische Schnittstellen-Dimension. Das sind die 12 Dimensionen vertikal, wie auch die 12 Dimensionen horizontal, ersichtlich in den 12 Kuppelbögen, die im Schlussstein konvergieren. Eine strukturelle und funktionelle Integration der äusseren wie auch der inneren Architektur. Eine biblisch-numerisch vollkommene 12 mal 12 dimensionale Sakralmetapher, die die drei Bereiche des Irdischen, des Menschlichen und des Kosmischen einschliesst. Die Totalität der Existenz, die die KULTUR positioniert, kontextualisiert, sinngebend integriert. Sie verleiht der menschlichen Sehnsucht nach Heimat, Ortung, und Ordnung im Kosmos Sinn. Sie kontextualisiert Kultur in der menschlichen Existenz.

Der Diagnostiker-Profiler systematisiert vor allem die massgeblichen interkulturellen Bezugssysteme und kulturelle Konditionierung an sich. Diese können im einzelnen bei den betreffenden Autoren, Hofstede, Trompenaars, Hampden-Turner, Hall sowie Worldwork Ltd; M. Bennett, Dr. Thérèse Brosse... im Detail nachgelesen werden. Dank ihrer Forschungsarbeit kann ich nun zeigen, wie man die heterogenen psychologischen und interkulturellen Modelle durch die Identifikation einer übergeordneten psychologischen Steuerdimension integrieren kann. Das Evolutionsniveau, sowohl das psychologische allgemein als auch das interkulturelle und ein ethisches Bewusstsein im weitesten Sinne, sind zwei weitere Ebenen, die ich für erforderlich halte, um Zugang zur noetischen Steuerdimension zu bekommen. Die Erkenntnis und die Anwendung dieser Dimension können dazu beitragen, kulturelle Herausforderungen beherrschbar zu machen. Mein Beitrag beschränkt auf die transdisziplinäre Zusammenführung von interkultureller Forschung und Bewusstseinsforschung, das Sehen der Zusammenhänge und die Systematisierung der Ebenen. Es geht hier um die revolutionäre Erkenntnis der Möglichkeit der Steuerung und Integration der kulturellen Konditionierung insgesamt und nicht um die Ausarbeitung und Differenzierung der dimensionalen Einzelheiten, die ja der Verdienst der verschiedenen genannten Autoren sind. Diese können in deren Publikationen vertieft werden. Ich hoffe, Ihr Werk angemessen honoriert zu haben, indem ich es möglichst treu konzis wiederzugeben versuchte. Um es in eine ganzheitlichere, leistungsfähigere Formel in Bezug auf die kulturellen Herausforderungen der Menschheit an der Schwelle des neuen Zeitalters zu integrieren, ist es erforderlich, dieses zu repräsentieren.

Modellierung der Intelligenz und der Stufen der kulturellen Intelligenz. Korrelierung der Profiler-, Bewusstseins- und Intelligenzebenen.

Die Integration der physischen Intelligenz, der mentalen und der noetischen oder transkulturellen Intelligenz kann man folgendermaßen systematisieren, wobei der noetischen oder für unsere Zwecke transkulturellen, in Analogie zum neurologischen Prinzip der funktionellen Subordination, eine hierarchisch integrative Funktion zukommt.

illustration not visible in this excerpt

A HOLISTIC HUMAN INTELLIGENCE MODEL

CORRELATION OF TRANSCULTURAL PROFILER LEVELS TO CULTURE

CONSCIOUSNESS LEVELS AND CULTURAL INTELLIGNCE LEVELS

Profiler level Consciousness level Cultural Intelligencelevel

D1 Cosmic level Superquantic culture Superquantic/supreme consciousness cultural intelligence

D2/3 Transcultural/Noetic level Quantic culture consciousness Transcultural, noetic or quantum cultural intelligence

D4/5 Transitional levels Transitional consciousness Transitional cultural intelligence

D6-11 Intercultural level Inter-culture consciousness Cultural intelligence

D12 Physical (planetary level) Varies according to consciousness Varies according to evolution intelligence evolution

Physical (personal level) Physical culture consciousness Physical intelligence

(has an ereismatic or support function for higher (cultural) consciousness and cultural intelligence evolution).

As one rises in the culture consciousness and intelligence hierarchy more integrative capabilities of culture are released. The superior level, based on the neurophysiologic analogy of functional subordination, has the power to integrate the subordinate level.

D1 (Cosmic Interface) is the ultimate integration and transcendence of the entire profiler edifice; cultural masters’ supreme cultural intelligence.

D2/3 (Transculturalism and its operationalization) have the switching specificity between cultural and transcultural modes of perceptions of the cultural reality; D2 is transcultural, noetic or quantum cultural intelligence that - if operationalized - complements and integrates the cultural intelligence level characterized by cybernetic thinking.

D4/5 (Ethics and Evolution) Cultural consciousness and intelligence are expanding, passing progressively form cultural to transcultural intelligence and consciousness.

D6-D11 (Interculturalism) Display only cultural intelligence unless superordinate levels are involved.

D12 (Planetary Interface) may by impacted by any level of cultural consciousness and intelligence evolution.

Cultural performance and capability depend on which of the three levels of evolution of culture consciousness and therefore cultural intelligence operates.

1. Cultural intelligence is dialectical, unstable, reversible
2. Transcultural intelligence is metastable, integrative; can be reversible unless fully developed
3. Superquantic intelligence is integrative, transcendent, stable, and relatively irreversible.

If one assumes one all-encompassing consciousness and one underlying energy

to phenomena the reading of this analytical division of things - which are one -

may be helped and the importance of the activity of consciousness as a

determinant of cultural issues is therefore underlined.

As one evolves from cultural intelligence via transcultural or quantum cultural

intelligence towards superquantic cultural intelligence, one achieves Supreme

Cultural Intelligence which is the hallmark of Champions of Culture. That is the destination of cultural evolution which can usher in cultural peace in our multicultural era.

4. The Human Quest for Identity.

Culture, identity and Pleasure

The human quest for identity possibly is one of the most ancient and the most fundamental features of man. It is as old as man himself and comes right after the motive of biological survival. Maslow’s pyramid of needs can possibly be largely explained in terms of identity. Actually, also the very physical needs of survival amount to safeguarding man’s biological integrity, i. e. his psychosomatic identity. The hierarchy of needs can be seen as a progressive further refinement of the fundamental physical and mental identity. Without the imperative need of the maintenance of one’s physical identity being met, the other needs and motives are undermined.

Management has understood this need from the beginning of time as well and tried to ensure a minimum of physical identity in order to extract as much working power as possible from individuals. The games played on physical identity is a matter of being or not being, a matter of life and death, for the extreme deprivation of fundamental identity and integrity is equivalent to death, whereas the maximum satisfaction of identity requirements, physically, mentally, socially and spiritually is equivalent to the highest level of well-being.

This allows us to draw an identity continuum from the minimum of identity maintenance to the maximum of identity enhancement. All states of well-being of man can therefore be conceptualized and correlated in terms of the degree of identity and integrity he enjoys. Therefore it is not surprising that the quest for identity and identity enhancement hasbeen and is a key motive of human history.

The assumed connection between identity and pleasure in the widest sense explains man’s struggle for his identity and his will and determination to reinforce it as much as possible. For the more identity and integrity he can achieve, the greater his sense of well-being and pleasure is. It is therefore not surprising that the interfacing of more diverse identities also accentuates the question of identity, as it is a measure for well-being. The ensuing cultural struggle largely is an identity struggle. With the steadily growing complexity of identities in the global world, cultural struggles, which are about competing identities, are therefore bound to increase as well, although the phenomenon has been present for times immemorial interpersonally and intraculturally as well as interculturally, intratribally and intertribally, internationally and it will grow globally, while the world will integrate and converge technologically more and more. The identity as pleasure rationale explains why the world is diverging culturally, while it is converging technologically. Cultural identity reinforcement can be assumed to be a double-edged means of identity and thereby pleasure enhancement in the wider sense. But this exposé provides the roadmap for the destination of cultural as well as technological global integration on the basis of more evolved identity management and thereby enables a very high level of psychological-technological culture synergy to benefit global man in a global age on the one globe shared by one mankind.

Ethnocentrism therefore is a means of increasing the pleasure derived from cultural identity reinforcement and as the quest foravoiding pain is paramount in man,cultural struggles are bound to increase, because they are assumed to be means of increasing or decreasing one’s well-being. Such is the implicit traditional cultural and personalidentity assumption which can now be qualified in the light of an enhanced notion of identity that enables non-zero sum games and high level synergies instead of zero sum games that trigger cycles of conflict spirals due to identity mismanagement in one form or another.

So, man may be said to be tempted to use culture as a weapon to increase his sense of identity and thereby his sense of well-being, which may backfire over time. The real issue behind culture therefore is the question of identity that points still further to the pleasure motive,a cycle which needs to be addressed if there is to be cultural peace and thereby world peace. And the practical question therefore arises as to how the diverse identities can be made to coexist peacefully while maintaining a common platform of fruitful communication among them. The key to the solution of the problem seems to reside in the redefinition and enhancement of the notion of identity which we hopefully achieve during the course of the exposé, where a holistic understanding of the notion of identity can reengineer that latter from a divisive weapon into a universal tool of integration. An enhanced notion of identity can be shown to benefit everybody and to be a global-local win-win scenario in all environments.

Due to the questionable assumption that the accentuation of cultural diversity beyond a healthy measure can function as a means of ensuring personal or group integrity and identity and thereby satisfaction, personally and collectively, a vanishing of the culture and identity issue is out of sight in the near future, as it would imply a decrease in overall satisfaction. And that is what man seems to try to avoid at any cost, as the quest for pleasure as an increase of identity and integrity is a paramount motive in man.Culture can implicitly or explicitly be used as an offensive or defensive weapon to promote the sense of identity in view of an increase of well-being. This causal connection requires a closer look at the deeper rooted causes, an awareness that identity management is a sophisticated form of culture and intercultural management, while it points to the deepest motives of man, those of survival, problem-solving and the enhancement of pleasure and well-being, which are in turn reducible to core ethical dimensions that are only soluble in the all determining quality of love, caritas or agape. Therefore the sage J. Krishnamurti rightly states: “Do what you will, without love you will only create more misery.” It confirms the Christian assumption of love being the fulfillment of the law. That law which is the supreme identity manager and identity management.And both are supported in turn be the various approaches, the transcultural, the physiological the biological and the physics metaphor etc., which are referred to here and further detailed by the writer in other contexts.

It highlights the need for innovative forms of future-oriented identity management approaches: So, the first step to ensure cultural peace would therefore be to ensure the maintenance of fundamental physical identity. And the additionalsatisfaction of more identity needs would therefore increase cultural peace, because cultural struggle does not need to be instrumentalized for the achievement of identity needs and associated well-being. It is therefore logical that cultural challenges arise less in an environment, where physical identity needs are met, as in the richer countries. Then culture does not need to be used as an instrument for the achievement of well-being through identity reinforcement. Therefore some richer cultures can seemingly be fairly liberal with regard to cultural issues. However, when the economic situation changes towards the worse as is the case in times of economic crises and recessions the causal chain of interrelatedculture- identity - well-being-pleasure -survivalissues can be ignited and cause social crises which in turn reinforce the identity issue and the need for its socio-political management.

Finally, exaggerated ethnocentrism can also be employed to demandvariable forms of satisfaction which is therefore an ethical issue. Unethical luxury identity! The same applies to other forms of over-identification and fundamentalism for the purpose of self-enhancement at the expense of other identities. If someone overemphasizes his/her identity, national, racial, ideological, ethnic, gender etc. then he/she may impede others’ realization of their full identity and maintain them under their best performance level. One tries to derive illegitimate pleasure from an induced or imposed alienation of someone from his own identity.It is a form of cultural violence that can cause a conflict which looks cultural but which is a deeper reaching identity and ethical issue that seems to assume cultural forms and does so at the more superficial level, of course.

5. The “I” in the Area of Tension between

Self-, Social- and Divine Perception

There are people and nations that have acquired false identities through external conditioning or internal manipulation. These false identities impact the environment in the same way as a good tree bears good fruit and a bad tree bears bad fruit. As long as the fundamental corruption of the tree remains, they will carry the environment polluting fruit, whatever ideals they may be professing.

Little good is coming from some nations across much of their history and the seemingly good will be perverted in time if the roots of the tree are not restored and the tree of life made to bear improved fruit that is not corruptingbut life giving. If ideologies originating in such cultures are continuouslyjeopardizing life as whole by releasing poison like fundamentalism, fascism or forms of Marxism or terrorism in the planetary environment, then those cultural entities can be diagnosed as bad trees in the light of the their corrupting influence on social and physical organisms. Live destroying ideologies like abortionism that kills and corrupts at the actual root of life must also be classified in this bad tree category.

The integrity of life is the benchmark for the differentiation of good and bad trees. It is very easy. Those who celebrate death instead of life have dead roots and can therefore bring forth no life. They are bad trees and are bound to be weeded out in time, although they may prevail over long spans of time.

Entire nationsmay over centuries suffer from bad roots and release corrupted fruit in the environment,although astounding innovations may come from them in certain fields. But with bad humus and roots of origin they carry a hidden stigma with themselves that may pervert the seemingly good one day or the other, for the principle that a good tree bears good fruit, while a bad tree yields bad fruit is inexorable.

If we considerrepeated cycles of waves like Lutherism, Marxism, Hitlerism, the Holocaust and even the attempts at eradicating this bad fruit that terminate in terrorism and other modern forms of social fascism one has abundant evidence for concluding to the presence of a bad tree. And as long as the bad tree with its corrupt roots is allowed to exist it will continue to yield the only fruit that it is capable of bearing, namely bad fruit in diverse gross and subtle shapes.

The historical and ethical question arises as to how to deal with a tree that bears the sign of a bad tree. Any forester or horticulturalist would argue that the tree has to be torn out and substituted for by a healthy tree. In the social domain that would imply the eradication of an entire nation or group that keeps corrupting the world. Yet by doing so, which is ethical to some cultures, one wouldoneself join in the mindset of the bad tree nations and groups. Christian ethics teach that one lets the good and the bad grow together until the day when the Lord of the harvest arrives. He will then root out the bad and leave only the good.

Now that practical question arises how one can survive the time of coexistence of the good and the bad without one’s goodness being corrupted and one’s tree also being turned into a bad tree. How can one remain a good tree and bear good fruitsurrounded by polluted and corrupted crops? That is a most important ethical question of practical relevance, which needs an answer on a daily basis, because the coexistence of the good and the bad are continuous and unavoidable. And how can one avoid being dragged in the path of the bad tree ideology.

If the “I” adheres to false self-images of internal or external origin the healthy identity, the root of the tree of life with associated values and behaviors becomes corrupted and the entire tree is affected by the corrupted roots and therefore yields bad fruit. The false identity stems from a faultyperception that ignores the light of the sun, symbolically speaking that should enlighten the true natureand identity of the tree of life with its roots. But as its self-construal passes by the light of the sun it will not be able to reflect that light in the environment and sink more and more into darkness and create darkness in the social environment. In other words, if the images and perceptionsof the self are disconnected from the actual image, the divine image in which the true self is cast, then darkened self-images, externally or internally induced ones, prevail and their lack of light, of the light of the divine, corrupt the entire tree of life just like the absence of sunlight would cause the withering away of a tree in nature.

If the tree can be exposed to the light of the sun his roots can work healthily again. Similarly, the false self-perception and self-image generated independently from the sun of the Holy Spirit, can be corrected once they are exposed to the light of the Holy Spirit, the Truth, which is life, besides which there is none. The resistance to this vertical orientation keeps man in the horizontal, pre-enlightenment phase of human evolution, in which the tree, separated from the light of the sun or the Holy Spirit is bound to rot and turn bad and to therefore bear bad fruit that affects the environment negatively.

Self-construed identities or identities that follow third party pressures both have to be relativized by man’s true identity, which is that of an image of the Creator. Only if the three, the relative images and that of the absolute can be aligned without contradiction, the right information is fed into the tree of life that causes it to yield good fruit. Therefore man needs to constantly monitor his identity process so as to make sure that it remains on the path of life.

PART II Papers on Identity Issues

(Taken from the book Transcultural Management – Transkulturelles Management)

6. DIE DEUTSCHE IDENTITÄT

GEDANKEN ZUR IDENTITÄTSFRAGE

DEUTSCHLANDS

Befaßt man sich mit diesem Thema, das von eminenter Tragweite für jeden Einzelnen ist, so läuft man Gefahr, in eine politische Nische gerückt zu werden. Das zeugt häufig von einem ungelösten Identitätsproblem seitens derer, die einem in einer ideologischen Schublade unterbringen möchten. Die verschiedenen kulturbedingten Wahrnehmungsfilter eines jeden, so auch der des Verfassers selbst, werden ohnehin zu verschiedenen Interpretationen der einen und derselben Worte führen. - Jemand ein Etikett aufkleben und ihn dadurch zu kategorisieren bedeutet nicht selten,daß jene, die dies für nötig halten, möglicherweise ihre eigene vermeintliche, wahrscheinlich unkonsolidierte Identität auf Kosten anderer konsolidieren wollen.

Die Identitätsfrage ist aber deshalb von vitaler Bedeutung, weil sie sowohl unsere individuellen psychophysischen Strukturen und Funktionen bestimmt, als auch die der Gesellschaft, weil ja jede Gesellschaft aus diesen so geprägten Individuen besteht, und die Gesellschaft verstärkt dann ihrerseits die Identität ihrer Mitglieder positiv, indem sie ihre authentische kulturelle Identität entweder bestärkt oder aber unterminiert. Es ist ein Kreislauf, der sich positiv oder negativ verstärkt. Da es ein Kreislauf ist, führt dieser desweiteren - nolens volens - zum Besseren oder Schlechteren, ein gewisses Eigenleben und bedarf der Beobachtung. Leidet die Identität,so ist die Kultur krank und bedarf einer ebenso sorgsamen Beobachtung wie ein Patient.

Die Identität ist stark mit der psychischen individuellen und sozialen Gesundheit und ihren Wechselwirkungen verbunden und die psychische Ebene hat wiederumeinen Einfluß auf das physische individuelle undkollektive Wohlergehen. Die psychosomatische Gesundheit insgesamt bestimmt das soziale Wohlergehen, das politische Wohlverhalten und den ökonomischen Wohlstand. Der individuelle und kulturelle Aspekt der Identitätdeterminiert also in gewisser Weise Wohl und Wehe der Welt.

Manche glauben, daß die Befassung damit eine historische Rückwärtswendung sei, genau jener, der man entfliehen möchte. Doch ist es nicht eben genau diese Rückwärtswendung, in der man auch die Kontinuität und die Zukunft finden kann, die eine gesunde Identität erfordert, um auch gegebenenfalls an ihr zuarbeiten, zumindest aber um sie bewußt zu machen, sie zu hinterfragen, denn wir alle wurden ja in ein kulturelles Umfeld hineingeboren und haben eine Sozialisierung erfahren, die weitgehend jenseits unserer Kontrolle lag und müssen daher nun herausfinden, inwieweit diese soziale Konditionierung der Eltern, Lehrer und Vorgesetzten bereits Verzerrungen aufgrundderen Sozialisierung aufweist, die auch ihre Leistung als Eltern, Lehrer und Vorgesetzte beeinträchtigten und uns somit mitprägten und mitprägen. Andere sind der Ansicht, daß das im Zeitalter der wissenschaftlich-technisch-wirtschaftlichen Globalisierung nicht mehr von Bedeutung sei, da die nationalen und kulturellen Konturen und Profile auf der Weltkarte schwinden und einem vermeintlichen Universalismus weichen, der nun alle Bereiche der menschlichen Gesellschaft erfaßt und durchdrungen habe und in Analogie zum Sprichwort „Das Schicksal setzt den Hobel an undhobelt alles gleich“ in „Die Globalisierung setzt den Hobel an und hobelt alles gleich“ umformuliert werden könne. Doch mittlerweile wissen wir, daß wir zwar einerseits eine weltweite technologische Konvergenz,aber andererseits gleichzeitig eine zunehmende kulturelle Divergenz beobachten können. Diese Erkenntnis deutet darauf hin, daß auch die Kultur und somit die kulturelle Identität eine wachsende Rolle spielt.

Begegnung der kulturellen Diversität mit sich selbst findet an allen Orten, sowohl im Inland, als auch im Ausland statt, das heißt, die kulturgrenzüberschreitenden Begegnungen, die nunmehr unabhängig von Zeit und Raum sind - sie werden durch die elektronische Kommunikation überbrückt - finden auch imInland im Wohnbereich, am Arbeitsplatz, in den verschiedenen institutionellen Umgebungen des sozialen, wirtschaftlichen, akademischen und politischen Umfeldes unausweichlich statt und nicht zuletzt natürlich auch international in der nunmehr in quasi jeder Hinsicht globalisierten, planetaren Gesellschaft, sei es auf den virtuellen Plattformen auf Distanz oder auf dem diplomatischen Parkett von Angesicht zu Angesicht, in den Managementkonferenzräumen oder den wissenschaftlichen Labors und Symposien… All das bedeutet, daß der Mensch nun allerorts sowohl stärker mit anderen kulturellen Identitäten und als eine Folge davonauch mit seiner eigenen und desweiteren der daraus entstehenden Frage nach der Interdependenz und den Wechselwirkungen der kulturellen Identitäten konfrontiert wird.

Die Identität der globalen Akteure, ihre mentale Software - eine Begriffsprägung in Anlehnung an die Terminologie des digitalen Zeitalters - gewissermaßen, prägt ihre kulturgrenzüberschreitenden Interaktionen und Transaktionen und erfordert daher eine Kenntnis derselben. Zusätzlich zu den hinterfragbaren allgemeinkulturellen Kulturparametern der empirischen Kulturforschung ist auch eine kulturspezifische Betrachtung erforderlich, insbesondere, wenn es sich um ein Land wie Deutschland, mit einem etwas komplexen historisch-kulturellen Erbe handelt. Denn, betrachtet man internationale Wechselwirkungen, so scheint es, als ließen sich internationale Analytiker scheinbar rational von den empirischen Forschungsdaten leiten, während sie aber insgeheim in der Praxis häufig ihre Stereotypen inbezug auf Landeskulturen wie zum Beispiel der deutschen beibehalten. Die emotionale Ebene scheint im Vergleich zur rationalen Ebene ein Eigenleben zu führen und sich bisweilen der rationalen Steuerung zu entziehen. Das trifft auch auf Kulturexperten zu, die offenbar nicht über ihren eignen Schatten, den Schatten ihrer Vorurteile, springen wollen oder können.

Warum konnte niemand im Land der Dichter und Denker die Frage nach der deutschen Kultur zufriedenstellend lösen, weder für die nationalen noch für die internationalen Erfordernisse? Warum tun sich die verschiedenen Generationen immer noch so schwer? Warum kapitulieren anderweitig scheinbar brillante Intellektuelle vor dieser vermeintlichen Peanuts-Frage für die einen, aber Enigma für die anderen? Warum können Spitzenpolitiker und nicht einmal Kulturgelehrte ihre profunden Stereotype angemessen managen? Man erinnere sich beispielsweise an die Qualifizierung des deutschen SPD Abgeordneten im Europaparlament als KZ Aufseher seitens des italienischen Staatschefs Silvio Berlusconi, während hundertausende seiner Landsleute in diesem Land ihren Lebensunterhalt verdienen. Ich erinnere mich an einen Workshop an der Universität Cambridge/UK, bei dem dieser Vorfall zum Anlaß für ein quasi rituelles Deutschland-Bashing genommen wurde, das später seitens der dozierenden britischen interkulturellen Management Workshop Leiter auch auf so manche andere Nation, wie beispielsweise den Erbfeind Frankreich oder den früheren ideologischen Feind Rußland ausgedehntwurde. Warum spricht man in der englischsprachigen Managementliteratur von der Inhumanität des deutschen Managements oder dem „Schuhmachersyndrom“, um „Kompetenz aber der Sympathie entbehrend“ auszudrücken? Gewiß, interkulturell betrachtet kann die starke Aufgaben-, Expertise- und Regelfokussierung einiges davon erklären. Die Stereotypenforschung erklärt auch einiges. Offenbar sind über Generationen verstärkte, tiefverwurzelte und daher hochemotionalisierte Prozesse von wenigen steuerbar und man postuliert apriori, ethnozentrisch und parochial,implizit oder explizit, die Einzigartigkeit und Überlegenheit der eigenen Kultur. Verleiht es den Genuß der Macht, ein Existenzrecht, das der andere etwa nicht in demselben Maße besitzt? Ist es der Versuch, den Fremdkulturen über eine bestimmte Hack- und Rangordnung seine gemeinsame Menschlichkeit abzusprechen und diese für sich allein zu beanspruchen, um seine eigene Identität ohne Abstriche kulturgrenzüberschreitend durchzusetzen?Diese Hierarchisierung der menschlichen Legitimation wird dann als Rechtfertigung für interkulturelle Verhaltensmuster herangezogen. Ein solides kulturelles Identitätsbewußtsein ist somit unabdingbar für interne und externe kulturelle Interaktionen, sowie auch für das Selbstbild. In diesem Sinn etwa sollen die nachfolgenden Gedanken - und die Gedanken sind ja frei, wie die deutsche Dichtung sagt und singt-verstanden werden.

Anatomie der Diversität:

Um eine solide Identität zu erlangen, muß ein Land einer bestimmten Größe sein internes Diversitätsproblem lösen, da ab einer gewissen Dimension häufig kulturelle Variationen auftreten. Zwar ist das Stammes-Konzept wissenschaftlich unscharf, doch besteht die deutsche Diversität ursprünglich in seiner Stammesgeschichte, obwohl es eigentlich nur sechs Altstämme gab, nämlich Bayern, Schwaben, Franken, Thüringer, Sachsen und Friesen. Die deutsche Herausforderung bestand häufig in der Schaffung eines germanischen Universalismus, der gleichzeitig die Stammespartikularismen integer erhalten könnte. In interkulturellen Kategorien ist das ein typisches Universalismus - Partikularismus Dilemma, das man zumindest theoretisch durch die Dilemma Theorie lösen kann.

Wenn ein Land aufgrund von Stammeskonflikten uneins ist, wenn sie nicht dasselbe = idem (ein Grundwort von Identität) bekennen und verkörpern, dann fehlt Ihnen das vereinende, nämlich die Identität und es kann zum Spielball und Opfer des Spiels von Allianzen werden. Dann haben Drittparteien und -kräfte ein leichtes Spiel, die bestehenden Uneinigkeiten weiter zu schüren und im Sinne ihrer machtpolitischen Interessen auszunutzen, vor allem, wenn die Mitglieder der verschiedenen Stämme keine Konvergenz finden können, weil sie geistig nicht dazu in der Lage sind oder weil ihre strukturellen und andere Differenzen tatsächlich nur eine Parallelexistenz zulassen oder weil sie vielleicht aus Stolz… nicht wollen, bzw. und das istvielleicht am gravierendsten, weil sie das Divide-et-Impera Spiel der Feinde nicht durchschauen und sich von ihnen gegen kurzfristige Vorteile gegeneinander aufwiegeln lassen oder weil manche gezielt eine externe Allianz suchen, um ihre interne Machtposition zu konsolidieren.

Wenn ein Gesamtes uneins ist, ist es für Dritte immer möglich, sich mit Teilen dessen, was nicht eins ist,direkt oder indirekt zu verbünden und die Einheit noch weiter zu unterminieren. Sofern die Überlieferung korrekt ist, hat De Gaulle ja gesagt, daß er Deutschland so sehr liebt, daß er gar nicht genug (gespaltene Teile) davon sehen kann. Erkennen die Kulturmitglieder dies nicht, so kann das ihr Ende bedeuten, da sie artifiziell in Feinde transformiert werden und permanente, zermürbende Auseinandersetzungenbei geistig-räumlicher Nähe bis zum bitteren Endevon Spaltungen führen können. Deutschland hat mehrere historische Phasen erlebt, die dieses Muster konkret verdeutlichen.Auch Reformation, Marxismus und Hitlerismus illustrieren von innenausgehendenLoslösungs- und Spaltungsprozesse, die durch eine interne-externe Verknüpfung eskalieren.

Nachdem zweiten Weltkrieg ging es darum, die deutsche kulturelle Identität zu amerikanisieren oder zu russifizieren. Heute kommt scheinbar, mit dem weltweiten Aufmarsch eines fundamentalistischen Islam, noch die latente Islamisierung hinzu. Die irreversible Spaltung ist mißlungen. Diese hätte wahrscheinlich zumindest die ethnisch-kulturelle Identität weiter bestärkt, wie wir im Falle der DDR beobachten konnten, die in vielen Punkten, trotz oder gerade wegen der ideologischen Indoktrinierung großen Wert auf deutsche Kultur und Sprache als Rettungsanker für ihre ethnisch-kulturelle Identität gelegt hat. Währenddessenwaren die westdeutschen Erzieher - selbst durch die Umerziehung entfremdet - genötigt, die kulturelle Entfremdung in der nächsten Generation unter dem Vorwand, eine demokratischere Kultur zu schaffen, zu festigen. Doch die kulturhistorische Nemesis hat das nicht hingenommen und mit der Gegenkulturrevolution der sechziger Jahre reagiert. Sie wollte den Teufel der kulturellen Alienierung transatlantischer Art mit dem Beelzebub der östlich geprägten politischen Kulturrevolution austreiben.

Die „kulturelle Nemesis“ hat beide, sowohl die bedingungslose Amerikanisierung, als auch die ideologische Russifizierung zurückgewiesen. Was haben die Politiker aus dieser Gesetzmäßigkeit gelernt, nachdem die großen Kriege ja auch in mancher Hinsicht eine Reaktion auf die Bevormundung durch externeMächte waren? Mann erkennt unschwer einen roten Faden, einen roten Faden, dessen Hauptthema die kulturelle Identität und Autonomie ist, ohne dadurch ein Kulturfetischist oder „Kulturfundamentalist“ zu werden. In jeder vermeintlichen Problemlösung scheint schon das nächste Problem angelegt oder programmiert zu sein. Offensichtlich beantwortet bereits das historische Dictum Hegels, demzufolge wir aus der Geschichte lernen, daß wir nichts aus ihr lernen die Frage. Daraus könnte man ableiten, daß dieses Musteroffenbar eine Konstante der deutschen Geschichte - und wahrscheinlich nicht nur der deutschen - überhaupt ist, weil es eine strukturell-funktionell bedingte Variable der menschlichen Natur zu sein scheint, die wir aber heute zu erkennen und insbesondere daraus zu lernen in der Lage sind.

In der Tat, es scheint wie ein Maschinenprogramm unaufhaltsam fortzulaufen, bis Bereiche der Maschine in einer kulturellen Katharsis, geleitet durch die „kulturelle Nemesis“, funktionsuntüchtig gemacht werden.Vorher hat man kein Einsehen, denn es scheint zu mühsam zu sein, langfristig verantwortungsbewußt zu denken und zu handeln.

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