The Internationalisation of PTT Telecom: A Cultural Perspective - Free

26ethnic identities for competitive use. To use this ethnic rivalry two conditionshave to be fulfilled. Firstly, autonomic competitive units have to be created;within each unit a distinct ethnic group. Secondly, the manager has to mobilisethe existing energy by identifying himself with the ethnic ideals. He has to be arepresentative of the ethnic group or perceived as someone who helps with therealisation of ethnic ambitions. Koot (1997) thus stresses the importance of theimpact of ethnic, politic and economic processes in organisations.So far, cross-cultural cooperation has been discussed at three different levels:at national level where the national cultural differences exert influence onbusiness practice; at corporate level where the distinct corporate strategiesdetermine the attitude to cross-cultural differences and; at group level where thestrategic use of ethnicity and cultural differences demonstrated the dynamicaspect of cross-cultural cooperation. In the next section, questions with regard tothe individual level are addressed.2.2.3 Human Beings Back in Cross-cultural StudiesWe must remember that the objects of study in cross-cultural cooperation arehuman beings. Human beings that cannot easily be squeezed into simplisticmodels and schemes. Human beings that can act, speak, think, have desires anddrives, exist in space and time and, are simultaneously the object and subject ofscience (Chanlat 1994). People construct their social reality through theiractions and in turn, this social reality prescribes the behaviour of the people.Human beings always constructing, deconstructing and reconstructing theirreality from both old and new experiences. Through this process culture isreproduced. Strategic behaviour of people can transform social reality becauseculture is constantly being reproduced. Giddens (1990) calls the reflectiveordering and reordering of social relations that exert influence on the actions ofindividuals: ‘the reflexive monitoring of action’. In their daily activities peoplereflect on their interactions because all human beings routinely keep in touchwith the ground of what they do as an integral element of doing it (Giddens1990: 37). In traditional cultures each new generation honours the past andreproduces a larger part of the cultural patrimony of the last generation becauseof a relatively unchanged context. Giddens (1990) states that in modern societythe daily routines of individuals have much less connection with the traditionsof the past. As a result, the reflexivity of new knowledge, which is absorbed andapplied by groups or individuals, is faster. Social practices are constantly beingreordered by means of incoming information. Because reproduction is based oninformation, reflexivity in modern society is even faster than it was before.Modern society is created on reflexive knowledge and generates expert systemsin which individuals have to trust. These expert systems such as financial andtechnical systems organise the daily reality of individuals. The daily reality ofhuman beings therefore needs more attention in the study on cross-culturalcooperation.To understand the logic of the daily life behaviour of human beings it isnecessary to focus on the routine of every day life. In The Logic of Practice,Bourdieu (1990) focuses on the habitus. The habitus uses schemes of past