Culture: IBM ishtyle !!

IBM has a publicly accessible website for their employees on culture and how to behave in different countries.

I spent some time on this and here are some observations.

Iraq…”For the first as well as subsequent meetings with an Iraqi counterpart, it is appropriate to present them a gift, in particular something that is not readily available in Iraq or something symbolic of the gift giver’s culture.”

Dosent say anything about getting your butt shot out there. Iraq is on the list of updated country profiles.

India…If an Indian employee is asked to work on three separate projects for three separate managers at one time, while his colleague is asked to work on only one, the employee with more responsibility will consider himself to be more powerful and efficient than his colleague. He may even procrastinate on all three projects until the managers deem them urgent. In this way, he will increase his importance even more by taking responsibility for three urgent projects simultaneously.

.Sounds familiar?? True ??

USA…The onrush of technology largely explains the gradual development of a two-tier labor market in which those at the bottom lack the education and the professional/technical skills of those at the top

That’s where the H1-B comes in handy !!

There are many many more such anecdotes, and i will not rob you of the pleasure of discovering them. If you find some really funny/quirky/hilarious/wrong entries, do post them in the comments section.

Read more “IBM:Going Global”

PS…the site does not have full functionality in Firefox. Baaaaad IBM !!

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3 comments

  1. Hey, I saw your comment about Feedreader on Sakshi’s blog. Have you come across a reader that gives you the liberty of commenting/reading comments ??

  2. This was mentioned in the Australia section.

    ‘Winking at women is considered inappropriate, as are public displays of affection.’

    ‘When yawning, you should cover your mouth and then excuse yourself.’

    WTF are these guys teaching ??? Its like as if IBM emplyees are some illiterate ghathies…and therefore they are prone to doing the above actions.

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