Culture Shock in a Global World: Factors Affecting Culture Shock Experienced by Expatriates in Oman and Omani Expatriates Abroad

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to investigate various forms of culture shock experienced by people who visit a foreign country for the first time. The study further documented various forms of culture shock such as communication, dress, religion, food, and language etc., and also proposed mechanisms to handle it. The data were collected from 110 respondents through a series of semi-structured interviews with Omani nationals and expatriates currently working in the Sultanate of Oman. The respondents were selected from a wide variety of demographic, socioeconomic and organizational backgrounds to reflect the true multinational workforce structure in Oman. The interviews were conducted by adopting a three-step process. One of the major findings of this research study is that both Omanis and expatriates who travel abroad encountered cultural shock. The study also concluded that most respondents were affected (culture shock) by religious and traditional issues, whereas factors such as individualism vs. collectivism, power distance, rules and weather patterns did not affect them much. This study also documented fourteen different categories of culture shock that can be experienced by people while visiting foreign cultures.

Culture Shock Experienced by Foreign Workers

“…DISCUSSIONS Based on the writer's findings, the writer found that her findings was in line with Fan (2010 andRajasekar &Renand (2013), but the writer also found another aspects beside those aspects that stated by them. Those aspects are environment, friends at work, rules, local people, habit, and women-men relationship.…”

Undergraduate Arab International Students' Adjustment to U.S. Universities

“…Macionis and Gerber (2010) defined culture shock as "the personal disorientation a person may feel when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life due to immigration or a visit to a new country, a move between social environments, or simply when traveling to another type of life" (p. 54). Rajasekar and Renand (2013) similarly described culture shock as the anxiety or stress that is caused by being in a new and foreign environment and the absence of the familiar signs and symbols of the home country. They identified 14 factors that contribute to culture shock: communication, dress, ethics, individualism/collectivism, food, language, structure, perception, power distance, religion, rules, time orientation, traditions, and weather.…”

Mentoring in International Assignments: A Personality Traits Perspective

“…In fact, as an individual has been socialized in his/her home country, their expectations of a certain behavior differs from the host country's general consensus, as HCNs have different cultural backgrounds and different expectations (Hoersting and Jenkins, 2011). Living and working in a new culture thus goes along with being confronted with norms, values, and behaviors which contradict one's own assumptions about what is right or wrong and what will work or not work (Rajasekar and Renand, 2013). Taking into consideration that expatriates who score high on agreeableness aim at solving conflicts in ways that are customary to HCNs, we assume that the insignificant findings may be caused by the fact that highly agreeable expatriates feel, to some extent, an inner conflict about living according to their own socialization.…”