It is often claimed that working at a multinational organisation is the best way to understand other cultures. Although multinational organisations can expose people to other cultures, I don’t believe this is the best way to understand them fully because there are some other alternative ways, such as, studying or living abroad and traveling, that can provide more knowledge about culture, tradition and everyday life.
It is true that employees at a multinational organisation can learn about others’ culture. In this kind of organization, employees can interact with colleagues with different backgrounds and through communication, they can learn traditions, work ethics and beliefs of other cultures. However, interactions, communications and cooperations are mostly professional and limited to workplace settings. This limits workers from fully exposing and understanding the real lifestyle and family-related traditions and values deeply.
Other several methods are far more effective. One of the strongest ones is living or studying abroad because it provides full immersion and daily life exposure to another culture. While living in another society, people have to adopt every aspect of their culture. For example, language, food, tradition, social beliefs and norms and even local laws can be understood more deeply than office interaction if people live in this society and its place. In today’s world, most teenagers and adults try to apply for foreign universities and this trend provides cultural exchange effectively among nations. Travelling is another option to understand and learn about other cultures. It provides living in another society for a certain period of time, offering fully and deeply exposure to culture and its social life. Today, travelling is seen as an option that can offer relaxation, learning and understanding other cultures and adventures at the same time.
In conclusion, true cultural understanding usually comes from immersion in everyday life rather than professional interaction alone. That’s why I believe that living or studying abroad and travelling can provide things that are essential to understand culture that multinational organisations can’t.