source3: The Impact of Globalization on Cross-Cultural Communication
The research published in Chapter 13 of the book The Impact of Globalization on Cross-Cultural Communication aimed to find ways to ease the communication process among employees of cross-cultural businesses. The conclusions developed were based on qualitative and quantitative methodologies, as it was based on interviews, survey conducted on participants of the second Korea America Student Conference, analysis of the international companies: Samsung and Hyundai. Based on the results of the analysis and surveys, the researchers devised a cross-cultural communication model that emphasizes the need for developing cultural intelligence. For example, consider a case where branches of a company exist in two different counties, Employees of one of the two branches will have to learn the language of the other and get familiar with the cultural norms of the country where the other branch is located, or else the employees would feel divided; thus, harming the efficiency and progress of the company as a whole ( Matthews and Thakkar, 2012). Considering the growing number of cross-cultural businesses now present, Egypt is the largest FDI or foreign direct investment recipient in Africa with a stock of about USD 126,6 billion in total majority of which are European and American ( Nordea, 2019). This combined with the conclusions presented in this research indicate that there is the growing interest in westernization as a paramount condition to be able to smoothly participate in ordinary economic and business process in Egypt.
https://www.nordeatrade.com/en/explore-new-market/egypt/investment
source4: A CRITICAL CULTURAL ANALYSIS: THE PORTRAYAL OF EGYPTIAN WOMEN IN THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
The international representation of Egyptian and stereotypes against them in the media has greatly changed after the revolution of January 2011. Livingston(2015) attributes the change of the way Egyptian women are portrayed in American media to the notion that Egyptians women adapted a more westernized lifestyle during and after the revolution times; thus were seen as fit peers to American women or western women in general. Her research was based on analyzing and criticizing articles about Egyptian women published in the Los Angeles Times that exhibited apparent stereotyping, othering, and exoticism towards Egyptian women. She scrutinized how most articles accounting for sexual harassment against Egyptian women only accounted for those wearing the Hijab or head veil, or that articles that discussed social status of Egyptian women generally attributed the women’s situation as a result of the status quo of oppression by the dominating Egyptian men; for instance, Livingston mentions how one of the Los Angeles Times articles considers cases where Egyptian women have killed their husbands as the only possibly way by which to escape their oppression. However, she criticizes the article for being openly biased, as the article fails to account for instances where Egyptian women killed their American husbands. She adds that, after the revolution, American media started describing Egyptian women as active participants in the political situation depicting them as modern and educated who weren’t wearing the Hijab , as if during the revolution women disregarded their culture for a more “civilized approach ”. some articles go as far as to describe the Egyptian women who listened to a radio show that talks about “taboos” for women podcasted in 2010 as an elite class of Egyptians who embrace western values (Livingston, 2015). Livingston does a brilliant job at emphasizing how the west celebrated Egyptian women only when they assumed that Egyptian women identified with the west. Which reflects the extent to which the western media advocates westernization as a road to progress and how it understates non-western cultures. Such behavior is extremely destructive, for it breaks the self-esteem of an ethic group and portrays them as inferior.