Last week when posting answers to our questions on the discussion board, many students of the LAST 101 class could not understand why the Latin American perception of time was so different from ours in that they do not take times, schedules, and dates as seriously as us. I actually hadn't heard of their perception of time being different, so I was really surprised when I came across a paragraph in my Organizational Behavior book that also talked about it. Since I don't have a link to the book - here is the paragraph that talks about it...taken from Robert Kreitner's 6th edition of Organizational Behavior, which describes that the US believes time is monochronic, and Latin America follows more of a polychronic time schedule:
"In North American and Northern European cultures, time seems to be a simple matter. It is linear, relentlessly marching forward, never backward, in standardized chunks. To the American who received a watch for his or her third birthday, time is like money. It is spent, saved, or wasted. Americans are taught to show up 10 minutes early for appointments. When working across cultures, however, time becomes a very complex matter. Imagine a New Yorker's chagrin when left in a waiting room for 45 minutes, only to find a Latin American government official dealing with three other people at once. The North American resents the lack of prompt and undivided attention. The Latin American official resents the North American's impatience and apparent self-centeredness. This vicious cycle of resentment can be explained by the distinction between monochronic time and polychronic time:
The former is revealed in the ordered, precise, schedule-driven use of public time that typifies and even caricatures efficient Northern Europeans and North Americans. The latter is seen in the multiple and cyclical activities and concurrent involvement with different people in Mediterranean, Latin American, and especially Arab cultures."
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2 comments:
It is always nice when we can begin to draw connections between the concepts we learn in one class with the content of another. It drives the point home that knowledge is interdisciplinary and that what is explored in one discipline, with a little creative thought, can always be made relevant to another discipline.
M.H. - Ha! Good one! As the saying goes, when in Rome do as the Romans; and when in my class, arrive on time! All kidding aside, there is one difference (and it's a big one) ... class will start on time whether a student arrives on time or not; so the only thing being harmed by arriving late to class is the person arriving late. I don't bear any ill-will towards people arriving to class late (or not at all). I will expect the same courtesy, though, when such students are faced with the downward slippage in their grades!
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